Akaunting vs Lightning Shell
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted budgeting & finance options
— licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one
replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Compare Akaunting with
choose an app… Maybe HyperSwitch Actual Budget Firefly III Lago Invoice Ninja Sure Ghostfolio Worktile ERP Wealthfolio Crater Wallos BTCPay Server OctoBot Hospitable Ledger Beancount Kill Bill ezbookkeeping Frappe Books hledger-web Cashew Self-Host GnuCash Pretzel Finance Rotki Bigcapital Paisa InvoicePlane Spliit mempool Fava Money Manager Ex BTC RPC Explorer Crater Self-Hosted Invoicing ExpenseOwl I Hate Money Sequence Finance LNbits Elements Core BlueWallet Lightning RoboSats Tracktor Invio Bitcart OpenBudgeteer WYGIWYH Specter Desktop Kresus Ride The Lightning (Core Lightning) Fedimint Lightning Gateway Bitcoin Knots monetr Budget Zero BudgetBee Tellico SHKeeper Lightning Terminal REI3 Ocular VoucherVault Fulcrum Beancount Import ThunderHub Public Pool Suredbits Wallet Family Accounting Tool Jam BillManager MyFin Alby Hub ✨ Receipt Wrangler SatSale LNDg chantools CLI hledger-flow Tryton Cashu.me Wallet Skrooge OFX Importer Monero Daemon Grisbi DATUM DePay Circuit Breaker Bitfeed Budgetwarrior Nostr Wallet Connect YAFFA Bitcoin Ordinals Shopstr Econumo Libre Relay Bitcoin Node ItchySats Nutstash Wallet Core Lightning nolooking Squeak Road Krystal Bull BTC Tracker Helipad Bassin Costflow Tallycoin Connect PeerSwap sat.watch LndBoss Lightning Node Bitaxe Sentry Mybucks.online Blockstream Blind Oracle DeepSea Dashboard WoofBot (LND) LN Markets Bleskomat Server Canary MinerSentinel TDEX Provider Bitwatch Electrs Kollider LnVisualizer Public Pool's Web Urbit Bitcoin Connector Sparkkiosk Samourai Server LNbits Holesail Proxy Lightning Network+ Toshi Moto bitBalance ElectrumX Bitcoin Regtest Dashboard ChainForensics lnSwitchboard Oak Node Pancake Saifa
Compare Lightning Shell with
choose an app… Maybe HyperSwitch Actual Budget Firefly III Lago Invoice Ninja Sure Ghostfolio Wealthfolio
Feature Akaunting Lightning Shell Category Budgeting & Finance Budgeting & Finance License GPL-3.0 free Language PHP Setup difficulty Medium Easy Min. RAM 512 MB 512 MB Deployment docker, bare-metal, source docker, one-click GitHub stars ★ 10,041 — First released 2017 2022 Replaces QuickBooks, Xero —
Why pick each one
Choose Lightning Shell if… Easy to set up — beginner-friendly First-class Docker support for quick deployment One-click install on common self-host platforms Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM Lightning Shell details
Frequently asked questions Is Akaunting or Lightning Shell better? Neither is universally better. Akaunting has the larger community, while Lightning Shell is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Akaunting and Lightning Shell free and open-source? Yes. Akaunting is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Lightning Shell under free. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Akaunting and Lightning Shell with Docker? Akaunting: yes. Lightning Shell: yes.