Despite their reputation as the poor man of transportation, buses and coaches connect us to places cheaply. But booking bus travel in Europe isn’t always the easiest thing to do, because of bad websites, glitchy apps and poor (or non-existent) English translations. If you’re relying on public transport to get around, it’s vital to have a trustworthy and comprehensive go to bus and coach booking site, that gives you all the possible options for getting from A to B, so that you don’t waste hours researching who goes where, when, and for what price. There are several European bus booking sites like Busbud, Omio, Flixbus, and Trainline, which collate the details of local bus providers and sell their tickets directly to you, saving you the time and effort. But these bus booking apps and websites are only useful if they cover most local routes. In this post, therefore, we’re comparing Omio, Trainline, Busbud and Flixbus to see how good they are in helping you to book your buses in Europe. We’ll look at buses in Spain, Italy and other locations in Europe and evaluate which company presents the most options, which has the best user experience, and the lowest fees. So jump aboard and put your seatbelt on, cos we’re about to depart…
What is the best bus booking website for Buses in Europe?
The contenders
Busbud is Canadian based bus and train travel booking website, although it is primarily focused on bus routes – I would never have guessed 😉 After a quick search, its users get a list of available bus options, filterable by departure time or bus company, along with details such as ticket prices, departure & arrival times, and amenities offered on board. The platform works with over 4500 bus companies globally, offering a pretty comprehensive range of bus routes in more than 80 countries.
Omio is a German travel comparison and booking website and app that allows users to search and book various transportation options, including trains, buses, flights and ferries. Formerly known as GoEuro, it became Omio in 2019, the same year that it acquired Australian travel site Rome2rio (I was wondering happened to them!). It functions in the same way as the others, in that customers input their preferred departure points and destinations to then see what routes and prices come back.
Based in London, Trainline was founded in all the way back in 1997. It is an online platform and mobile app that allows users to search for and book train and bus tickets, although its main focus is on train travel (again, the clue is in the name!). It operates in multiple countries, offering information on train schedules, ticket prices, booking classes and availability. The platform partners with various international train operators to offer a comprehensive range of train services.
FlixBus is a European-based transportation company that offers affordable long-distance bus services across Europe and North America. Founded in 2013 in Germany, the company operates on a unique business model that partners with local bus companies to provide the actual bus services while FlixBus handles ticketing, marketing, and route planning. Known for its distinctive green buses, FlixBus has expanded rapidly, making it one of the largest intercity bus networks in the world, with routes connecting major cities and smaller towns alike.
Why not just book direct with the bus operators?
That would be great, yeah! The main problem here though is inconsistency. Many local bus booking websites and apps don’t have English versions. Furthermore, the user experience on their websites can often be severely lacking. That’s precisely why companies like Flixbus, Trainline, Omio and Busbud have become so popular, because they are intuitive and easy-to-use (or are they?!). Also, if you are new to a country and just visiting for a few days or weeks, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be aware of who the main bus companies are that are operating your particular route. Yeah, you can Google it, and if you’re brave enough attempt to book direct, but what Flixbus, Omio, Trainline and Busbud all offer (in theory) is the expertise on what routes are operated by who, when and for how much, as they aggregate local results under one umbrella. This can save their users a lot of time, time much better spent actually traveling rather than researching.
Disadvantages of booking buses in Europe with an app
- The main disadvantage of using a booking aggregator is price, as you’ll typically pay slightly more than if you book directly with the operator.
- Furthermore, because each one of these platforms has negotiated contracts with some local providers, but probably not all, you may not be presented with all the available options for your route, and be left thinking that a service simply doesn’t exist. It’s therefore always worth double checking your route with a search on Google.
- If you need to make changes to your travel plans, the customer service you receive may not be as good as if you had booked direct with the company that offers the service. Although, to be fair, this depends on the individual policies of Flixbus, Busbud, Omio and Trainline.
Flixbus vs Omio vs Trainline vs Busbud in Italy
Florence Siena bus booking
Getting from Florence to Siena by bus is preferable than by train because the bus drops you right in the city center, so we thought this would be a particularly useful test for our readers. We tested a travel option for a family of four, with two adults, and two children (ages 12 and 8). After checking all results to find a departure that all platforms could offer, we decided on the midday departure from Florence with Itabus, arriving at 12:55. The price for our family when booking directly with Itabus came to €27, with exactly the same luggage entitlement and seating class as all of our contenders. The Itabus website, by the way, was very good with no loading/booking issues and a perfect English translation, so this should also be considered for Italian routes…
Our Busbud review returned three offers from two separate bus operators (Flixbus and Itabus). For the midday departure from Florence to Sienna traveling with Itabus, this would cost our family of four €30 on the ticket prices, with an additional €7.88 on platform fees, making a grand total of €37.88. This is a whopping €10.88 more expensive than booking direct with Itabus, Mamma-mia!
Omio returned 5 different results for this test of Italy buses, from three separate bus operators (Flixbus, Marinobus, and Itabus). The midday departure with Itabus would cost our family €30 on tickets and then €2 on service fees, making a grand total of €32 from Florence to Sienna by bus with Omio. This makes Omio €5 more expensive compared with booking directly with Itabus for the family of four.
Trainline returned just two results for the Florence to Sienna bus, and these were the same two from Itabus, including the midday departure. However, when trying to click through to gather a final price for our intrepid family, we were told that our selected fare had sold out, but that other tickets were ‘up for grabs’. We then tested to see if we could still pick this ticket up on Busbus and Omio and we could, so the Trainline experience was glitchy and a massive let down!
Flixbus offer three daily services of its own from Florence to Siena. The closest time we could get to a midday departure was at 13:35, and this ticket for our family of four cost just 30.95 EUR, including a 1 EURO booking fee. If you can be a little more flexible with your time of departure then Flixbus is clearly a great option.
Florence Siena bus winner is OMIO!
Despite Flixbus offering the lowest price overall, the greater selection of departure times, incorporation of more local bus companies, and an almost equal price gives Omio the win in Italy.
Omio vs Trainline vs Flixbus vs Busbud Reviews: Buses in Spain
Bilbao Oviedo bus booking
Next up we tested buses in Spain, from Bilbao across the northern coast to Oviedo. The trains in this part of the world aren’t great, so this is a relatively well trodden bus route that should yield some interesting options for our contenders to get their teeth into. We selected a return journey, three days apart for one adult. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to get a price from the bus operator ALSA’s own website, as it simply wouldn’t load throughout the writing (& editing) of this article! This, ladies & Gentlemen, is precisely why there is a need for these bus booking aggregators in the first place. Anyway…
Busbud returned five outbound options and seven return options, all with ALSA. We selected the 10am departure from Bilbao and the 18:30 return bus three days later. The price was broken down into both the outbound cost and then the return cost before then being adding together to make the total. As you can see below, the ticket price on Busbud came to €41.87, but the fees then brought this up to €49.33 – an additional €7.46.
Omio returned 5 different outbound journeys, and 7 return options, exactly the same as Busbud, and all with local provider ALSA. The ticket price was the same as Busbud, but Omio’s platform fees were considerably lower at €3.60… thus bringing the grand total to €45.47.
Trainline came back with zero options for this route. So when searching for buses in Spain it’s probably best to give Trainline a heavy swerve.
Bilbao to Oviedo with Flixbus is not a route that they operate, so no luck here at all.
Busbud price
Omio price
Bilbao Oviedo bus winner is OMIO!
Thanks to the lower booking fees, Omio is the king of buses in Spain!
Omio vs Trainline vs Flixbus vs Busbud in Austria
Vienna to Bratislava airport bus booking
Vienna to Bratislava by bus is a route I have traveled frequently, and I know there are several different options, with different departure points, bus companies and drop off points. There are also trains lining this route so it will be interesting to see how this may affect what we are presented with. I specified Bratislava airport, but we are also looking for other options that will get us close. This will certainly make for a very interesting test of our three contenders, although I’m tempted to throw in the towel for Trainline already! I tested a single journey from Vienna to Bratislava airport on March 16th, 2024 for two seniors and one 21 year old student. We were unable to select the same route for all bus providers because none of them returned the same results. The cost of this route when booking direct with the service provider (Flixbus) was €23.85.
Busbud returned 25 different results, all of which mirrored the options on Flixbus precisely. Departures began from 06:00 all the way through the day until 21:40, so the coverage here was excellent. We were also given the option of three different departure stations located around Vienna, including an airport to airport option, which would certainly come in handy for visitors arriving by air. We selected the 09:10 from Vienna Hauptbahnhof to Bratislava airport and it cost exactly the same (€23.85) as it did directly with Flixbus. This was most likely because Busbud redirected the booking and it was completed on Flixbus’ own pages.
Omio initially seemed to return mostly private shuttle options here, with only a few sporadic real bus results which were hard to find in among all the private shuttles littering the page. On closer inspection, none of those buses actually took us to the airport though, rather to various other locations around Bratislava’s city center. It took us a while to work it out, but eventually we found the ‘show more results from affiliates‘ button at the bottom of the page, and this is where we then saw 12 options taking us directly to the airport with Flixbus. A bit weird that these results didn’t show directly on the results page without having to perform what seemed like another unnecessary (and quite hidden) step, but in the end the price here for the 09:10 from Vienna was the same as the original service provider (Flixbus) at €23.85. The only other difference was that Omio didn’t suggest Vienna airport as a departure point when ‘Vienna‘ was entered as my departure point. These only displayed after specifically inputting ‘Vienna airport‘ as the origin.
Trainline returned almost the same Flixbus options as Busbud minus the airport to airport route. We selected the same 09:10 departure time and we were again redirected to the Flixbus site to complete the booking. The price for our student and his grandparents was the same as Busbud and Omio (& Flixbus) at €23.85.
Flixbus returned 12 of its own results, with several different departure points around the city of Vienna to choose from. Vienna airport, though, was not given as an option, and you had to input that separately to see those departures. Flixbus again provided the joint cheapest tickets here.
vienna to bratislava bus winner is busbud!
Narrow victory here for Busbud, as while Omio, Trainline, and Flixbus all returned the same ticket price, Busbud offered more departure points from Vienna with the airport to airport route, and it presented its affiliate partner results clearly and umambiguously.
User Experience
Busbud’s user experience is very clean and functional. Of the four contenders it was the joint easiest to use (along with Flixbus) and all results were very easy to spot. Somewhat lacking in filters though, as only departure & arrival locations, operator, and time of day were offered.
As discussed above, the only problem I encountered with Omio was them not displaying offers from their affiliate partners on the results page, without having to click again. Presumably they do this to drive customers towards better paying alternatives, but we use Omio because we want a one stop shop for all bus travel options, so they should look at changing this. Other than that, their website and apps are clutter free, user friendly and a pleasure to use. I particularly enjoy their artwork which I like to call pastel cartoon! Omio has all the same filters that Busbud offered plus additional options to filter results by price & journey duration.
Trainline is primarily focused on trains, this was clear throughout the tests we ran and also in terms of how cluttered the user experience can be. It is by no means unusable, but compared with Omio, Busbud and Flixbus, the ability to find buses, and filter through results, was more complex and required a certain amount of attention to detail, even if you could get a result.
Flixbus‘ user interface is very simple and easy to navigate. It only gives two options for bus ticket categories, either adult or children (0-14 yo), and no other filters. This will be a relief to many, as some filters do seem really quite unnecessary and over-complicated.
Buses in Europe - Outro
The battle of Europe’s best bus booking platforms was close, but in the end Omio takes it. Omio not only had the second lowest fees in all of our tests, but you can specify destinations to a much greater degree in the search box, as well as being able to use a wider variety of filters to really narrow down the best bus routes for you. However, when Flixbus returned a service result, it always offered the best prices, so always check to see if they operate your route, and if not, then check with Omio. It’s a shame that Busbud’s booking fees were so high, as there are many good things about their site, not least the clean user experience and logical, ordered presentation of results. The coverage of both Omio and Busbud was pretty much identical and, as aggegators, a little better than Flixbus, who only show their own bus services. While Trainline was able to sometimes provide viable bus options, it is simply no match for Flixbus, Omio or Busbud for European bus travel, and should probably stick to what it knows, and is really rather good at – trains! For those of you committed to traveling in Europe in as green a way as possible, then also check out my guides on ferries to Spain, France, Ireland and Holland.
I bought a ferry ticket from Crete(Souda, Chania) to Serifos, via Milos. The whole trip was supposed to last 3-4 hours, but it lasted 16 hours and I had to change to Santorini and Milos before I go to Serifos. The ferry company was the same for all the islands and they changed the schedule without informing Omio or Omio didn’t bother to maintain contact. Normally you have to be at the harbour 1 hour before departure. We were at the harbour 1hour and 20 minutes earlier and they told us that we should have been informed because the bus to Rethymno left 10minutes ago. They changed harbour(1 hour away) and nobody told us!! I paid 110 euros for a taxi and manged to get the ferry. Then they unloaded us in Santorini for 3 hours with no water and 40C. Then we took a ferry to Milos. Another 3 hours with no water. We left at 6:40 in the morning and we arrived at our hotel in Serifos at 22:30. We lost an entire of our holiday and the car booking(40 euros) for a day. This inhumane journey also had an impact on our mental health. Omio blames the ferry provider and the ferry provider Omio. Bottom line is that Omio never informed us and they don’t take responsibility. If you feel adventurous and you don’t like your life buy with Omio.
Date of trip: 07/09/2024
Thank you, Georgios for this informative breakdown of your experience with Omio and Greek ferries. This is always the risk when dealing with a ferry/bus/train aggregator I guess – i.e. that the local companies who actually operate the services change their timetables without informing their partners. Of course, both sides will inevitably try to cover their ass in this situation and blame the other, so it’s always good to get people’s real life experience and impressions of what went wrong. Hope you’ve recovered from this disappointment. I had to chuckle at your final sentence though, just imagine that catchphrase on an official Omio advert!