Hey everyone,
I’m looking for a system that:
- I can self host
- Is slim, because I don’t have beefy hardware (Intel J5040, 32GB RAM, shared by all VMs/containers)
- can be used to create an inventory of all the tech/hardware that I have in my house (not exclusively IT, I also wasn’t to track things like warranty for my chainsaws and the like)
- does take at least the device make/model, serial number (for insurance cases) and warranty dates
- is not some kind of enterprise-how-many-items-of-this-article-do-i-have-in-stock-things, because that seems to be the only thing I seem to be able to find, and they neither match my use case nor do they seem to be lightweight enough.
… and honestly, I don’t even know where to start looking. Do you guys have any recommendations?
Of course, I could just use a spreadsheet, but where’s the fun in that?
EDIT: Thank you all so much for the engaged discussion and all the suggestions, you’re the best!
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I use homebox and it has been good for my home usecase. I have put qr codes on boxes to easily check contents from my phone
Also using Homebox. Quite intuitive UI, not too many features but also not too few. For instance you can upload the receipts, manuals, etc for euch equipment, etc
Thanks, that sounds really nice!
While I do agree on the general sentiment to not overcomplicate things, homebox seems rather easy to use and intuitive.
Being able to create qr code to put them on boxes and also have them directly accessible through the web interface is neat !
However, there’s one thing that’s quite cumbersome… There isn’t a one button move everything to a new location. Someone already posted a feature request and got some traction :) so cross fingers this going be implemented in the near futur !!
Yes, I agree, batch moving stuff is important. I haven’t had that problem yet, so let’s hope they add it before I move or something 😅
There’s a couple of options.
I’ve used Grocy. It’s not intended for that particular use case but it would work. More for Grocery management.
Might want to check out https://awesome-selfhosted.net/
I’ve used Grocy.
I use Grocy daily almost, but I think that is a bit more than what OP is looking for. I use it for my pantry inventory. I am somewhat of a prepper, tho I don’t prep for EOTW scenarios. Mostly for localized incidents, weather related disasters, imminent social uprisings, etc. I figure, if we start dropping nukes, point me towards the bright light and let it rip. I have no interest in ‘repopulating the earth’.
I took a hand-scanner, disassembled it, and re-assembled it into a more form fitting box and mounted it conveniently in the pantry. When I bring groceries into the house, I scan them into inventory. When I use an item, I scan it out. I also use the Grocy mobile app. So, at any time I can view my inventory and see that I either have enough of an item, or need to replenish the stock.
Oh yeah, I was planning to deploy Grocy anyway, but I never thought about using it for this. Thank you!
I’m suggesting HomeBox.
https://demo.homebox.software/
Small, selfhosted and centered around home use.
I’d just roll your own with either a spreadsheet or a relational database depending on how fancy you want to get.
In fact, I’ve done that for comic books.
This might be an unpopular opinion/solution but even for two small size sister companies we are doing inventory in a version controlled markdown file 🫣
Honestly, a spreadsheet would be fine for this? I’m not super familiar with what an inventory management system does tho, so maybe it does things beyond what a spreadsheet can do.
Simplest possible solution, Occam’s Inventory 😄
I use markdown extensively, but I’m honestly not fond of its tables function (which I assume you use for this purpose?). It works, but it’s a bit static in my experience. Do you run up against the same, or is it actually an advantage in your use case?
We’re using headings for different types of inventory (hardware/office items/…) and then a block of subheading, bulletpoint combination (serialnumber, date of acquisition, whereabouts,…) for each item and associated item.
The toc is generated automatically and helps browsing through.
Even simpler, I love it! 👍
Not at all, I like
.md, and I’m familiar with Git. A spreadsheet is not something that I would throw into Git, but an.md…I use markdown too, except I keep the markdown file in a self-hosted wiki (wiki.js)
It’s versioned and accepts git as a backend
I’m looking for something that can automatically handle markdown tables for me in git. If an application can do that then I can get off excel/LibreOffice calc.
I haven’t searched about this so I don’t know, but it’d be cool if there were a way to import/export markdown tables into LibreOffice
That is the reason Markdown and Git are used for a lot shenanigans these days. Knowledge bases, awesome-lists, documentations. You name it.
If you got the right tools (sphinx, typora, mkdocs, …obsidian) you got a powerful toolchain.
a version controlled markdown file
There’s a lot of genius in this idea …
Wut
LibreOffice Calc
Indeed. What you are looking for is a spreadsheet.
Don’t overcomplicate things.
its just a spreadsheet, until you want to track what happens to it over time. maintenance, failures, …
Time to pull out the second page
oh, the history of this laptop must be on the 37th worksheet, now I just need to scroll there and find it
You’re just not Spreading hard enough, friend. Excel is like the OG low-code App Dev platform!
I think Apache has an enterprise resource planning software, but it’s exactly as complex as you’d expect enterprise erp
Yeah, I’ve even seen people making presentation slides in Excel. Why ever use anything else? 😉
I once asked somebody for a spreadsheet (they were trying to import the data into my software and it was failing), and got back a .doc file containing a screenshot of Excel running the spreadsheet.
I was in awe of how somebody could misuse so many pieces of software at once.
+1
This is a problem a simple spreadsheet is perfectly adequate for.
Snipe-IT and Shelf.nu are two of the most popular ones.
Maybe also consider just kicking one out yourself with NocoBase or something like that though.
HA, the term I was looking for is even on their website: “Asset Management Software”. My non-native speaker ass didn’t come up with this.
Thank you, I will check those out.
Though it sounds interesting for tinkering, I’m probably not doing down the NoCode route. You make it, you maintain it forever, and I don’t have that kind of time.
Besides CSV, if you want to have lots of optional fields, a YAML file in a git repository is an option. Use
yqor to query it.Interesting option, I’m familiar with Git, YAML and
yq. Thank you!
A CSV in git
Spiceworks? Been a while since ive used it
Get Ralph it’s awesome. Use it in conjunction with Zabbix too if you’re monitoring your infra as well.
A google forms alternative would be convenient. You could make an easy to fill out page that inouts to a spreadsheet. Put warranty reminders in your calander for a month before it expires.
NocoDB.
A CSV file should work.
