The problem:

I am moving and need a way to track all my stuff. I also want to help a friend with a garage shop track her tools etc. And want to assemble event kits and track whats in them if I need to.

candidates

• inventree: simple python based physical asset focussed
• shelf.nu: cloud service first physical asset focussed
• snipeit: IT focussed
• GLPI: IT focussed
• ralph: IT focussed
• frappe erp: accounting focussed
• partkeepr: electronic component focussed
• konbase: event equipment focussed
• koillection: home library
• libre booking: focussed on providing the ability to schedule resource allocation
• Homebox asset management: home scale physical items
• collective access asset management: musuem physical artifact inventory
• koha library software: open source library software
• lendengine: lending library software explicitly for tool libraries etc in addition to books
• evergreen: open source lending library software

inventree:

Inventree is a smaller inventory management project written in Python. It’s relatively simple but has some nice features. Unfortunately, my os isnt supported by their install script and I kept having docker issues that got in the way of testing out the application.

uses postgres as a database.

konbase:

seems like a very small project, without a lot of features. But it seems like its nicely scoped to running conferences and tracking inventory during events, which is pretty cool. Konbase is very close to my desired use case, but the small size of the project and its tech stack make me apprehensive.

uses fucking supabase and react.

shelf.nu:

very developed, focussed on providing a platform over providing self-hosting, although self hosting is still possible and there are instructions. The out of the box experience as a free user on their platform is pleasant, but their barcode system is locked behind a paywall (it seems like only part of it is, it will still produce qr codes, just some of the fine toothed tools arent available). It also has team management, and equipment request features, and auditing tools locked behind a paywall.

Assets are filled out with a series of set fields (you can also add custom fields on top of that) and then assets can be bundled into kits. Assets can also be grouped by location, and each location can have a parent location. Assets can also be assigned custody to a specific individual.

The way to configure certain aspects of assets and kits is by entering their detail page, which is different from editing them, and clicking some extra buttons if you’re the admin. That flow isnt intuitive but I did figure it out, so not that bad I guess. Assets in a kit will inherit things like the kit’s location.

Overall I like it. I wish the flow for adding items was faster in order to deal with transient inventory/make bulk onboarding easier, but it looks like there is a csv import feature.

snipeIT

Seems beloved by its users, but is focussed on IT assets specifically, which could be made to work to my ends, but is probably not worth the hassle.

frappe ERPnext

Frappe ERPnext is actually a software suit aiming to provide full erp support. In general the Frappe project seems cool in its goal to provide open source business support software and they seem to have products meant to meet a lot of different needs which is exciting to me.

Like shelf.nu, they provide a cloud hosting service for their erp software, except they only have a free trial rather than a free service tier. Like shelf.nu self hosting is also an option. You sign up for a frappecloud account and it configures a site for you.

The idea of an asset here isn’t specific to IT but is generalized to the point it may be difficult for a specific application, and seems to be more focussed on tracking the financial aspect of holding onto an asset, with ways to set how to calculate depreciation in value.

They do let you bundle assets together into composite assets

my conclusion as of this moment is that erpnext is powerful software focussed on the financial administration aspect of asset management that has kind of a steep learning curve due to the amount of fine grain control available to the user. Unfortunately, a lot of that functionality is irrelevant for my needs. But could be good for someone running a manufacturing business or a whole office.

It does have a bulk import functionality which is nice.

GLPI

GlPI is another IT focussed asset management system. Has no free tier on their platform, but it is open source. But since it’s focussed on IT I’m deprioritizing it for my use case.

ralph

THEY HAVE A DEB PACKAGE FOR UBUNTU 18.04 OR NEWER!!!! install guide and it runs as a systemd service!!! very cool!!

It is IT focussed so going through the effort of making it run on my machine just to see if I can hammer it into something that works for my needs isnt enticing. Especially since even though it’s a deb package, it’s still an approximately ten step process involving configuring tools I’m not the most familiar with.

partkeepr

designed specifically for tracking electronic components, similar to the IT focussed ones, that’s cool but not really what I’m looking for.

Librebooking

The idea seems cool, I like its dedication to open source. It seems a little rough around the edges and focussed more on the being able to reserve time part of things than the item tracking part of things than I’d like.

Collective access

The idea behind this one seems cool, I tried to help someone set it up about a year ago and spent hours resolving dependencies until we got it to give us a log-in at which point we fell to a CSRF token verification error that we couldn’t resolve and elected to use spreadsheets instead.

highlights

shelf.nu

It has a free tier cloud service that lets you dive right in and has decent functionality out the gate that works well for physical assets.

frappe

The fact that the asset management is part of a larger erp suite means that it has the potential to be an incredibly powerful tool if you centralize all the information in one spot. But there’s no free tier and the learning curve is kind of intense for a use case as small as mine.

konbase

really excited by the project scope, just don’t want to use its tech stack.

ralph

really excited by the fact it has a deb package and systemd service, unfortunately its scope doesnt seem very aligned with mine.

thoughts and conclusions

I think for my specific needs a lot of these software solutions may actually be more complexity than their worth. The systems that are developed enough to have a cloud service seem to be targeting cases that are either more complex or just different enough that translating to their system could be a hassle, and those that seem simple enough have an installation process that eats time partially due to complexity of the procedure, and partially due to needing to troubleshoot it in order to make it work on my machine.

It seems like for something small scale, the idea of tracking inventory and a couple spreadsheets might be enough, even if, as a software enthusiast, the desire for better automations and data management is always there.

I really wanted inventree to be the one but I sunk so many hours into solving the docker issue and made very little headway.

Further Reading

https://linoxide.com/best-open-source-library-management-software/ https://community.aam-us.org/discussion/recommendations-for-a-home-library-system-or-app