Comparison · Inventory
Most small businesses don't need warehouse software. They need to know what they have, where it is, and when it's running out - and they need it on a phone. This compares the tools that do that well, and is honest about the point where an inventory tool stops being the answer.
Disclosure: Chromoly is our own product. It appears on this list because it genuinely fits some of these jobs - and we've written a plain "don't pick us if..." line for the cases where it doesn't. Prices aren't quoted anywhere on this page: they change constantly and stale numbers help nobody. Every tool links to its own pricing.
Best for: the clearest starting point for simple stock tracking
Lightweight and mobile-first, with item records, folders and categories, barcode and QR scanning, photos, custom fields, imports and user permissions. If your job is genuinely "track items, quantities and locations", this is usually where to start and often where to stop.
Where it falls down: it tracks things well; it doesn't run processes around them.
Best for: simple real-time stock visibility across phone and desktop
Deliberately uncomplicated, aimed at teams escaping spreadsheets who want live counts without a legacy inventory system's overhead.
Where it falls down: same ceiling - simplicity is the product, so complex rules aren't.
Best for: ease of use with more depth than the lightweight apps
Consistently praised first for its interface, while carrying more order-management capability than the simplest trackers.
Where it falls down: more product than a very small team needs if all they do is count.
Best for: makers and small manufacturers
Built around materials, recipes and cost-of-goods rather than finished-item counts, which is the right model if you make what you sell.
Where it falls down: that focus is the point - outside making, it's the wrong shape.
Best for: businesses already inside the Zoho ecosystem
Sensible when your accounting and CRM already live there and you want inventory in the same family.
Where it falls down: less compelling on its own merits if you don't use the rest.
Best for: when inventory is one part of a bigger operation
The right call when the tracking isn't the hard part - equipment issued to staff or client sites, stock that must trigger a purchase approval, items tied to jobs or projects, or rules no product has a field for. You describe what you track and what should happen, and get a system that holds the inventory alongside the rest of the operation. See the inventory build or asset and equipment tracking.
Don't pick us if: you need a warehouse-grade mobile scanning experience. Sortly and inFlow have spent years on that and we haven't - buy the app that does it well.
Buy an inventory tool when the question is what do we have and where is it. That's a solved problem, cheaply.
Build a system when inventory has to participate in a process - approvals, jobs, client sites, sign-outs - or stay in step with records you keep elsewhere. The tell is a spreadsheet living next to the inventory app to hold the part the app can't.
Lightweight mobile-first tools like Sortly, BoxHero or inFlow - items, quantities, locations, photos, phone barcode scanning, running the same day.
When tracking isn't the hard part: low stock triggering approvals, items moving through sign-offs, different teams needing different views, or inventory that must stay in step with jobs and client records.
Until two people edit at once, or you need to know what changed and who changed it. A spreadsheet also can't notify anyone, enforce visibility, or prevent a negative count.
Only when what you track is genuinely unusual, or when inventory is one part of a larger system you need anyway. If a mobile barcode app covers it, buy the app.
Describe what you track and what should happen. Working preview - free tier, no credit card.
Start free →Custom fields · approvals and workflows · maintained for life