head to head · open source
Shelf vs bomber
Shelf has 3,049 GitHub stars, 384 forks, 181 open issues and last shipped yesterday. bomber has 628 stars, 58 forks, 29 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. Shelf leads on adoption by 386% (3,049 vs 628 stars). Shelf is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; bomber is written in Go under MPL-2.0. Shelf has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, bomber 9%. Shelf was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Shelf | bomber | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 3.0K | ★ 628 |
| License | Custom / other | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-02-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 384 | ⑂ 58 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Shelf if
- You weight community size — 3.0K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick bomber if
- You want the bomber feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and bomber fits your workflow better
About Shelf
Open source asset management infrastructure for everyone. Website · Documentation · Discord · Twitter Shelf is a platform for tracking physical assets — equipment, devices, tools, vehicles, props, inventory. It's built for teams that need to know what they have, where it is, and who's using it. Organizations use Shelf to manage thousands of assets across locations with role based access for their teams. Features QR asset tags — Generate and print QR codes. Scan with any phone to view, check out, or report an asset. Bookings and reservations — Schedule equipment, prevent double bookings, set…
read the full Shelf overview →
About bomber
bomber is an application that scans SBOMs for security vulnerabilities. Overview So you've asked a vendor for an Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) for one of their closed source products, and they provided one to you in a JSON file... now what? The first thing you're going to want to do is see if any of the components listed inside the SBOM have security vulnerabilities, and what kind of licenses these components have. This will help you identify what kind of risk you will be taking on by using the product. Finding security vulnerabilities and license information for components identified in a SBOM is exactly…
read the full bomber overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Shelf or bomber more popular?
Shelf has 3,049 GitHub stars and bomber has 628. Shelf has the larger community by that measure.
Are Shelf and bomber free?
Both are open source. Shelf has no licence declared in this registry, and bomber is licensed under MPL-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Shelf and bomber?
Shelf is written in TypeScript and bomber in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Shelf or bomber?
Choose Shelf if you want the larger community (3,049 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose bomber if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.