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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[–] [email protected] 22 points 14 hours 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 🫣

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

a version controlled markdown file

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

[–] [email protected] 13 points 13 hours 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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 hours 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...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours 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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours 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?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours 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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 hours ago

Even simpler, I love it! 👍