After spending 12+ years in critical IT operations and infrastructure audits (including airport logistics in Brussels), I noticed a recurring pain point across mid-sized organizations:

Asset tracking is almost always stuck in one of two extremes:

  1. Massive enterprise platforms (ServiceNow, heavy GLPI setups) that require dedicated consultants and months of configuration.
  2. Fragile shared spreadsheets where accidental copy-pastes break tracking, and data falls apart the moment an auditor asks for evidence.

Spreadsheets don't enforce audit trails. They don't model relationships between hardware and configuration items. And during major incidents or compliance audits (like NIS2 or ISO 27001), not knowing who is accountable for an asset costs precious time.

That's why I built Phoenix-Nexus.

What is Phoenix-Nexus?

Phoenix-Nexus is an open-source (AGPL-3.0), lightweight platform that unifies ITAM (Asset Management), CMDB, and SAM (Software Asset Management) into a single self-hosted tool.

Core Capabilities:

  • Hardware Lifecycle: Track check-in / check-out, status transitions (in stock, assigned, maintenance, disposed), and generate printable QR labels.
  • Lightweight CMDB: Configuration items and dependency mapping, fed unidirectionally from inventory to avoid drift between physical stock and topology.
  • Software Asset Management: Track license allocations vs purchased seats, with 90-day renewal warnings.
  • Local-first & Docker-ready: Runs on your private LAN via Docker Compose. Sensitive infrastructure data stays behind your firewall.
  • Trilingual UI: Native support for English, French, and Dutch.

Technical Stack & Deployment

  • Deployment: Docker Compose (local-first)
  • Data model: Strict unidirectional sync (Inventory -> CMDB) to maintain single-source-of-truth integrity.
  • License: GNU Affero General Public License v3 (AGPL-3.0)

Current Status (v0.1.0 Alpha)

This is an early public alpha. The core workflows are fully functional, but we are actively refining it based on field feedback:

  • Secure bulk CSV/Excel import is currently disabled on the public demo while we harden parsing.
  • Upcoming features in v0.2: explicit Asset Owner vs Assigned User roles, and automated Last Seen discovery timestamps for compliance evidence.

Links & Try It Out

If you manage internal IT assets or run infrastructure for an SMB, I'd love your feedback! What's the biggest headache with your current inventory tooling?