NIPAP vs OpenIPAM

NIPAP is a self-hosted IP address management system for large address inventories. It offers a web interface and a feature-complete command-line tool, and can allocate the next available address automatically. Search supports IP prefix operators and regular expressions. IPv6 has feature parity with IPv4, and VRFs are supported natively. The system also includes subnet planning, integrated statistics, and audit history. Address data is stored and indexed in PostgreSQL with the ip4r module. The backend communicates through an XML-RPC API, and the project lists Python and Java client libraries. NIPAP is open source under the MIT license and is free. Debian and Debian derivatives are officially supported; the maker says other Unix-like systems may run it with manual dependency installation. Installation involves configuring authentication accounts for both the backend and web interface. The maker describes user documentation as rather limited and directs users to GitHub issues for bugs, feature requests, and other issues.

OpenIPAM is a free, open-source IP address management and CMDB tool for network and infrastructure inventory. It manages CIDR subnets, IP assignments and reservations, duplicate-IP conflicts, VLANs, IP ranges, and subnet calculations. DHCP tracking covers scopes, leases, reservations, options, and utilization. Its inventory supports 14 host types, hardware lifecycle tracking, locations and racks, maintenance windows, and company records. It can run in a browser with local storage or use an optional Python Flask backend with server-side SQLite for multi-user access. Server mode adds SAML 2.0 single sign-on with Microsoft Entra ID, authenticated routes, and a REST API for entity management, cross-entity search, dashboard statistics, and JSON backup or import. The project describes signed session cookies with an eight-hour lifetime and user-attributed audit entries. CSV host import and JSON backup and restore, including DHCP data, are supported. Browser-mode data stays in the browser; server-mode data is stored in the server-side SQLite file. The plan costs nothing. Current browser support covers Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge, with WebAssembly and ES6+ required.