Automation Platform
Nautobot vs Obelinf
Automation-focused NetBox-derived platform vs managed infrastructure documentation
Nautobot is a NetBox-derived automation platform with GraphQL, Git integration, and extensibility features. Obelinf takes a different approach: a managed source of truth with no infrastructure to operate.
The same stack, without the stack.
Nautobot uses a similar self-hosted architecture, including PostgreSQL, Redis, and Celery. You manage upgrades across multiple services and troubleshoot failures across the whole stack.
Obelinf is a managed web application. There is nothing to deploy, no database to tune, no task queue to monitor, and no coordinated upgrades to schedule.
A modern interface your team will actually use.
Nautobot improves on NetBox's extensibility and automation capabilities, but teams still operate it through a traditional self-hosted web application.
Obelinf is a modern web application built for speed. A command palette jumps to any entity type, full-text search works across every entity and attribute, and results are connected, so you see the full context of what you are looking for.
Flexible where it counts. Ready where it matters.
Nautobot's plugin framework is its biggest strength: teams can build entire applications on top of the platform, and user-defined relationships model connections NetBox does not support natively.
Obelinf covers the most common plugin use cases natively, including topology diagrams, QR code labels, and VLAN and VRF tracking, so most teams get what they need without writing or maintaining code.
Every change, recorded automatically.
Nautobot provides change tracking, while Obelinf provides an always-on audit experience without additional configuration.
Obelinf's changelog records every create, update, and delete with the user, timestamp, and field-level diffs. It is always on, always complete, and always available.
Automation as a first-class citizen.
Nautobot's GraphQL API and Git-native config contexts are genuinely strong for automation teams.
Obelinf's REST API covers the entire data model with consistent patterns for pagination, filtering, sorting, and search on every endpoint, and an MCP server exposes the same data to AI agents. For most documentation and automation workflows, that covers the ground.
Predictable pricing. No infrastructure to operate.
Nautobot is free under the Apache 2.0 license, but the code is not the product you operate. You pay in servers, storage, backups, monitoring, and the engineering time required to keep PostgreSQL, Redis, and Celery running and upgraded.
Obelinf starts with a free Personal plan for homelabs and small setups, with paid plans at $99 and $299 per month for teams. There is no per-user or per-device scaling, so growth does not mean surprise bills.
Who should choose Nautobot?
Choose Nautobot if you need:
- Custom applications
- User-defined relationships
- Deep automation workflows
Choose Obelinf if you need:
- Ready-made infrastructure documentation
- No plugin maintenance
- Faster adoption
Moving from Nautobot to Obelinf
Pull devices, IP addresses, subnets, racks, and cables through the Nautobot REST API or GraphQL.
Bring the data in through the REST API or CSV import, and verify counts before you switch.
Set up your organization and assign roles so everyone lands with the right permissions from day one.
There is no infrastructure to deploy, so the switch is immediate. Your team gets a modern interface, automatic changelogs, and search across everything.