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DeutschThe best open-source license management tools
Open-source license tools fall into two groups. Asset management suites (Snipe-IT, GLPI, iTop and Ralph) keep a register of what you bought: you enter licenses, and they track who has what and when it expires. Two tools read Microsoft 365 directly and find waste on their own: CIPP and LicenseMeter.
When we searched in November 2026 we did not find another maintained open-source project that reads seat data from SaaS vendors' APIs.
Updated 6 November 2026.
How we picked
- Released under an open-source license, with a release or commit in the last 12 months.
- It tracks software licenses, either as records you maintain or by reading them from the source.
- Its own website, documentation or repository says what it does, and cells link to that source where one applies. Where we found nothing, the table says Not stated.
We make LicenseMeter, so weigh its place on this list accordingly. Every other entry is described from its own website, with the gaps we found in LicenseMeter stated as plainly as theirs.
At a glance
Not stated means we could not find it on the vendor's own pages, not that it is missing. Not checked means we did not look into it for that product. Values link to where the claim comes from.
| Feature | LicenseMeter | CIPP | Snipe-IT | GLPI | iTop | Ralph |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finding Microsoft 365 waste | ||||||
| Flags inactive or disabled licensed users | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Not stated |
| Flags purchased but unassigned seats | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Reports unused Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses | Yes | Yes | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated |
| Puts a cost on each finding | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Uses your own contract prices | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partly | Yes |
| Coverage beyond Microsoft 365 | ||||||
| Reads license data from non-Microsoft SaaS | Yes | No | No | Not stated | No | No |
| Tracks contracts and renewals | Yes | Partly | Yes | Yes | Partly | Partly |
| Acting on findings | ||||||
| Removes or reassigns licenses itself | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Deployment and price | ||||||
| Official hosted version | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| IT asset management | ||||||
| Inventories installed software on devices | Partly | Partly | No | Yes | Partly | Not stated |
| Tracks hardware assets | No | Partly | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
1. LicenseMeter
Best for: Finding and pricing unused Microsoft 365 and SaaS seats without keeping a register by hand.
A free, MIT-licensed tool that connects read-only to Microsoft 365, finds disabled, inactive and unassigned paid seats and unused Copilot licenses, prices each finding, and cross-checks a handful of other SaaS tools against Entra ID. Built for Microsoft 365 admins and MSPs who want the waste number without buying a platform.
MIT-licensed. Reads Microsoft 365 plus Adobe, Zoom, Atlassian, Salesforce, OpenAI, Anthropic, ChatGPT and Claude, and prices each finding. It is not an asset register: no hardware, no helpdesk, and it never changes a license itself.
Pricing: Free, including continuous monitoring, with no time limit. Optional hosted plans: Pro at EUR 99 per month and MSP at EUR 299 per month for 10 client tenants. Self-hosted installs include every feature.
License: MIT
2. CIPP
Best for: MSPs managing many Microsoft 365 tenants.
The CyberDrain Improved Partner Portal: a free, AGPL-licensed, multi-tenant Microsoft 365 management portal built for MSPs and Microsoft partners, with a single-tenant mode. Next to user, mailbox, device, standards and security administration, it has a license report, an inactive users report, Copilot usage reports and a License Optimization tab that suggests removals, downgrades, bundles and term changes with estimated monthly savings from an editable price list.
The other open-source tool that reads Microsoft 365 licenses directly, with priced optimization suggestions and the ability to remove licenses. Microsoft 365 only.
- Deeper Microsoft 365 license analysis: downgrade, bundle and monthly-to-yearly term suggestions based on what each person actually used, not only idle seats.
- Removes licenses from the same screen, in bulk, while LicenseMeter only generates a script for your admin to run.
- Multi-tenant by design through GDAP, with broad Microsoft 365 administration (standards and drift, security, Intune, Exchange) in the same tool.
- An active project with frequent releases and an established MSP community.
Pricing: Free to self-host in your own Azure subscription. Hosted CIPP from CyberDrain costs EUR 99 per month.
License: AGPL-3.0 · Last activity: v11.3.0, 2 November 2026
3. Snipe-IT
Best for: A register of hardware and licenses, checked out to people.
A web-based IT asset management system from Grokability. It tracks hardware, software licenses, accessories and consumables, checked out to people, with a REST API, LDAP and SCIM user sync, SSO, and sync adapters for MDM and RMM tools such as Intune and Jamf. Software licenses are entered by hand or CSV, with seat counts, cost and expiry.
The most popular open-source asset register. Licenses are entered by hand, so nothing finds idle seats for you.
- The full hardware asset lifecycle (tags, checkout, depreciation, signed acceptance), which LicenseMeter does not cover.
- A large, long-running community: about 15,000 GitHub stars and translations into more than 55 languages.
- License records hold any vendor's software, including perpetual and on-premises licenses with no API.
Pricing: Free to self-host. Official hosting from USD 39.99 per month.
License: AGPL-3.0 · Last activity: v8.8.3, 22 October 2026
4. GLPI
Best for: A full service desk with hardware and software inventory.
An open-source IT service management suite developed with Teclib': helpdesk, asset management and CMDB, finance and software management in one tool. Licenses record quantity, assignment to computers or users, expiry and cost, and the GLPI Agent fills in installed software automatically.
Its agent sees installed software on every device; Microsoft 365 and SaaS seats are entered by hand.
- Full ITSM: helpdesk, SLAs, service catalog, change and problem management next to assets.
- Agent-based inventory of hardware and installed software on Windows, macOS and Linux.
- License compliance at install level: licenses tie to the computers and people that use them.
Pricing: Free to self-host. GLPI Network Cloud from EUR 19 per IT agent per month.
License: GPL-3.0 · Last activity: 12.0.1, 28 October 2026
5. iTop
Best for: An ITIL service desk with a configurable CMDB.
An open-source ITSM and CMDB application from the French company Combodo. Its data model links software, licenses (usage limit, dates, key) and contracts (cost, currency, billing frequency) to the items that use them, fed by open-source collectors for OCS Inventory, LDAP, Microsoft Graph, Intune and more.
Licenses and contracts live in the CMDB next to everything that uses them. Microsoft Graph and Intune collectors import people and devices, not licenses.
- A configurable CMDB with relationships and impact analysis between applications, servers, devices, licenses and contracts.
- ITIL service management (incidents, requests, changes, problems) in the same tool.
- Commercial support and a hosted version from the vendor, hosted in France.
Pricing: iTop Community is free to self-host. Combodo offers a hosted version including a free tier; paid prices are not published.
License: AGPL-3.0 · Last activity: 3.3.0, 15 September 2026
6. Ralph
Best for: Data center hardware and its licenses.
An asset management, DCIM and CMDB system for data centers and back offices, published by Allegro. It tracks asset purchases and life cycle, data center layouts, support contracts and software licenses with price, expiry and depreciation. Since February 2025 Allegro publishes it on a sources-only basis, without guaranteed answers to issues or pull requests.
Strong on hardware life cycle and data center layouts. Published by Allegro as sources only since 2025.
- Data center management with rack visualization.
- Purchase and life-cycle tracking with invoice and depreciation fields for assets and licenses.
- A permissive Apache-2.0 license.
Pricing: Free to self-host. No official hosted version.
License: Apache-2.0 · Last activity: 20261019.1, 19 October 2026
Spot something wrong or out of date? Every claim on this page renders from one public file, src/lib/compare/roundups/best-open-source-license-management-tools.ts. Open a pull request or email support@ugurlabs.com and we will fix it. Vendors are welcome to correct what we say about them.
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