Open source, supported by the people who wrote it

The software is free. Our time isn't.

Armory Works builds open-source software and makes its living helping people run it. Everything we ship is free to download, self-host, and keep. What we charge for is the work: deployment, integration, training, custom features.

Our flagship is Forge, an MES and ERP for job shops — job cards on the floor, books in the office, one database.

See Forge Try the demo
Forge kanban board with a job moving through production stages
Forge kanban · beta build

None of this is required.

Forge is on GitHub under Apache 2.0. If you can run Docker, you don't need us — and we'd rather say so than take a check for work you could do yourself.

GitHub
Forge is in acceptance testing with live shops. Built in public.
Lead to cash

A name lands. Six weeks later, it's a closed job.

Lead capture, follow-up reminders, quote, sales order, production, shipment, invoice, payment — one stack, one record, one history. No retyping the customer between systems and no losing the lead source by the time the invoice ships.

Forge lead detail dialog showing a new lead with source, owner, and status fields
1 / 6 · Capture

A name lands.

Source captured (referral, web form, trade show), owner assigned, status starts moving. Custom fields for the data your shop tracks.

Forge lead Interactions tab with a timeline of calls, emails, meetings, notes and a follow-up reminder
2 / 6 · Communicate

Every call, email, meeting, note.

Logged against the lead, attributed to the person who made the call. Follow-up reminders that actually fire, on the dashboard the next morning.

Forge lead being promoted to a new draft Quote with the customer pre-populated
3 / 6 · Convert

One click promotes it.

Lead becomes a customer record and a draft quote. Contact details, history, source — all carry over. Nothing retyped.

Forge accepted Quote with Convert to Order action and the resulting Sales Order
4 / 6 · Commit

Accepted quote becomes an order.

Line items, tax, customer reference all carry through. Production picks it up where it lives — the same kanban board the floor uses.

Forge kanban with all 10 columns showing the new job moving through production
5 / 6 · Make it

The board picks up the order.

Materials ordered, received, in production, QC, shipped. Same lifecycle the floor scans through. The card never leaves the system.

Forge paid invoice with a lock icon and AR Aging at zero
6 / 6 · Close it

Paid. Locked. Done.

Invoice generated, payment received, record locked. The original lead source still attributes to this revenue, six weeks later.

[QUOTE — what they ran before, what broke, what Forge does now, ~50 words]

— Armory Plastics, injection molding

We build the products.

  • Jobs
  • Quotes & invoices
  • Inventory & BOMs
  • Accounting

Built from real shops.

Designed on the floor at Armory Plastics, an injection molding shop, not from a demo dataset.

Consulting when you want it.

Consulting is quote-based and scope-first. Setup, integration analysis, training, data migration or custom features on top of Forge. Most first deployments run two to four weeks. We'll tell you up front whether we can help.

Yes, there's AI. No, you don't have to use it.

Every AI feature in Forge is off by default, opt-in per feature, and runs entirely on your own hardware — no cloud service, no data leaving the building. Turn it on if it earns its keep. Ignore it entirely and nothing else changes.

How AI works here

Job shops and small manufacturers, roughly 3–60 people, who've outgrown the spreadsheet and don't want a $40k ERP.

One model, every product. I started Armory Works because I'd watched shops pay license fees for software they couldn't inspect, couldn't fix, and couldn't take with them. The answer I believe in is simple: the code is open, the install is yours, and you pay for people, not permission. Forge is the deepest thing we make. It's not the only thing. Every product under this roof ships under Apache 2.0 with the same deal. If that model ever changes, this paragraph will change first.

— Dan · more on how we work

Run it yourself. Or bring us along.

The software is yours either way. Armory Works helps shops get there faster: deployment, integration, training, custom work. No hard sell, no gatekeeping.

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