Comparison
InvGate Asset Management vs Sortly
Two tools districts shortlist for device tracking and IT operations, compared the way a buying committee actually reads them: what each is, what each does well, and what to check before signing. We build Chalk, a third option in this space — that context is worth knowing as you read, and it is why every claim below carries its basis.
InvGate Asset Management
A serious corporate ITAM platform with real discovery, a CMDB, and an on-premises option — priced per networked device, which is the worst possible meter for a 1:1 district.
Where InvGate Asset Management is strong
- Genuinely strong automated discovery — a lightweight agent, agentless network scanning, integrations, and bulk import covering hardware, servers, containers, databases, and cloud services.
- A real CMDB with automatic relationship discovery and assisted dependency mapping.
- A deep integration catalog: Intune, Jamf, SCCM, Active Directory, Entra ID, Okta, AWS, Azure, VMware, ServiceNow CMDB, Jira Service Management, Zendesk, Slack, Teams, and remote-access tools, plus a documented REST API.
- A genuine on-premises option on Windows Server or RHEL with your choice of database, including support for air-gapped operation — unusual in this category.
- Google Workspace integration that imports ChromeOS devices and users, so Chromebooks do land in the inventory automatically.
- Software asset management with license optimization, metering, deployment, and compliance.
What to check before you buy
Pricing is per networked device per year, so cost scales directly with fleet size. A district with one Chromebook per student is quoted on the single number it has most of, which is the opposite of a per-technician model.
Basis: InvGate's published pricing page prices Pro per IP device per year and defines an IP device as any asset connected to a network with an IP address.
Ticketing is a different product. InvGate Asset Management is ITAM only; a help desk means separately licensing InvGate Service Management, which is a second contract and a second bill.
Basis: InvGate sells Asset Management and Service Management as two separately licensed products and describes the ITAM platform as functioning standalone.
No SIS or rostering integration — no OneRoster, Clever, ClassLink, or PowerSchool. The identity sources in the integration catalog are corporate directories only.
Basis: InvGate's full published integration list names Active Directory, Entra ID, Okta, Google Workspace, and cloud platforms; no education system appears.
No student or guardian concepts. Asset owners are users and employees, with no enrollment, grade, guardian relationship, or reaction to a mid-year transfer.
Basis: The product's lifecycle and ownership model is employee framed; the vendor's named customers are manufacturing, utilities, aerospace, retail, and insurance.
No 1:1 device circulation loop — no due dates on a student's device, no overdue workflow, no e-signed parent agreement, no loaner pool, and no lost or stolen lifecycle. The lifecycle modelled is procurement, assignment, and disposal.
Basis: Absent from InvGate's asset lifecycle documentation, which is corporate IT framed.
No funding-source or grant tracking — no way to attribute devices to ESSER, Title, or E-Rate money for reporting.
Basis: No grant or funding-source dimension appears in the product documentation.
ChromeOS support is import only. Chromebooks and users come in from Google Workspace; nothing writes back — no OU moves, no disable, no annotated fields.
Basis: InvGate documents the Google Workspace integration as importing users, ChromeOS devices, and organizational data; no write-back is claimed.
It consumes SSO but is not an identity provider — Okta and Entra ID appear as identity sources it reads, not identity it issues.
Basis: InvGate is configured as a service provider against an external IdP; it is not listed as issuing SAML or OIDC.
Sortly
The friendliest inventory app in this comparison and the easiest to actually start using — built for supply closets and job sites, priced by how many items you have, which is exactly the wrong meter for a 1:1 fleet.
Where Sortly is strong
- Every price is on the page, including a genuinely free tier, with no demo gate anywhere in the funnel.
- The lowest adoption cost in this comparison by a distance: folders, tags, photos and custom fields, usable by a building secretary in an afternoon without an IT project behind it.
- Strong mobile — iOS and Android with offline access, barcode and QR scanning, and label generation from inside the same app, so counting is a phone job rather than a scanner-hardware purchase.
- Alerting that fits consumables well: low stock alerts for reordering and date-based alerts for maintenance and repair schedules, with in-app and email notification.
- More reporting than the price suggests — activity history, inventory summaries, user activity, low stock and item-flow reports, saved custom reports, and report subscriptions delivered on a schedule.
- Real integration surface for a product this simple: webhooks, an API, QuickBooks Online, and Slack and Microsoft Teams notifications, plus purchase orders, pick lists, and check-in and check-out.
What to check before you buy
Pricing meters unique items, and a 1:1 district's item count is its student count. At 5,000 items the published tier is $299 per month, and anything past 10,000 items is Enterprise quote-only — a mid-sized district is off the published ladder on device count alone.
Basis: Vendor pricing page item limits: 100 free, 500 Advanced, 2,000 Ultra, 5,000 Premium, 10,000+ Enterprise.
User licenses are metered too, and tightly: 1 user free, 2 on Advanced, 5 on Ultra, 8 on Premium. A technician team plus building staff crosses into Enterprise quickly.
Basis: Vendor pricing page user-license limits per tier.
No help desk or ticketing of any kind. A district running Sortly still buys a service desk somewhere else, and the two never see each other.
Basis: Absent from the vendor's published feature list, which covers inventory, alerts, reporting and integrations.
No MDM or device integrations at all. The published integration list is QuickBooks Online, Slack, Microsoft Teams, webhooks and an API — so ChromeOS, Intune and Jamf data is typed or imported, and serials go stale between imports.
Basis: Vendor features page lists no device-management or directory connectors.
No SIS or rostering integration and no student, guardian or enrollment concepts — nothing notices a transfer, a withdrawal or grade rollover.
Basis: Absent from the vendor's feature list and from its industry positioning, which addresses inventory rather than student records.
Check-in and check-out is item custody, not a school-year loan: no due dates on a student device agreement, no e-signature, no damage fee, no family balance and no loaner pool workflow.
Basis: Vendor documents check-in/check-out alongside pick lists and stock tracking, with no agreement or fee concepts published.
It is an inventory product rather than an IT asset lifecycle product — warranty expiry, depreciation, ChromeOS auto-update expiration and refresh planning are not in the published feature set, though generic date-based alerts can approximate some of it.
Basis: Vendor features page covers custom fields, alerts and reports; no warranty, depreciation or lifecycle module is published.
Hosted SaaS only, with no self-hosted option, and no SSO or SAML in the published feature list — so it sits outside your single sign-on estate in both directions.
Basis: No self-host or source distribution is offered on the vendor site, and SSO does not appear on the features or pricing pages.
The third option: Chalk
If you are weighing InvGate Asset Management against Sortly, Chalk belongs on the same shortlist. It is the open-source K-12 IT stack: device inventory that fills itself in from Google Admin, Intune, and Jamf against a roster synced from your SIS, a 1:1 circulation desk with agreements and fees, repairs with parts and costs, a help desk that already knows who is asking, and a built-in SAML/OIDC identity provider.
- Self-host it free forever under AGPL-3.0 — the entire feature set, one binary, your infrastructure — or use the hosted version, priced by fleet size with no per-seat or per-student fees and the price ladder published.
- Built only for K-12: students, buildings, custody, funding sources, and ChromeOS auto-update expiration are native concepts, not custom fields.
- Writes back to Google Admin as a reviewed diff — every OU move, disable, and deprovision previewed before it executes — and serves a OneRoster 1.1 API so other district systems can pull the roster from Chalk.
- Fees are assessed and tracked without touching payment cards, keeping the asset system out of your PCI scope.
See all three on your own roster.
Chalk installs to a populated inventory in about 30 minutes. Self-host free under AGPL-3.0, or let us run it — priced by fleet size, never per seat.