this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2025
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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?

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[–] MummysLittleBloodSlut@lemmy.blahaj.zone 39 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 20 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Indeed. What you are looking for is a spreadsheet.

Don't overcomplicate things.

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 5 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

its just a spreadsheet, until you want to track what happens to it over time. maintenance, failures, ...

[–] Darkmoon_UK@lemm.ee 4 points 19 hours ago

You're just not Spreading hard enough, friend. Excel is like the OG low-code App Dev platform!

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Time to pull out the second page

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 hours ago

oh, the history of this laptop must be on the 37th worksheet, now I just need to scroll there and find it

[–] suzune@ani.social 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, I've even seen people making presentation slides in Excel. Why ever use anything else? 😉

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 3 points 7 hours ago

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.

[–] antsu@lemmy.wtf 7 points 22 hours ago

+1
This is a problem a simple spreadsheet is perfectly adequate for.

[–] conrad82@lemmy.world 37 points 1 day ago

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

https://github.com/sysadminsmedia/homebox

[–] SrMono@feddit.org 26 points 1 day ago (5 children)

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 🫣

[–] jonne@infosec.pub 15 points 1 day ago

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.

[–] Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 7 points 1 day ago

a version controlled markdown file

There's a lot of genius in this idea ...

[–] DasFaultier@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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...

[–] 2910000@lemmy.world 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] fishynoob@infosec.pub 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] 2910000@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago

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

[–] SrMono@feddit.org 4 points 1 day ago

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.

[–] haverholm@kbin.earth 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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?

[–] SrMono@feddit.org 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] haverholm@kbin.earth 3 points 1 day ago

Even simpler, I love it! 👍

[–] mcmic88@feddit.org 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I'm suggesting HomeBox.

https://demo.homebox.software/

Small, selfhosted and centered around home use.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] DasFaultier@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 day ago

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.

[–] StrawberryPigtails@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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/

[–] DasFaultier@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago

Oh yeah, I was planning to deploy Grocy anyway, but I never thought about using it for this. Thank you!

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

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.

[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 7 points 15 hours ago

A CSV file should work.

[–] Xanza@lemm.ee 6 points 1 day ago
[–] johntash@eviltoast.org 6 points 23 hours ago

Snipe-it is a bit overkill but it's pretty good.

Grocy also has an inventory tracker. I'm not sure how different it is tho

[–] shrugs@lemmy.world 5 points 22 hours ago

+1 for netbox

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 4 points 14 hours ago

A CSV in git

[–] Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 5 hours ago

HomeBox is perfect for your use case. You could also try InvenTree, but I think HomeBox is going to better suit your needs.

[–] Biscuit@ani.social 3 points 1 day ago

NocoDB is pretty fun if you want an AirTable-like.

[–] blumlaut@hounds.online 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

@DasFaultier@sh.itjust.works we've recently deployed Netbox which seems to somewhat do what you want, although its more targetted towards datacenter and network engineers (and maybe not lightweight enough for you?)

If you really need nothing special then maybe a good ol' spreadsheet is a better solution for you.

[–] DasFaultier@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

Yep, maybe it really is. I just wanted to see of there's something nicer out there before settling.

I think I recall seeing Netbox a while ago, and I remember thinking that it would be something I'd like to use at work, but we already have idoit there (which I hate passionately).

[–] ouch@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Besides CSV, if you want to have lots of optional fields, a YAML file in a git repository is an option. Use yq or to query it.

https://github.com/mikefarah/yq

[–] whoisearth@lemmy.ca 2 points 7 hours ago

Get Ralph it's awesome. Use it in conjunction with Zabbix too if you're monitoring your infra as well.

[–] steventhedev@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I get very far by just keeping a set of folders for each piece of equipment in a git repo.

Pictures, etc, and sometimes the PDF manual if I bother.

The difficult part here is being consistent over time - making sure you mark down when you bought things, serial numbers, etc. a proper website/app will force you to do this, but there is flexibility in having whatever convention you like most

[–] DasFaultier@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

Well, I do have a PaperlessNGX already, so I could use a custom field for SerialNo or something like that, but I just feel like PNGX isn't really designed for this task.

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.

[–] yournamehere@lemm.ee 1 points 7 hours ago

you want a gui. so cvs is weak. give nocodb a run. can do ANYTHING. cool product overviews, easy to create tables even with attachment like images.

[–] zer0squar3d@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 15 hours ago

Spiceworks? Been a while since ive used it