head to head · open source
Shelf vs samarium
Shelf has 3,014 GitHub stars, 367 forks, 181 open issues and last shipped yesterday. samarium has 505 stars, 85 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Shelf leads on adoption by 497% (3,014 vs 505 stars). Shelf is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; samarium is written in Blade under MIT. Shelf has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, samarium 17%. 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 | samarium | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 3.0K | ★ 505 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Blade |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-05-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 367 | ⑂ 85 |
| 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 AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick samarium if
- You want the samarium feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Blade
- You evaluated both and samarium fits your workflow better
About Shelf
Shelf is a free, open source platform for tracking physical assets, including equipment, devices, tools, vehicles, props, and inventory. It is built for teams that need to know what they have, where it is, and who is using it. The project sits in the IT asset management, equipment management, scheduling, and operations software ecosystem.
read the full Shelf overview →
About samarium
Samarium is an MIT licensed, Laravel based open source business management system that bundles basic ERP, point of sale, invoicing, and CMS functions into a single self hosted application, aimed at small businesses that need simple operations tooling without enterprise cost or complexity.
read the full samarium overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Shelf or samarium more popular?
Shelf has 3,014 GitHub stars and samarium has 505. Shelf has the larger community by that measure.
Are Shelf and samarium free?
Both are open source. Shelf is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and samarium under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Shelf and samarium?
Shelf is written in TypeScript and samarium in Blade. 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 samarium?
Choose Shelf if you want the larger community (3,014 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose samarium if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.