Comparison

Reftab vs Shelf

Reftab lands on Worth it, and Shelf lands on Depends.

Reftab

Worth it

Confidence: Medium

Buy if you're a small-to-mid IT team, school, or university needing affordable asset tracking with check-in/check-out.

Depends

Confidence: Medium

Buy if your team needs free, open-source tracking for shared equipment and can apply security patches promptly.

Reftab versus Shelf
Compare	Reftab	Shelf
Verdict	Worth it	Depends
Best for	Small-to-mid IT departments	Teams lending shared equipment
Who it's not for	Teams wanting a bundled help desk	Anyone whose gear list fits a spreadsheet
Privacy	No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.^⁸	Two 2026 CVEs reported against Shelf-nu (SSRF and incorrect authorization); vendor also publishes a security page.
Support quality	No direct support evidence found	No support evidence in sources
Public sentiment	IT admins on Reddit largely praise Reftab's configurability and reliability, Capterra rates it 4.7/5, with rare complaints like a boss unhappy with the tool.^¹	The only product-specific review source found was G2's Shelf Asset Management listing, with truncated but positive-toned snippets.¹⁵
Biggest gotcha	Starter runs $37.50/mo (~$31 annual); verify asset and seat limits before committing^⁶	CVE-2026-54166: SSRF via asset tracking/CSV import . update before exposing imports