DCIM & IPAM
NetBox vs Obelinf
Self-hosted DCIM/IPAM vs managed infrastructure documentation
NetBox is the self-hosted standard for DCIM and IPAM. Obelinf covers the core infrastructure modeling workflow as a managed SaaS platform with no servers, upgrades, or maintenance.
Nothing to deploy. Live in minutes.
NetBox is a Django application that depends on PostgreSQL for storage, Redis for caching, Celery with a Redis broker for background tasks, and a reverse proxy like Nginx in front. That is four or five services just to support one tool.
Each component needs configuration, monitoring, updates, and occasional troubleshooting. Upgrades mean coordinating migrations and service restarts across all of them, which is exactly why so many teams run outdated NetBox versions: they are afraid of breaking the stack.
A source of truth your team will actually use.
NetBox uses a traditional server-rendered interface optimized for flexibility and extensibility. Teams looking for a more application-style workflow with faster navigation and search may prefer a modern SaaS interface.
This matters more than it sounds. When a source of truth is painful to use, people stop updating it, and the data goes stale. A stale source of truth is worse than no source of truth, because nobody trusts it and nobody checks it.
Real isolation, not naming conventions.
NetBox permissions are instance-based. Teams sharing one NetBox installation typically need careful permission design and naming conventions to separate ownership boundaries.
Obelinf treats organizations as first-class citizens. Data boundaries are enforced at the database level, so each team sees only what it should, and nobody needs a naming scheme to keep things apart.
Every change, recorded automatically.
NetBox logs some activity, but the coverage is partial and you have to configure and maintain it for it to be useful for audit purposes. When something changed and who changed it becomes a question, the answer is not always there.
Obelinf's changelog records every create, update, and delete with the user, timestamp, and field-level diffs, with no configuration and no extra tooling. It is always on, always complete, and always available.
Automation as a first-class citizen.
NetBox provides a mature REST API. However, teams extending NetBox heavily through plugins and custom models may need additional integration work to maintain consistent automation workflows.
Obelinf's REST API covers the entire data model with consistent patterns for pagination, filtering, sorting, and search on every endpoint. On top of that, a Model Context Protocol server exposes the same data to AI agents, which NetBox has no equivalent for.
Predictable pricing. No infrastructure bill.
NetBox itself 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. For a small or mid-size team, that operational cost routinely exceeds what a managed subscription costs.
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 NetBox?
NetBox is still the better choice if:
- You want maximum customization
- You prefer open-source ownership
- You have engineers comfortable maintaining infrastructure
- You rely heavily on NetBox plugins
Obelinf is a better fit if:
- You want SaaS deployment
- You need collaboration across teams
- You want automatic updates and backups
- You want AI-ready APIs
Moving from NetBox to Obelinf
Use the NetBox API to pull your devices, IP addresses, subnets, racks, sites, and cables. Because both tools model the same domain relationally, the mapping is straightforward.
Bring the data in through the REST API or CSV import. Verify counts match before you point anything at the new system.
Set up your organization and assign roles so everyone lands with the right permissions from day one, no naming conventions required.
There is no infrastructure to deploy, so the switch is immediate. Your team gets a modern interface, automatic changelogs, and search across everything.