IT Operations
IT Asset Management Tools Compared
The ITAM tools teams use to track hardware, software and licences — compared on discovery, lifecycle, licence compliance, integration and cost.
Most IT asset registers are a spreadsheet that was accurate on the day it was made. The value of an ITAM tool is not storage — it is discovery and lifecycle, so the register stays true without anyone maintaining it by hand.
Basics
What IT asset management tools do
An ITAM tool keeps a live, trustworthy answer to four questions: what do we own, where is it, who has it, and what does it cost us. That answer is also a compliance control — ISO 27001 expects an inventory of assets, and it is one of the first pieces of evidence any auditor requests.
- Discovery — find devices automatically via agents or network scanning instead of manual entry
- Hardware inventory — model, serial, specification, warranty and location
- Software inventory — what is installed where, and which versions
- Assignment — who has which device, and since when
- Lifecycle — procurement, deployment, maintenance, transfer, retirement and disposal — the full asset lifecycle
- Licence management — entitlements vs actual installs, renewal dates, compliance exposure
- Reporting — spend, age profile, warranty expiry and refresh planning
The options
The main IT asset management tools, one by one
These are the tools that actually turn up in ITAM deployments, from free open-source registers to enterprise CMDB suites. For each: what it is genuinely good at, where it falls short, and who it fits.
Snipe-IT
Snipe-IT is the most popular open-source asset register: clean, focused, and built around the core loop of check-out, check-in and audit. Hardware, accessories, consumables and licences are tracked against people and locations, with a REST API for everything.
Strengths: free to self-host, genuinely pleasant to use, quick to deploy, active development and community, barcode/label support for physical audits. Limits: discovery is limited — it expects data in, via CSV, API or integrations, so register accuracy depends on your process discipline; and it deliberately does not try to be a ticketing system or monitoring tool. Who it fits: teams that want straightforward hardware tracking and assignment without a platform project. Pricing: free, open source, self-hosted; the vendor offers paid hosting — published price varies, check vendor.
GLPI
GLPI is the open-source workhorse that combines asset management with a full ticketing system: inventory, financials, contracts and warranties on one side, helpdesk with SLAs on the other, plus inventory collection from devices via the GLPI Agent.
Strengths: exceptional value — assets, agent-based inventory and ticketing for free; mature, widely deployed, strong plugin ecosystem. Limits: the UI feels dated next to modern SaaS, and self-hosting means upgrades, backups and tuning are your job. Who it fits: cost-conscious teams that want assets and helpdesk in one self-hosted tool and can live with the interface. Pricing: free, open source, self-hosted; the project's cloud and support subscriptions are separate — published price varies, check vendor.
Lansweeper
Lansweeper's speciality is discovery: agentless network scanning that finds devices you did not know you had — workstations, servers, network gear, printers, IoT — and inventories their hardware and software in depth, with optional agents for roaming machines.
Strengths: best-in-class at answering 'what is actually on our network', deep Windows detail, and its data is often exported to feed other systems. Limits: it is discovery-and-inventory first — assignment workflows, procurement and lifecycle process are thinner than dedicated registers, so many teams pair it with one. Who it fits: anyone whose main problem is unknown estate — audits, mergers, inherited networks. Pricing: subscription by asset count with a free tier for small networks historically — published price varies, check vendor.
ServiceNow ITAM
ServiceNow ITAM is the enterprise option: hardware and software asset management built on the same platform as its CMDB and ITSM suite, with discovery via ServiceNow's own tooling, deep software licence management, and workflow automation across the whole estate.
Strengths: genuine enterprise depth — normalised software catalogues, licence position calculations, contract and vendor management — and native integration with change and incident processes. Limits: enterprise cost and enterprise implementation effort; this is a programme with consultants, not an afternoon install, and it is oversized for small and mid-size teams. Who it fits: large organisations already on ServiceNow or committed to a full ITSM platform. Pricing: enterprise subscription — published price varies, check vendor.
Asset Panda
Asset Panda is a flexible, mobile-first asset tracking platform: highly configurable records, barcode and QR scanning from phones, and workflows that adapt to tracking anything — which is why it is often used beyond IT for tools, vehicles and equipment.
Strengths: configurability and the mobile scanning experience; non-IT departments can share the same system. Limits: it is a register, not a discovery tool — data accuracy depends on your scanning and update discipline — and IT-specific depth such as software inventory and licence reconciliation is not the focus. Who it fits: organisations tracking physical assets across departments, with IT as one of several users. Pricing: subscription by asset count — published price varies, check vendor.
ManageEngine AssetExplorer
ManageEngine AssetExplorer is mid-market ITAM with both agent-based and agentless network scanning, software inventory, licence compliance tracking, and purchase-order and contract management — commonly deployed alongside ManageEngine's ServiceDesk Plus.
Strengths: good licence compliance features at mid-market pricing; discovery plus lifecycle in one product; familiar choice in India. Limits: interface and reporting show their age in places, and the deepest value assumes you are in the ManageEngine ecosystem. Who it fits: mid-size teams that want discovery, register and licence tracking without enterprise pricing. Pricing: subscription by asset count and edition — published price varies, check vendor.
Infronest
Disclosure: Infronest is our own product. We include it because it genuinely competes in this category; evaluate it with the same criteria as every other tool.
Infronest's asset management covers hardware and software inventory, assignment, purchase requests and approvals, transfers, maintenance records, warranty alerts and licence tracking — inside a platform that also runs device management, monitoring and the helpdesk that raises tickets against those assets. Devices enrolled in MDM populate the register automatically instead of being typed in twice.
Strengths: one record per device shared by assets, MDM, monitoring and tickets — the integration most ITAM deployments end up building by hand; lifecycle workflows from purchase request to disposal. Limits: agentless network discovery of unmanaged gear is not its speciality — the register is strongest for devices under management — and if you only want a standalone register, a platform is more than you need. Who it fits: teams that want the asset register connected to the rest of IT operations rather than parallel to it. Pricing and trial details are on the asset management service page.
At a glance
IT asset management tools compared
The table condenses the sections above. Editions and coverage change, so verify the row you shortlist against the vendor's current documentation.
IT asset management tools at a glance
| Tool | Licence | Discovery | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Snipe-IT | Free, open source | Limited — expects data in | Straightforward hardware tracking and assignment |
| GLPI | Free, open source | Agent-based inventory | Assets plus ticketing in one free tool |
| Lansweeper | Commercial | Agentless network scanning (strong) | Finding what you did not know you had |
| ServiceNow ITAM | Commercial, enterprise | Via ServiceNow Discovery | Enterprise CMDB and licence management |
| Asset Panda | Commercial | Limited — register-first | Flexible, mobile tracking beyond IT |
| ManageEngine AssetExplorer | Commercial | Agent and network scanning | Mid-market ITAM with licence compliance |
| Infronest | Commercial | Agent-based via MDM enrolment | Assets connected to helpdesk, MDM and monitoring |
The dividing line
Manual registers vs automatic discovery
Tools split into two groups: those that store what you tell them, and those that find things themselves. Snipe-IT and Asset Panda are excellent registers but rely on your data discipline. Lansweeper and agent-based platforms discover devices and software automatically.
If your main problem is 'we do not know what we own', buy discovery. If it is 'we know what we own but cannot track who has it', a register is enough.
Most estates eventually want both: discovery to keep the register honest, and register workflows to make the discovered data useful. That is worth deciding before you buy, because bolting discovery onto a register (or workflows onto a scanner) usually means a second product and an integration to maintain.
How to choose an ITAM tool
Shortlist against your actual failure mode, not against feature lists. Five checks separate a register that stays accurate from one that decays into last year's spreadsheet.
- Name your problem first — unknown estate needs discovery; untracked assignment needs a register with check-out workflows.
- Check how data gets in continuously: agents, network scans, MDM sync or CSV imports. Whatever requires a human to remember will stop happening.
- Verify integration with your helpdesk — tickets raised against assets is the single most useful join in IT operations.
- If software spend matters, test licence reconciliation on your real data — entitlements versus installs, not purchase orders.
- Ask what disposal looks like: retired-not-deleted records, wipe evidence and disposal dates are what auditors ask for.
Do not ignore software licence management
Licence tracking is where ITAM pays for itself in cash rather than tidiness: the two failure modes — paying for seats nobody uses, and being caught under-licensed in a vendor audit — are both expensive, and both invisible without entitlement-versus-install reconciliation.
- Over-deployment is a real financial risk — audits from major vendors are expensive
- Under-use is equally wasteful — paid seats nobody has opened in six months
- Track entitlements against actual installs, not against purchase orders
- Set renewal alerts at least 60 days out, so renegotiation is possible
- Keep licence records linked to the assets they are installed on
Infronest
Conclusion
Infronest's IT asset management covers hardware and software inventory, assignment, requests, transfers, maintenance, warranty alerts and licence tracking — in the same tenant-isolated workspace as device management, monitoring and the helpdesk. Devices enrolled in MDM populate the asset register automatically instead of being typed in twice, and the asset lifecycle runs on one record from purchase order to disposal.
Start a 14-day free trial at infronest.com — no credit card required.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the best free IT asset management tool?
- Snipe-IT for clean hardware tracking and assignment, or GLPI if you also want ticketing and agent-based inventory in the same tool. Both are open source; you provide the hosting and maintenance.
- What is the difference between ITAM and CMDB?
- ITAM tracks assets as things you own — cost, ownership, warranty and lifecycle, with a financial emphasis. A CMDB tracks configuration items and, crucially, the relationships between them, to support impact analysis and change management. They overlap but answer different questions.
- Do we need asset management if we already have MDM?
- MDM knows about managed devices. Asset management also covers what MDM cannot enrol — monitors, network gear, printers, spares in storage — plus procurement, cost, warranty and disposal. The strongest setup is both, sharing one record per device.
- How does IT asset discovery work?
- Two ways: network scanning, where a tool sweeps your IP ranges and interrogates what answers (agentless — great for finding unknown devices, blind to machines off the network), and agents, where installed software reports each device's hardware and software wherever it is (great for roaming laptops, only covers machines you enrolled). Mature estates use both.
- How much does IT asset management software cost?
- Open-source options (Snipe-IT, GLPI) are free to self-host, costing server time and maintenance instead. Commercial tools price as subscriptions by asset count and edition, from mid-market products to enterprise suites like ServiceNow. Published prices vary by vendor and scale — quote against your real asset count, and include the cost of the discovery capability you need.
- Is a spreadsheet enough for IT asset management?
- Up to a few dozen assets, honestly, yes — if one disciplined person owns it. Beyond that it fails predictably: no discovery, so unknown devices stay unknown; no history, so transfers and disposals vanish; and no links to tickets, warranties or licences. The spreadsheet is accurate on the day it is made and decays from there.
- What is the difference between ITAM and ITSM?
- ITAM manages the things — hardware, software, licences, their costs and lifecycle. ITSM manages the work — incidents, requests, changes and the processes around them. They meet constantly (a ticket is about a device; a change touches an asset), which is why tools increasingly combine them or integrate tightly.