Melonly vs Boomerang: Which ERLC Management Bot Should Your Community Use in 2026?
Head-to-head comparison of the two ERLC suites that ship the full stack — live ERLC integration, staff workflow, applications and native Roblox verification. Pricing, feature differences, and which community each one fits.
- ERLC
- Melonly
- Boomerang
- comparison
Research date: 10 November 2026. All features and prices below were verified against official sources on that date; both products update frequently, so re-check before deciding. Part of the ERLC platform comparison series.
Melonly and Boomerang are the two ERLC-native management suites with the deepest verified feature sets in late 2026. Both ship live ER:LC API integration, full staff workflows (shifts, LOA, infractions, applications), departments, and native Discord↔Roblox verification. Both have free tiers. They are the two platforms most communities actually shortlist — and the differences between them are more about shape and price than about which boxes are ticked.
What they share
Verified against both vendors' official documentation:
- ER:LC API integration: live server status, player lists, join/kill/command logs, queue, mod calls, and remote in-game command execution from a panel or Discord.
- Staff workflow: rosters, promotions/demotions, shift and activity tracking with quotas, LOA request/approval flows, and infractions with a case system.
- Applications: forms with reviewer workflows (Melonly adds quizzes and document workspaces; Boomerang adds Roblox account and group checks during review).
- Departments: separate rosters, permissions and coordination for department servers — a paid feature on both.
- Native Roblox verification with configurable requirements, plus Discord role sync tied to verification, promotion and staff state.
- A real web dashboard with audit logs and analytics, not just a bot.
Where Melonly pulls ahead
- Breadth of ancillary products. A live "Mod Panel" for in-game moderation, a public server directory with profiles and reviews, an overlay moderation product ("Vision", on the Pro tier), and a separately sold AI moderation product ("Watchdog", $9.99/month).
- Automated ERLC operations: shifts that start automatically when staff join the game, automatic removal of in-game permissions, team kicks and auto-arrest protection, and a documented raid-rollback feature.
- Lifetime pricing exists ($139.99 one-time for Plus per server) — unique among the verified platforms.
Where Boomerang pulls ahead
- Price per server. Premium is $4.99/server/month (annual saves ~17%), with bulk discounts from four servers — versus Melonly Plus at $5.99/month, whose Departments add-on costs extra ($1.99–$13.99/month). Boomerang bundles departments into Premium.
- A dedicated live Panel (launched 28 October 2026) with custom branding and a custom URL on Premium, sessions/scheduling, giveaways, and an in-character feed.
- Promotion scoring across weighted signals (activity, conduct and time in rank, each with a weight you tune) with eligibility dates and scheduled role updates — a more explicit promotion pipeline than anything documented on Melonly's side.
- Cross-server enforcement for departments: bans, kicks and nicknames propagated across linked department servers, with an audit trail.
Pricing compared (published, 10 November 2026)
| Melonly | Boomerang | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Yes (2 linked ERLC servers, 100 API requests/mo) | Yes ("free forever", 2 ticket panels, 15 forms) |
| Core paid tier | Plus $5.99/mo, $49.99/yr, or $139.99 lifetime per server | Premium $4.99/server/mo (annual −17%) |
| Departments | Paid add-on, $1.99–$13.99/mo | Included in Premium |
| AI moderation | Watchdog $9.99/mo | Not documented |
| Account-level perks | Pro $2.49/mo (Vision overlay, ad-free) | Custom bot identity on Premium |
| Bundles | $6.99–$34.99/mo | Bulk discount ≥4 servers |
Status and accountability
- Melonly is operated by Melonly Ltd (England & Wales, company no. 16956918), with a changelog showing V5.12.1 shipped in October 2026. Its Discord support server counts 21,361 members. Its status page could not be independently read during research (403 to automated checks).
- Boomerang is operated by a sole trader in Australia, publishes a public status page (all services online at research time, with a recent incident history visible), and launched its Panel in October 2026. It claims 586K+ members across 4,600+ communities — self-reported figures.
One governance difference worth weighing: Melonly is a registered company; Boomerang is a sole trader. Neither publishes anything like an SLA, and the 2026 shutdowns of ERM and Ducky (analysis here) showed that operational history matters more than entity type — but it is a fact worth knowing before you standardise a 30,000-member community on either.
Our verdict framework
Use this decision rule, derived from the verified feature records:
- Choose Melonly if you want the widest ecosystem (directory, overlay, AI moderation), automated in-game operations, or a lifetime licence, and don't mind paying extra for departments.
- Choose Boomerang if departments are central to how your community is structured, you want the lowest per-server cost, or you value a public status page and a newer, faster-moving panel.
- Run both: both free tiers work simultaneously on the same server for trial purposes — the documented feature limits (2 linked servers, 15 forms) are enough to evaluate staff workflows before paying either vendor.
For the wider market context — including where Central, Trident and Sonoran fit — see the full ecosystem comparison. If your community's centre of gravity is dispatch and CAD rather than staff management, read Sonoran CAD vs Melonly instead.