Stowly vs Nest Egg: Which Home Inventory App Fits You?

Updated August 8, 2026

Nest Egg has been around since the early 2010s and is one of the more established names in home inventory, so it comes up a lot when people go looking. The comparison is less about features than you would expect — both do the core job well — and more about two structural choices Nest Egg has made: it splits into two products, and its home app is iOS-only. Whether those suit you decides most of it.

The two-product thing is the first thing to understand

Nest Egg sells a standalone app called Nest Egg — Inventory, and a separate subscription product called Nest Egg — Inventory In Cloud. The standalone one is a one-time purchase for personal and estate inventory. The cloud one adds syncing, multi-device access and team features, and is sold as a subscription. They are genuinely different products with different pricing models, and it is worth being sure which you are downloading — people do pick the wrong one.

Platform is the biggest practical difference

Nest Egg's standalone home inventory app is iOS only. If your household is all iPhones and iPads, that is fine. If anyone is on Android, or if you would rather do the tedious data-entry parts sitting at a laptop, that is a hard limit. Their cloud product is broader — it reaches Android and modern desktop browsers — but that is the subscription line, not the buy-once app.

Stowly runs entirely in the browser and installs to your home screen, so the same inventory opens on an iPhone, an Android phone, and a laptop with nothing to download from an app store. That is the whole reason it was built as a web app.

Item limits, and where they bite

The standalone Nest Egg app offers unlimited items for its one-time price, which is a genuinely good arrangement. Their cloud plans work differently — they are tiered by item count, with the vendor describing an entry US plan covering 150 items at the time of writing. Their reasoning is honest and worth repeating: cloud storage and compute cost them money per item, so uncapped cloud plans do not work for their model.

Stowly takes the opposite approach: unlimited items and rooms on the free plan, with payment attached to what you do with the inventory rather than how big it is. Both are defensible. Which suits you depends on whether you would rather pay for capacity or for capability.

Where Nest Egg is genuinely better

• You can buy the standalone app once and own it — no subscription, ever. Stowly has no equivalent, and for some people that alone settles it
• Multiple locations and properties — useful for a rental, a vacation home, an RV or a boat; Stowly handles one home
• Collections — it is well set up for cataloguing books, wine, Lego, hobby supplies and similar, with subcategories and tagging
• It works fully offline on your device, where Stowly needs a connection
• A long track record — they have been shipping this since the early 2010s

Where Stowly is better

• It runs anywhere — any browser, any device, no app store, and the same inventory everywhere
• Unlimited items free, with no cap to plan around
• An insurance-ready PDF built for handing to an adjuster, with photos, values and dates
• Read-only share links — send your inventory to an insurer or family member without them needing an account or an iPhone
• One plan covers your whole household rather than per-seat or per-device thinking
• Warranty and return-window tracking with reminders, free

The question that decides it

Are you an iPhone household that would rather pay once than subscribe? Buy Nest Egg's standalone app — that is a good deal and this comparison should end there. Is there an Android phone in the house, or would you rather catalogue at a laptop, or share the inventory with a partner or an adjuster without anyone installing anything? That is what Stowly is shaped around.

Frequently asked questions

Is Nest Egg free? Their standalone iOS app is a one-time purchase rather than a subscription, and their cloud product has plans tiered by item count. Check their current pricing on their site or App Store listing before deciding — the details change and we would rather you read it from them.

Does Nest Egg work on Android? Their cloud product does, along with modern desktop browsers. Their standalone home inventory app is iOS only, which catches people out — make sure you are looking at the right product.

Which is better for an insurance claim? Both let you record what an insurer asks for. Stowly is more specifically built around the handover — an insurance-ready PDF and a read-only link you can send an adjuster — where Nest Egg gives you exports and reports to assemble yourself.