DCIM & Assets
Ralph vs Obelinf
Self-hosted DCIM and asset lifecycle vs managed infrastructure documentation
Ralph is a free, self-hosted DCIM and asset management platform originally built for large-scale infrastructure operations. Obelinf is a managed infrastructure source of truth focused on network, physical, and logical infrastructure documentation.
The stack you do not maintain.
Ralph is a Django application that you deploy and operate yourself, with MySQL or PostgreSQL, Redis, and Celery behind it. You handle upgrades, patching, backups, and troubleshooting.
Obelinf is a managed platform. There is no application stack to deploy, no database to back up, and no Celery queue to babysit. You sign up in a browser and start documenting.
Ralph's core strength: assets, not networks.
Ralph grew out of asset lifecycle management: purchases, licenses, support contracts, cost centers, and back-office procurement. That is its home turf, and it does it well.
Obelinf focuses on the network layer: devices, interfaces, IPs, cables, circuits, and topology. If your problem is tracking hardware procurement and license compliance, Ralph may still be the better tool. If your problem is keeping infrastructure knowledge accurate, Obelinf is built for that.
Who should choose Ralph?
Ralph is still the better choice if:
- You need deep IT asset lifecycle management
- You track procurement, licenses, and support contracts
- You have engineers comfortable maintaining a Django stack
- You want maximum customization
Obelinf is a better fit if:
- You want SaaS deployment
- You need network topology and cable tracking
- You want automatic updates and backups
- You need multi-tenant org isolation and team roles
Documentation your team will actually use.
Ralph's workflows are optimized around asset management operations, which can feel different from a modern daily-use documentation workflow.
Obelinf is built for daily use: a command palette jumps to any entity type, full-text search works across every entity and attribute, and connected results show the full context of what you are looking for.
Infrastructure relationships beyond assets.
Ralph tracks racks and assets, but cable tracing and interactive topology visualization are not part of its core feature set.
Obelinf renders cables and circuits as edges between devices in an interactive diagram, so the physical topology is visible at a glance.
Every change, recorded automatically.
Ralph provides activity tracking around asset workflows. Obelinf provides a unified audit trail across infrastructure objects, with field-level diffs for every change.
Obelinf's changelog is always on: every create, update, and delete is recorded with the user, timestamp, and field-level diffs, with no configuration and no extra tooling.
Predictable pricing. No infrastructure bill.
Ralph itself is free under the Apache 2.0 license, but you operate it: the Django stack, database, Redis, Celery, and the engineering time to keep them upgraded. Ralph is primarily designed as a self-hosted platform.
Obelinf starts with a free Personal plan for homelabs and small setups, with paid plans at $99 and $299 per month for teams. No per-user or per-device scaling means growth does not mean surprise bills.
Moving from Ralph to Obelinf
Use the Ralph REST API to pull your assets, racks, networks, and IP addresses, then map them into Obelinf's infrastructure model.
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.
There is no infrastructure to deploy, so the switch is immediate. Your team gets a modern interface, automatic changelogs, and search across everything.