head to head · open source
Shelf vs Open Mercato
Shelf has 3,049 GitHub stars, 384 forks, 181 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Open Mercato has 1,896 stars, 480 forks, 1,119 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Shelf leads on adoption by 61% (3,049 vs 1,896 stars). Shelf is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Open Mercato is written in TypeScript under MIT. Shelf has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, Open Mercato 25%. Open Mercato 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 | Open Mercato | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 3.0K | ★ 1.9K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 384 | ⑂ 480 |
| 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 Open Mercato if
- You want the Open Mercato feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Open Mercato 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 Open Mercato
Open Mercato Open Mercato the AI Engineering Foundation Framework. AI code assistants generate code. They don't decide where it goes, how it should be layered, or whether it stays consistent across 30 or 50 engineers in the team. Open Mercato is the open source foundation framework that solves it: Architecture aware AI harness agents know where in the project to place code, not just how to write it, they are provided with autonomous skills for everything from adding data table, Design System coherent forms to implementing whole features with unit and integration tests, Spec first development specs ship with the…
read the full Open Mercato overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Shelf or Open Mercato more popular?
Shelf has 3,049 GitHub stars and Open Mercato has 1,896. Shelf has the larger community by that measure.
Are Shelf and Open Mercato free?
Both are open source. Shelf has no licence declared in this registry, and Open Mercato is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Shelf and Open Mercato?
Shelf is written in TypeScript and Open Mercato in TypeScript. 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 Open Mercato?
Choose Shelf if you want the larger community (3,049 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Open Mercato if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.