Updated August 2026
    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    2.7k

    Spoolman: Maintenance, Licence and Alternatives

    Keep track of your inventory of 3D-printer filament spools.

    TL;DR • Spoolman • as of August 2026

    Spoolman is an open-source inventory management project, with 2.7k GitHub stars and a health score of 75/100. It committed 442 times in the last twelve months across 5 of those months, and its status is actively maintained. Licence: MIT. It has real momentum, so treat it as a live competitor rather than a stale repository.

    2.7k
    GitHub stars
    75/100
    Health score
    442
    Commits (12 mo)
    5/12
    Active months

    Maintenance health

    Status Actively maintained — Committed within the last 45 days.
    Last commit 2026-08-14
    Days since last commit 3
    Commits, last 3 months 373
    Commits, last 12 months 442
    Months with activity 5 of 12
    Last release 2026-08-07
    Archived No
    Licence MIT
    Category Inventory Management

    Health score combines commit recency, twelve-month commit volume, months with activity, release recency and archive state. Metadata refreshed August 2026.

    What the licence lets you do

    MIT

    Permissive (MIT, Apache, BSD): you can fork it, close the source and sell it. Lowest legal friction for a commercial product.

    This matters most when you plan to sell a hosted version. A permissive licence means anyone — including a competitor with more capital — can do the same, so your defensibility has to come from distribution, support or data, not from the code.

    What Spoolman means for your idea

    Spoolman is shipping code consistently, so a buyer comparing your product will find a maintained free option. Price and position against the total cost of self-hosting it, not against the paid incumbent's list price.

    The clearest opening in the dataset. Low open-source competition usually means either a genuinely underserved need or a market too small to attract volunteers — validate demand before assuming the former.

    Spoolman: common questions

    Is Spoolman still maintained in 2026?

    Actively maintained. Spoolman recorded 442 commits over the last twelve months, with activity in 5 of those months and 373 commits in the last quarter. Last commit: 2026-08-14. Last release: 2026-08-07. Committed within the last 45 days.

    Can I use Spoolman commercially?

    Spoolman is published under MIT. Permissive (MIT, Apache, BSD): you can fork it, close the source and sell it. Lowest legal friction for a commercial product.

    How crowded is the Inventory Management category?

    9 open-source implementations, 5 of them actively maintained, led by Inventree at 7.4k stars. Saturation score 30/100 — Open. Thin or poorly maintained open-source coverage.

    Spoolman alternatives in Inventory Management

    Inventree

    Inventory Management

    7.4k

    Inventory management system which provides intuitive parts management and stock control.

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    MIT

    Shelf

    Inventory Management

    3.0k

    Asset and equipment tracking software used by teams who value clarity. Shelf is an asset database and QR asset label generator that lets you create, manage and overview your assets across locations. U

    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    AGPL-3.0

    DVinyl

    Inventory Management

    183

    Modern collection manager for physical media (vinyls, CDs, cassettes, books, movies, and video games).

    Actively maintained
    MIT

    Open QuarterMaster

    Inventory Management

    73

    Powerful inventory management system, designed to be flexible and scalable.

    Actively maintained
    GPL-3.0

    Competing with free? Check the market first.

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