AssetCenter vs Shelf

AssetCenter tracks durable assets individually, recording what a team owns, who has each item, where it is, and its lifecycle history. Records can include categories, serial numbers, status, photos, documents, and barcode or QR access. A unified timeline covers purchases, assignments, moves, condition checks, maintenance, repairs, warranties, costs, tasks, and decommissioning. It also tracks software licenses and recurring services, including vendor, plan, seats, billing frequency, contract terms, renewal date, and cost. Reports cover straight-line depreciation, asset end of life, asset events, recurring subscription costs, locations, and assignment history. Access controls include roles, permissions, category-level restrictions, and two-factor authentication. API access is included on every plan, subject to plan and rate limits. The service can be installed on a phone or tablet home screen in PWA mode. Its scope is durable items tracked one by one: it does not manage stock quantities, reordering, fulfillment, or consumable inventory bins. The Free plan allows 25 assets and has no reports; paid plans start at $39 per month.

Shelf is an open-source asset tracking platform that records what an organization owns, where items are, and who has custody of them. Its tools include bookings, audits, location tracking, asset pages, kits, consumables, calendars, dashboards, search, reminders, and workspaces. The free Shelf Companion app for iPhone and Android scans QR codes, supports audits and custody management, and handles booking check-ins and check-outs. The web app can be installed as a progressive web app on iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, and Linux. Organizations can self-host with Docker and Supabase or use managed cloud. All plans include unlimited assets; Personal is free and is limited to one user and three custom fields. Plus costs $34 a month, and Team costs $67 a month. Enterprise pricing is custom. Shelf says it uses TLS 1.3 in transit and AES-256 at rest, but is not yet SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certified. Its managed cloud stores data in Frankfurt and runs application servers in Amsterdam.