Originally published at sunnybadgujar.com.
If you're building a travel portal, one of the first real decisions is which global distribution system to connect to — and the three big names, Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport, get compared as if one is simply "the best." They aren't ranked that way in practice. They're three large, mature systems that overlap heavily and differ in ways that matter enormously for your portal and barely at all in the abstract. Here's how they actually differ, and how to choose — from someone who runs a live platform sitting on top of more than one of them.
First, the thing every comparison should say up front: a GDS is a distribution network. It aggregates flights, hotels, car hire and other travel content from thousands of providers and exposes it through one connection, so your portal can search and book across the industry without integrating each airline and hotel chain yourself. Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport are the three that dominate that role globally. All three do fundamentally the same job. So the question isn't "which one is good" — they're all good — it's "which one fits what I'm building and who I'm selling to."
That's why a blanket "use X" recommendation is worth ignoring. The right GDS depends on your target market, the content you need, the commercial terms you can get, and how much engineering you want to take on. Let's go through each of those, then the three systems, then how to actually decide.
The three, at a glance
Here's the honest high-level shape of each. Treat these as tendencies, not laws — all three carry global content, and their exact coverage and terms shift with the deals airlines and agencies strike.
| GDS | Typically strongest in | Often chosen for |
|---|---|---|
| Amadeus | Europe and broad global coverage | The widest all-round airline and hotel content; strong for globally-minded portals |
| Sabre | North America | Deep US carrier and agency presence; portals focused on the Americas |
| Travelport (Galileo / Apollo / Worldspan) | A challenger across several regions | Competitive terms, merchandising and NDC content; strong in select markets |
The honest headline: for most portals the deciding factor isn't which brand is "biggest," it's which one has the best content and commercial terms for your specific market. A smaller GDS with a great deal and the right coverage beats the biggest name on paper.
The factors that actually decide it
1. Your target market and routes
This is the first and biggest filter. Where do your customers fly and stay? A portal built for European and long-haul international travel usually finds Amadeus the natural fit; one aimed at North American domestic and cross-border travel often leans to Sabre; Travelport is a serious option across several regions and frequently the one that competes hardest on terms. Match the GDS's regional strength to your actual demand and half the decision is made — because content and fares that are excellent in one region can be thinner in another.
2. Content: air, hotel, car — and NDC
"Flights" isn't one thing. You need to check that the GDS carries the airlines your customers actually want, at competitive fares, plus the hotel and car content if you're selling those. A growing piece of this is NDC (New Distribution Capability) — the newer standard airlines use to distribute richer fares and ancillaries like seats and bags. All three GDSs are building out NDC content, but the depth varies by carrier and by GDS, and it matters more every year. If a specific airline's full fare range is core to your business, verify how each GDS carries it before you choose.
3. Commercial terms and cost
GDS access is a negotiated commercial agreement, not a public price list. Terms vary with your booking volume, market and content needs, and can involve segment fees, minimums and incentives that swing the real cost significantly. This is why the "best" GDS is partly whichever gives you the best deal — a challenger hungry for your segment may offer terms the market leader won't. You negotiate directly with the GDS, or reach one through an aggregator, and the deal is a genuine input to the choice, not an afterthought. I've written more on how these costs feed into a build in what it costs to build a booking engine.
4. The API and the engineering reality
Each GDS exposes its content through its own APIs, and they are not interchangeable — different data models, different booking flows, different quirks and legacy corners. Whichever you pick, the integration is real work: managing sessions and pricing, handling the confirm-price-before-book flow, dealing with time-outs and errors gracefully, and keeping the connection stable in production. The GDS with slightly better content but a far messier API can cost you more in the long run than a marginally smaller one that's cleaner to build on. This is exactly the kind of trade-off worth weighing with an engineer who's integrated one before, not just a salesperson.
Do you have to pick just one?
No — and many serious portals don't. Running more than one GDS widens your content and fare coverage, strengthens your hand on commercial terms, and means you're not wholly dependent on a single provider's uptime or pricing. The trade-off is engineering: every GDS you add is another API, another data model and another set of failure modes to handle.
The right way to do it — and the way I've built it — is to put an abstraction layer between your portal and the GDSs. The rest of your system talks to one internal interface for "search flights" or "book this fare," and behind that interface you can have one GDS today and three tomorrow without rewriting the portal. It also lets you route a search to whichever provider has the best fare or content for that request. If multi-GDS is where you're heading, that architecture is the whole game; I've written it up in detail in how to integrate multiple GDS providers into one booking engine. And if you're leaning toward Amadeus specifically, there's a full walkthrough in integrating the Amadeus API into a B2B travel portal.
How to actually decide
Strip it back to a short, honest process. Start with your market and routes and shortlist the GDS whose regional strength matches your demand — that usually narrows it to one obvious lead and one challenger. Confirm each carries the airline, hotel and car content your customers need, with real attention to NDC for any airline central to your model. Then talk terms with both, because the commercial deal can flip the decision, and factor in the engineering effort of each one's API. If you have the volume and the ambition, plan for more than one from the start by building behind an abstraction layer — but launch with the single best fit rather than waiting to integrate everything.
What you should not do is pick the biggest brand by reputation and assume it's right. I've seen portals over-pay for the market leader when a challenger had better terms and equal content for their region, and I've seen portals under-serve their customers by choosing on price alone and missing the airlines those customers actually wanted. The decision is specific to you — and it's cheap to get right up front and expensive to change once your bookings depend on it.
GDS comparison FAQs
What is the difference between Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport?
All three are global distribution systems that let a travel portal search and book flights, hotels and cars from thousands of providers through one connection. The practical differences are geographic strength (Amadeus is strongest in Europe and globally, Sabre in North America, Travelport competes across several regions), the exact airline and hotel content each carries, their APIs and NDC support, and the commercial terms you can negotiate. For most portals the deciding factor is which one has the best content and terms for your target market.
Which GDS is best for a travel portal?
There is no single best GDS — it depends on where your customers travel, what content you need, and the commercial deal you can get. A portal serving European or global routes often starts with Amadeus; one focused on North America often leans to Sabre; Travelport is a strong option and frequently the challenger on price and terms. The right answer is the GDS whose content and pricing fit your market, not the biggest name.
Can a travel portal use more than one GDS?
Yes, and larger portals often do — to widen fare and content coverage, to negotiate better terms, and to avoid depending on a single provider. The catch is that each GDS has its own API and quirks, so connecting several is far more work than one. The clean way to do it is to build an internal abstraction layer so the rest of your system talks to one interface while multiple GDSs sit behind it.
How much does GDS access cost?
GDS access is a commercial agreement, not a public sign-up, so there is no list price. Terms vary by provider, your booking volume, your market and what content you need, and can involve segment fees, minimums and incentives. You negotiate directly with the GDS or go through an aggregator, and the deal you can get is itself one of the factors in choosing between them.
Do I need a GDS or can I use direct airline APIs and NDC?
It depends on your model. A GDS gives you broad multi-airline content through one connection, which is why most portals start there. Direct airline APIs and NDC can give richer content and better fares for specific carriers, but connecting many airlines directly is a lot of integrations to build and maintain. Many modern portals use a mix — a GDS for breadth plus direct or NDC connections for key airlines — behind a single booking layer.
I build travel portals and booking engines on top of the major GDSs — and I run a live platform that sits on more than one. If you're choosing a GDS or building on top of one, see my travel portal development service or get in touch.
