Grocy

TAS Score: S3/3 — D5/5 — A3 / T2

Brief Description

Self-hosted grocery and household management. Track pantry inventory, manage shopping lists, plan meals, monitor expiration dates, manage chores, and track batteries/equipment. An ERP for your home.

Architectural Role

Applications/household layer: replaces scattered shopping lists, fridge notes, and mental tracking of what you have and what you need. Barcode scanning support for quick inventory management.

Technical Autonomy

✅ Works without internet (all data local)
✅ Stores data locally (SQLite)
✅ Does not require external accounts
✅ Allows data export (API, database backup)
✅ Barcode lookup works offline with local database

Philosophical Assessment (whose.world criteria)

Criterion	Status	Comments
Pause	✅	Stop container, all data stays.
Exit	✅	SQLite database. Full API for extraction.
Recoverability	✅	Copy SQLite file. Simple backup.
Visibility	✅	MIT license. PHP codebase.
External Dependencies	✅	Fully self-contained.

Configuration (Minimal)

services:
  grocy:
    image: linuxserver/grocy
    container_name: grocy
    ports:
      - "9283:80"
    volumes:
      - ./data/grocy:/config
    environment:
      - TZ=UTC
    restart: unless-stopped

Family Cloud — add Grocy for household management

Alternatives

Alternative	Autonomy	Notes
Mealie	A3 / T2	Recipe-focused. Grocy is broader (inventory, chores, equipment).
Tandoor Recipes	A3 / T2	Recipes only. More polished meal planning.
AnyList	A0 / T0	Cloud-only, proprietary shopping list app.
OurGroceries	A0 / T0	Cloud-only, proprietary.

Trajectory

Direction: stable.

Grocy has been consistently maintained since 2017 by a single dedicated developer. MIT licensed, regular releases, no commercialization. The household ERP niche has few competitors.

Signal assessment:

Signal	Status	Evidence
License	✅	MIT, unchanged.
Feature gating	✅	No paid tier.
Self-hosting	✅	Docker via linuxserver.io, native PHP.
Governance	⚠️	Single developer (berrnd). Bus factor = 1.

Signal key: ✅ opening · ➖ neutral · ⚠️ closing

Sources

Website: grocy.info
Repository: github.com/grocy/grocy
Docker image: linuxserver/grocy