One manages the stockroom. The other answers "who has what".
Snipe-IT is asset management, and a very good one: hardware checked in and out against people, labels printed, depreciation calculated, audits run. MunkiWho is a directory — people, the groups they are in, the folders those groups can reach, the licences and hardware they hold — with an asset register attached rather than at the centre.
They overlap on one screen and diverge everywhere else, so this page starts by telling you when to buy the other one.
- Hardware physically moves between people and you need a check-out and return trail.
- You print asset labels and scan them, or want a purchase-to-disposal lifecycle with depreciation.
- Accessories and consumables — chargers, toner, docks — need counting as well as devices.
- You run periodic audits and need a workflow that records who confirmed what, and when.
- You want it open source, self-hosted, and free.
- The question is "what can this person reach, and why?" — folders, groups, mailboxes — not "which laptop do they have".
- You want one place for people, groups, permissions, licences and hardware, rather than one tool per noun.
- Onboarding and offboarding need a checklist that knows who the person is.
- An AI assistant should be able to answer "who can reach the Payroll folder?" from the record.
- Your hardware list is a few hundred machines assigned to people, and a register with a maintenance log is enough.
What each one keeps track of
Green means it does it; red means it does not; amber means partly, with the caveat in the cell. A capability the other product has is a fact about it, not a mark against it.
| Capability | MunkiWho | Snipe-IT |
|---|---|---|
| Asset register | Yes Type, assignee, maintenance log. Your own device types. | Yes — the core |
| Check-out and return, with history | No An asset is assigned to a person; reassigning it is an edit, not a transaction. | Yes |
| Labels, barcodes, QR codes | No | Yes |
| Depreciation and purchase lifecycle | No | Yes |
| Accessories and consumables | No | Yes |
| Software licences with seats and expiry | Yes Assigned to people, with categories. | Yes |
| Groups with nested membership | Yes Security, M365, distribution, shared mailbox. | Groups for its own permissions |
| Folder permissions and "who can access this?" | Yes Resolved through membership, denies reported separately. | No |
| Onboarding and offboarding checklists | Yes | No |
| Knowledge base | Yes | No |
| Password generation and one-time links | Yes — MunkiKey | No |
| MCP server for AI assistants | Yes, read-only | No |
| Directory sync from AD or Microsoft 365 | Not today Typed or imported from CSV. On the roadmap. | LDAP sync of people |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes — open source |
| Priced by | Directory size, unlimited logins | Free self-hosted; hosted tiers |
The centre of gravity is different
In Snipe-IT the asset is the record and people are what assets get assigned to. In MunkiWho the person is the record and hardware is one of the things they hold — alongside the groups they are in, the folders those groups reach, the licences in their name and the onboarding steps still open. That is not a subtle difference in emphasis; it decides which questions each tool can answer in one click.
"Which laptop is serial 7F3K assigned to, and who had it before?" is a Snipe-IT question. "Dana is leaving on Friday — what does she have, what can she reach, and what is left to do?" is a MunkiWho question. Most IT teams have both questions; they do not have them equally often.
Permissions are the part nobody else models
A folder in MunkiWho knows where it lives — SharePoint or a file share — and carries allow and deny entries naming people and groups at read, modify or full control. Ask "who can reach this?" and it resolves every entry through group membership, nested groups included, and lists the people once each with the route they came in by. Denies are reported separately, because whether a deny beats an allow depends on which platform the folder is on, and getting that silently wrong is worse than saying "both exist". No asset tool does this because it is not an asset question.
Where Snipe-IT wins, honestly
If hardware moves — a loan pool, a warehouse, a school issuing devices each term — Snipe-IT's check-out model is the right shape and ours is not. Ours records that a laptop is assigned to a person; it does not record that it was handed over on Tuesday, signed for, and returned with a cracked screen. If you print and scan labels, track accessories, calculate depreciation or run formal audits, Snipe-IT does all of that and MunkiWho does none of it.
It is also open source and free to self-host, which for a team that only needs asset tracking is hard to argue with. Buying MunkiWho for its asset register alone would be paying for a directory you then do not use.
Priced by directory size
Unlimited logins on every band. People, groups and assets count; folders, licences and checklists do not. Full pricing →
Try it with your own list
Import people from CSV, add the groups and folders that matter, and see whether "who can reach this?" comes back with the answer you needed.
Get MunkiWhoQuestions people ask before choosing
Can we run both?
Can we import our Snipe-IT assets into MunkiWho?
Does MunkiWho read Active Directory the way Snipe-IT's LDAP sync does?
All of them are on the comparison index, each one opening with the case for the other product.
Comparison reviewed September 2026 against Snipe-IT's publicly available documentation. Snipe-IT is a trademark of its owner and is used here only to identify the product being compared; MunkiWho is not affiliated with or endorsed by them. Products change — verify anything that matters to your decision on the vendor's own site, and tell us if something here has gone out of date.
Stop guessing who has what.
Set it up in an afternoon, import what you already have, and have an answer next time somebody asks.