Plenty of teams have a good reason to start with free IT Asset Management software. A small IT department with no budget line for tooling, or an organization with a genuinely limited number of devices, can run on a free plan for years. What matters is knowing how far each tool reaches before it stops, because a plan that locks you out at asset 51, or that needs a weekend of server maintenance every month, can cost more in time and effort than paying would have.
That is hard to work out from the outside, because free tiers change quietly and most roundups never go back to check whether the plan they recommended still exists. So we did. Below are ten tools verified against the vendor's own site in September 2026, what each free version really covers, and what to do when your estate grows or your requirements change and free stops being enough.
The 10 best free IT Asset Management tools
The ten tools below all offer something you can use at no cost today, but they mean very different things by free. Six are open source ITAM projects you host yourself with no cap on anything, and four are commercial products with a free tier that stops at a specific number of assets.
Here is the shortlist:
- Snipe-IT.
- GLPI.
- Lansweeper.
- OCS Inventory NG.
- Reftab.
- BlueTally.
- xAssets Express.
- Ralph 3.
- CMDBuild.
- openMAINT.
Comparison table
The table below is the short version of everything that follows, with the free ceiling and the first thing you have to pay for side by side. Open source entries show no cap because there is none, and their cost sits in the hosting column instead.
| Tool | Free cap | Locked behind paid | Hosting | Paid for |
| Snipe-IT | Unlimited assets and users | Managed hosting, automatic backups, automated upgrades, email support | Self-hosted | $399.99/year hosted |
| GLPI | Unlimited assets and users | Level 3 support, GLPI Network plugins, automatic updates, managed backups | Self-hosted or cloud | €19/month per IT agent, cloud |
| Lansweeper | 100 licensed assets, unlimited scanning | Technical support, hotfixes, view exports, single sign-on, integrations, dashboards, application programming interface (API) | Cloud with local scanning | Monthly, billed annually, currency by billing address |
| OCS Inventory NG | Unlimited assets and users | Commercial integration and support services | Self-hosted | Not publicly listed |
| Reftab | 50 assets | API, single sign-on, two-factor authentication, workflow automation, every integration, work orders | Cloud | $31.25/month billed annually |
| BlueTally | 50 assets, unlimited users | Device and employee sync, warranty sync, REST API, single sign-on, spend reporting, webhooks, employee portal | Cloud | $199/month billed annually |
| xAssets Express | 100 IT endpoints and 1,000 assets, 1 user | Intune integration, license matching, procurement, barcoding, depreciation, advanced reporting | Cloud | $60/month, 2 users and 200 endpoints |
| Ralph 3 | Unlimited assets and users | Nothing, there is no paid tier | Self-hosted | No paid tier |
| CMDBuild | Unlimited assets and users | Self-service portal, mobile app, connectors, ready-to-run appliance, bug fixes with a guaranteed service level | Self-hosted | Quote only |
| openMAINT | Unlimited assets and users | Self-service portal, mobile app, ready-to-run appliance, guaranteed assistance | Self-hosted | Quote only |
Methodology
Before diving into the tool-by-tool analysis, it's important to clarify how this list was built and how it should be read.
InvGate develops and markets IT Service Management (ITSM) and IT Asset Management (ITAM) solutions, which means we are an active participant in this market. While we may compete with some of the vendors mentioned, our objective is to provide accurate, transparent, and practical information to help teams make informed decisions.
This article does not present a ranking. The tools listed below are not ordered by priority, score, or recommendation level. Instead, this is a curated selection designed to reflect the wide range of IT Asset Management needs, budgets, and operational realities that different organizations face.
All information in this article is based exclusively on public sources, including official vendor documentation, product pages, and pricing pages, plus verified user reviews from platforms such as G2 and Capterra. Feature and pricing claims are sourced from official vendor pages only; ratings are sourced from the review platforms noted above. All sources were accessed in September 2026.
Four criteria decided which tools were included:
- Genuinely free, not a trial. A plan that expires after thirty days is a trial, and it does not qualify.
- Real IT Asset Management scope. Hardware and software assets, discovery, licensing or lifecycle. Generic inventory and fixed-asset depreciation tools were excluded.
- Actively maintained in 2026. A published release, build or commit this year.
- A free tier you can work in. Not a screenshot generator.
Three tools from the previous version of this list failed those criteria and were removed. Spiceworks Inventory on-premises has been unsupported since 2021, AssetTiger replaced its free plan with a thirty-day trial that drops accounts to view-only, and Budibase retired its IT Asset Management template.
1. Snipe-IT

Snipe-IT is an open source ITAM system built by Grokability for tracking hardware and software assets through their full lifecycle. It handles assignments, locations, custom fields, barcode and QR code scanning, warranty alerts and a full chain of custody for every device, and it exposes all of it through a REST API.
The free version is the whole product. Self-hosting Snipe-IT under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL-3.0) gives you unlimited assets, unlimited users and every application feature, with no functionality reserved for paying customers. What you take on instead is the server: the paid plans sell hosting, backups, upgrades and support, so the cost of free here is measured in your own maintenance hours rather than in missing features.
Snipe-IT features
The current release is version 8.7.0, published in August 2026, and it covers:
- Full lifecycle tracking from procurement through retirement
- Assignment, location and status history for every asset
- Custom fields and fieldsets per asset model
- Automated alerts for expiring warranties, licenses and maintenance
- Barcode and QR code scanning for audits
- REST API and LDAP or Active Directory synchronization
Snipe-IT ratings and sources
As of September 2026, Snipe-IT maintains the following ratings across software review platforms:
Snipe-IT pricing
According to Snipe-IT's pricing page, self-hosting is free with no license fee. Managed hosting from Grokability starts at $399.99 per year for the Basic plan and $999.99 per year for Small Business, with dedicated instances from $2,499.99 per year, all with unlimited assets and users.
2. GLPI

GLPI is an open source platform from Teclib' that combines IT Asset Management with a full service desk. It tracks hardware and software through acquisition, deployment and decommissioning, keeps a modification history per asset, and adds Incident Management, Request Management and Project Management on top, which makes it the broadest tool on this list.
Self-hosting GLPI under the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPLv3) costs nothing and imposes no cap on assets or users. The paid subscriptions add Level 3 support, the GLPI Network plugin catalogue, automatic updates and professional backups, so again the gate is around the operation of the software rather than the software itself. If the service desk side is more than you need, our roundup of GLPI alternatives covers narrower options.
GLPI features
Version 11.0.8 shipped in June 2026, with GLPI 12 already in development. The platform provides:
- Hardware and software lifecycle tracking with full modification history
- A built-in service desk with Incident and Request Management
- Native inventory agents for Windows, Linux and macOS
- Financial and contract information per asset
- Project Management for planning and monitoring IT work
- A plugin architecture with a large community catalogue
GLPI ratings and sources
As of September 2026, GLPI maintains the following ratings across software review platforms:
GLPI pricing
According to GLPI's pricing page, the self-hosted community edition is free. Cloud subscriptions start at €19 per month per IT agent on public infrastructure and €21 per month on private, while self-hosted subscriptions run from €100 per month for up to 10 agents and 500 assets to €4,500 per month for unlimited assets.
3. Lansweeper
Lansweeper is a discovery-first platform that scans your network and builds the inventory for you, covering IT, operational technology, Internet of Things and public cloud assets without installing anything on the endpoints. It reads hardware specifications, installed software, user ownership, end-of-life status and known vulnerabilities, which puts it closer to automated asset discovery than to a manual register.
The free plan covers 100 licensed assets and, unusually, does not throttle the engine that makes the product worth using: scanning is unlimited, with no cap on actions, credentials or scan configurations, and you can invite unlimited users. Past 100 assets you still see name, type and IP address, but nothing deeper. The real cost of the free plan is elsewhere, since it comes with no technical support and no hotfixes.
Lansweeper features
The platform is built around:
- Agentless network discovery across IT, operational technology, cloud and Internet of Things assets
- Hardware and software inventory with user and ownership mapping
- End-of-life and end-of-support lifecycle detection
- Vulnerability insights mapped to public advisories
- Network topology and asset relationship views
- Credential-based deep scanning for Windows, Linux and macOS
Lansweeper ratings and sources
As of September 2026, Lansweeper maintains the following ratings across software review platforms:
Lansweeper pricing
According to Lansweeper's pricing page, the free plan is permanent at 100 licensed assets. Starter costs from $239 per month and Pro from $439 per month, both billed annually and both including 2,000 assets, with Starter limited to one installation and Pro allowing up to three. Enterprise is custom, starts at 10,000 assets, and is the only tier with full API access.
4. OCS Inventory NG

OCS Inventory NG, short for Open Computer and Software Inventory Next Generation, has been collecting hardware and software inventory data since 2001. Agents installed on client machines report back to a central management server, network scans pick up devices without agents, and the server can push software packages out across the estate.
Released under GPLv2, it is free with no restrictions of any kind on assets, users or sites. There is a commercial track, OCS Professional, run by FactorFX as the project's main contributor, but it sells integration and support services rather than a different build of the software, and no prices are published for it.
OCS Inventory NG features
Version 2.12.5 is the current stable release, published in July 2026, with a 3.0 release candidate in testing. It provides:
- Agent-based hardware and software inventory across Windows, Linux and macOS
- Network discovery for devices without an agent
- Remote software package deployment
- Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) scanning for printers, switches and network equipment
- A plugin system covering virtual machines, driver versions and user-installed applications
OCS Inventory NG ratings and sources
As of September 2026, OCS Inventory NG maintains the following ratings across software review platforms:
- G2: 4.8 out of 5 stars, from only 8 reviews, too few to be representative.
- Capterra: no product listing.
OCS Inventory NG pricing
The software is free under GPLv2 with no paid edition. OCS Professional services from FactorFX are quoted individually and no pricing is published, so budget for the server, the database administration and the upgrade cycle instead.
5. Reftab
Reftab is a cloud IT Asset Management tool built around checkout and checkin, aimed at teams that hand equipment to people and need to know who has what. It covers hardware assets, software licenses, IT spend and onboarding and offboarding, with mobile apps, custom QR labels, reservations and loan alerts, and it is the most polished interface of the free options here.
The free plan is explicitly permanent, described on Reftab's own pricing page as a free forever plan with 50 assets, and it includes unlimited locations, unlimited categories, unlimited custom fields and advanced reports with export. What it does not include is any way to populate itself automatically: there is no native discovery, the API is reserved for paying customers, and the Mobile Device Management (MDM) integrations that would sync devices in sit in the top paid tier.
Reftab features
On the free plan you get:
- Asset checkout and checkin with loan limits and business hours
- Unlimited software license and inventory tracking
- Barcodes, QR codes and custom QR labels
- Reservations with calendars and alerts
- Advanced reports with export to Excel or CSV
- iOS and Android apps with handheld scanner support
Reftab ratings and sources
As of September 2026, Reftab maintains the following ratings across software review platforms:
- Capterra: 4.7 out of 5 stars, from 138 reviews.
- G2: 4.3 out of 5 stars, from only 4 reviews, too few to be representative.
Reftab pricing
According to Reftab's pricing page, paid Hardware Management plans start at $31.25 per month billed annually, rising to $62.50 and $125.00 per month across asset bands up to 3,000 and beyond. Software Management is priced separately at $0.75 per tracked user per month, and if you stop paying you drop back to the free plan with access to your first 50 assets.
6. BlueTally

BlueTally is a cloud IT Asset Management product built for lean IT teams, with a clean assignment model, warranty and end-of-life tracking, license tracking and scannable asset tags. Its strongest argument is the integration list, covering Intune, Jamf, Kandji, Okta, Azure Active Directory and warranty lookups from Dell and Lenovo.
The free plan, now called Starter, covers your first 50 assets with unlimited users and no time limit. Almost every integration is paid, though. Device and employee sync, warranty sync, the REST API and Teams or Slack notifications all begin at the first paid tier, which means the free plan is a manual register and the automation you came for is the upgrade.
BlueTally features
The platform includes:
- Asset assignment to employees or locations with full history
- Warranty and end-of-life tracking with proactive alerts
- Onboarding and offboarding workflows
- Software license tracking for usage and compliance
- Scannable asset tags and automated reporting
- Custom permission levels and an employee self-service portal on higher tiers
BlueTally ratings and sources
As of September 2026, BlueTally maintains the following ratings across software review platforms:
BlueTally pricing
According to BlueTally's pricing page, Core costs $199 per month billed annually for up to 250 assets, Business $499 per month for unlimited assets, and Corporate $799 per month adding webhooks, multi-tenancy and an employee portal. Monthly billing costs $232, $599 and $959 respectively, and every paid plan comes with a fourteen-day trial. Note that the product now lives at bluetally.com, since the older bluetallyapp.com address redirects.
7. xAssets Express
xAssets Express is the free edition of a commercial IT Asset Management suite, and it is the only free tier on this list that keeps network discovery while still counting assets in the thousands. It runs in the cloud, discovers Windows, macOS, Linux, VMware and SNMP devices agentlessly, and adds agents for machines that live off the network.
The cap is generous on paper and restrictive in practice. You get 100 IT endpoints and 1,000 total assets, but the license covers a single user, so it does not work for a team. Software license matching is switched off in the free edition even though discovery still runs, and procurement, barcoding, depreciation, advanced reporting and the Intune and System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) integrations are all reserved for paid editions.
xAssets Express features
Version 7.3.58 shipped in July 2026, and the free edition offers:
- Agentless discovery for Windows, macOS, Linux, VMware and SNMP devices
- Agents for machines outside the network
- Hardware inventory with configuration detail
- Basic asset registers and standard reports
- Cloud hosting with no server to maintain
xAssets Express ratings and sources
As of September 2026, xAssets Express maintains the following ratings across software review platforms:
- Capterra: 4.8 out of 5 stars, from only 6 reviews, too few to be representative.
- G2: listed, with no aggregate score published.
xAssets Express pricing
The free Express edition has no time limit. Paid IT Asset Management plans start at $60 per month for 2 users and 200 endpoints, then $240 per month for 5 users and 500 endpoints, and $540 per month for 10 users and 1,000 endpoints, with Professional and Enterprise editions quoted individually.
8. Ralph 3

Ralph 3 is an open source ITAM, Data Center Infrastructure Management and Configuration Management Database (CMDB) system built by Allegro for their own infrastructure and released publicly. It tracks assets from procurement to decommissioning, visualizes data center layouts down to the rack, and models relationships between configuration items, which makes it a serious option for anyone managing physical infrastructure rather than laptops.
Licensed under Apache 2.0, it is free with no tiers, no caps and no commercial edition. The thing to understand before adopting it is the support model: since February 2025 Allegro publishes Ralph under a sources-only arrangement, continuing to release code without operating a contribution-based model and without guaranteeing responses to issues or pull requests. Releases are still shipping, with the most recent in June 2026, so the code is alive while the community around it is not.
Ralph 3 features
The platform covers:
- Hardware and software asset tracking through the full lifecycle
- Data center visualization mapping racks, layouts and equipment
- CMDB with configuration items and their relationships
- A configurable workflow engine for asset processes
- REST API for integration with other systems
Ralph 3 pricing
There is no paid tier and no pricing page. Ralph 3 is free under Apache 2.0, and the entire cost is the infrastructure it runs on plus whatever internal time you spend maintaining a system whose maintainer has stated it will not answer your questions.
9. CMDBuild

CMDBuild is an open source framework for building custom Asset Management applications rather than a ready-made ITAM tool. You model your own database by defining classes, attributes and relationships, then design processes in a visual workflow editor and build reports and dashboards on top, which is powerful and also means there is no working asset register on day one.
It is free under the AGPL with no caps, and the paid subscription adds a pre-configured appliance, the self-service portal, the mobile app, interoperability connectors and bug fixes backed by a service level agreement (SLA). Attribution has changed since older articles were written: CMDBuild is developed and managed by PAT srl, while the CMDBuild trademark belongs to Tecnoteca srl, and both companies are now part of the Zucchetti Group.
CMDBuild features
Version 4.2 was released in March 2026, and the framework provides:
- Configurable data model with custom classes, attributes and relationships
- Visual workflow engine for designing and automating processes
- Report and dashboard designer
- Web services and connectors for external system integration
- A packaged READY2USE vertical for teams that want a starting configuration
CMDBuild ratings and sources
As of September 2026, CMDBuild maintains the following ratings across software review platforms:
- Capterra: 4.3 out of 5 stars, from only 13 reviews, a small sample to read with caution.
CMDBuild pricing
The open source download is free. Subscription pricing is not published and is quoted per case, calculated from the instance complexity, described as Base, Large or Very Large, combined with the chosen service level of Silver, Gold or Platinum, for a single production instance renewed annually.
10. openMAINT

openMAINT is a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) rather than an ITAM tool, built on the same CMDBuild core and aimed at Property and Facility Management. It handles movable assets, real estate, preventive and corrective maintenance, logistics, procurement and energy monitoring, with geographic information system (GIS) and building information modelling (BIM) support and a mobile app for field work.
It earns a place here because the same engine that manages buildings can be configured to manage IT equipment, and because it is free under the AGPL with no caps. The honest caveat is that you are adapting a facilities product, so expect the same configuration effort as CMDBuild with less IT-specific structure to start from. Like CMDBuild, it is developed and managed by PAT srl, now a Zucchetti Group company.
openMAINT features
Version 2.4 arrived in March 2026 on the CMDBuild 4.2 core, and it includes:
- Space and asset inventory across IT, movable and real estate assets
- Preventive and corrective maintenance scheduling
- Inventory and procurement oversight
- Workflow engine and customizable reporting
- GIS and BIM support for asset visualization
- A mobile app for field operations
openMAINT ratings and sources
As of September 2026, openMAINT maintains the following ratings across software review platforms:
- Capterra: 3.8 out of 5 stars, from only 6 reviews, too few to be representative.
openMAINT pricing
The download is free under the AGPL. Subscriptions are quoted individually using the same instance complexity and service level matrix as CMDBuild, and no figures are published, so a budget conversation with the vendor is unavoidable if you want the portal or the mobile app.
What free ITAM software usually limits
Across all ten tools, the restrictions fall into four patterns. Recognizing which pattern a tool follows tells you more about whether it will work for you than any feature list, because the same word covers two completely different products.
None of these limits is a reason to avoid free ITAM tools. They are the things worth knowing before you migrate data into one, since the cost of discovering them afterwards is measured in a second migration.
The asset cap
The most visible limit, and the easiest to plan around. Lansweeper stops at 100 licensed assets, xAssets Express at 100 endpoints and 1,000 total assets, and Reftab and BlueTally both at 50. Open source tools have no cap at all, which is the single clearest dividing line on this list.
Caps matter less than they appear if you know your device count. What catches teams out is growth: a 50-asset ceiling that fits a startup today becomes a migration project eighteen months later, and migrating asset data with its history intact is rarely as clean as the export button suggests.
The features behind the paywall
This is where free tiers do their real gatekeeping. The pattern across commercial products is consistent: the register is free and the automation is what you pay for.
Three examples from the list above:
- BlueTally puts device sync, employee sync, warranty sync and the REST API behind the first paid tier.
- Reftab reserves its API for paying customers and every integration for the top plan.
- Lansweeper leaves scanning unlimited and charges for exports, single sign-on, dashboards and API access.
Open source projects invert this. Snipe-IT, GLPI, OCS Inventory NG and Ralph 3 ship every feature in the free download, and what you pay for is hosting, backups, upgrades and someone to call. CMDBuild and openMAINT sit in between, holding back the self-service portal and mobile app from the free build.
The cost of running it yourself
Self-hosted tools have no license fee and a real operating cost. You provide the server, the database, the security certificates, the backups and the upgrade path, and someone on the team owns all of it.
For a small team this is often the better trade, because the hours are predictable and the tool never runs out of room. It stops being the better trade when the person who set it up leaves, when a security patch needs applying on a Friday, or when the annual audit needs a report nobody knows how to build.
The free tier that stopped being free
The least discussed limit is the one that invalidated three entries in this article. All three were on the previous version of this list, and all three still appear on roundups published in 2026.
Here is what changed:
- AssetTiger replaced its free forever plan for 250 assets with a thirty-day trial that moves unupgraded accounts to view-only.
- Budibase retired the IT Asset Management template that put it on lists like this one.
- Spiceworks stopped supporting its on-premises Inventory product back in 2021.
None of those changes was announced loudly. Check the vendor's pricing page yourself before you commit, whatever any article tells you, this one included.
Free vs paid: when it stops making sense
Free tooling is the right answer far more often than vendors admit, and there are three specific moments where it reliably stops being one. All three are about the work outgrowing what an unattended register can do.
Watch for these thresholds:
- The asset count. The easiest of the three to see coming, and the one every capped free tier states up front.
- Compliance. The moment someone asks for a defensible software license position, a manual inventory becomes a liability, and Software License Management is exactly the capability free tiers withhold.
- The maintenance bill. When the hours spent hosting, patching and hand-updating records exceed what a subscription would have cost.
Crossing one of those lines rarely means starting over, since several tools here scale into paid tiers you can grow into. If you are weighing that trade, our comparison of paid IT Asset Management software covers what changes on the other side of the line.
What is free IT Asset Management software?
Free IT Asset Management software is any tool that lets you track, monitor and manage the assets your organization owns without paying a license fee. That usually covers a central inventory, lifecycle tracking from purchase to disposal, and some reporting on usage and cost. Lighter products in the same category are often marketed as free asset tracking software, which normally means a register with tags and locations but no discovery or license management underneath.
The label covers two different things, and the difference decides everything else. A free tier is a commercial product with a limit attached, generous on features and strict on volume, while open source software is the complete product under a license that costs nothing, unlimited in volume and dependent on you to run it. Confusing the two is how teams end up rebuilding an inventory twice.
What is open source Asset Management software?
Open source Asset Management software is a tool whose source code is public, which means you can read it, run it, modify it and deploy it without asking permission or paying anyone. Snipe-IT, GLPI, OCS Inventory NG, Ralph 3, CMDBuild and openMAINT on this list all work this way.
In practice the benefits are the absence of caps, the absence of vendor lock-in and the ability to change behavior that does not suit you. The costs are equally concrete: you are responsible for installation, configuration, security updates and the database underneath, and support means a forum rather than a ticket. Licenses differ too, and AGPL, GPL and Apache 2.0 carry different obligations if you plan to modify or redistribute anything.
When is open source or free ITAM software a good choice?
Open source suits teams that have the technical capacity to run it and would rather spend hours than budget. Free commercial tiers suit teams that want something working this afternoon and can live inside a cap. The wrong choice is picking open source for the price and then discovering nobody owns the server.
Open source is usually the right call when your team looks like this:
- You have IT staff or developers comfortable maintaining a self-hosted application
- You need to adapt the tool to workflows a commercial product will not accommodate
- You want to avoid vendor lock-in and keep full control of your data
- Your asset count is already past what free tiers allow
- You can absorb the maintenance rather than the license fee
A capped free tier is usually the better call when your device count is genuinely small, when nobody on the team wants to own a server, or when you need the tool to work before you have time to configure anything. If your immediate problem is narrower than full asset management, our list of free IT inventory management software covers tools focused on discovery and inventory alone.
Ready to move past free? Check out InvGate Asset Management
InvGate Asset Management gives IT teams one place to discover and manage hardware, software and cloud assets across the whole estate. It covers the full lifecycle, from automated discovery through license compliance, contracts and disposal, without scripting or a dedicated administrator to keep it running, and it deploys on premises, in the cloud or in air-gapped environments with the same feature set either way.
The limits described throughout this article are the ones it is built to remove. Discovery keeps the inventory current instead of relying on manual imports, license tracking becomes a defensible position rather than a spreadsheet estimate, and the reporting and access controls that community projects were never designed to provide come as standard. Pricing is published rather than quoted, which matters when you are moving off free precisely because you need to predict a number.
Five capabilities do most of that work:
- Automated discovery and inventory. Agent and network discovery keep hardware, software and cloud assets current on their own.
- Software License Management. Software metering and normalization show real usage against what you bought, so compliance stops being a guess.
- Asset Lifecycle Management and financial tracking. Warranties, contracts, depreciation and cost by department in the same record as the device.
- Automations and alerts. No-code rules for warranty expirations, contract renewals, stock levels and policy violations.
- Reporting and dashboards. Scheduled reports and audit-ready dashboards on asset health, software usage and compliance.
You can start a free 30-day trial with no credit card required, or talk to Sales about what a migration from your current tool would involve.
Conclusion
The best free IT Asset Management software is the one whose limits you can name before you install it. Six of the tools here are open source with no caps and a real maintenance cost, four are commercial products with a free tier that ends at a specific asset count, and every one of them is a reasonable choice for the right team.
What has changed since the last version of this list is a useful reminder in itself: three tools lost the free offering that put them on it. Check the pricing page before you commit, and revisit the decision when your asset count, your audit calendar or your team size moves.
Frequently Asked Questions
These are the questions teams ask most often before committing to a free tool. The answers below summarize what the ten entries above have in common.
Is free IT Asset Management software really free?
It depends which kind you pick. Open source tools like Snipe-IT, GLPI and OCS Inventory NG genuinely cost nothing to license and every feature is included, but you pay in hosting and maintenance. Free tiers from commercial vendors cost nothing up to a cap, usually 50 to 100 assets, and reserve integrations, API access and single sign-on for paying customers.
What is the best free IT Asset Management software?
For teams that can host their own application, Snipe-IT is the most complete free option because nothing is held back from the free build. For teams that want automated discovery without a server, Lansweeper's free plan for 100 assets leaves the scanning engine unrestricted, which is rare among free ITAM tools.
How many assets can you track for free?
Open source tools impose no limit at all. Among commercial free tiers the range is narrow: Reftab and BlueTally stop at 50 assets, Lansweeper at 100, and xAssets Express at 100 IT endpoints and 1,000 total assets with a single user.
Is open source Asset Management better than a free tier?
It is better if you have someone to run it. Open source gives you unlimited assets, every feature and no lock-in, at the cost of owning the server, the backups and the upgrades. A free tier gives you a managed product that works immediately, at the cost of a hard ceiling and paid integrations.
When should you upgrade from free IT Asset Management software?
Three signals matter more than the rest: your asset count is approaching the cap, someone has asked for a software license position you cannot defend, or the hours spent maintaining a self-hosted tool have started to cost more than a subscription. Any one of them is worth pricing out.
Disclaimer: All product names, logos, and brands are property of their respective owners. All company, product, and service names used on this site are for identification purposes only. Use of these names, trademarks, and brands does not imply endorsement. Comparisons are based on publicly available information as of September 2026 and are provided for informational purposes only.