Cashew Self-Host vs Firefly III
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted budgeting & finance options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Firefly III
Self-hosted personal finance manager
| Feature | Cashew Self-Host | Firefly III |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 54 · Fair | 97 · Excellent |
| Category | Budgeting & Finance | Budgeting & Finance |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | Dart | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, source | docker, bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 4,649 | ★ 24,712 |
| First released | 2022 | 2016 |
| Replaces | YNAB, Mint | Mint, YNAB |
What are Cashew Self-Host and Firefly III?
Cashew Self-Host
This project provides a self-hosted sync backend so users of the open-source budgeting client can keep their expense data on their own server. It stores transactions, budgets, and categories without a commercial cloud.
- Expense and budget tracking
- Self-hosted sync
- Category management
- Mobile companion
Firefly III
Firefly III is a free, open-source personal finance manager. It helps you track income, expenses, budgets, and bills, with rules for automatic transaction categorization and detailed reporting.
- Budgeting and bill tracking
- Rule-based auto-categorization
- Detailed financial reports
- REST API and data importer
Cashew Self-Host vs Firefly III: key differences
Cashew Self-Host is written in Dart, while Firefly III is built with PHP. Licensing differs — MIT for Cashew Self-Host versus AGPL-3.0 for Firefly III. Cashew Self-Host is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Firefly III. Firefly III is the more established project (first released 2016), while Cashew Self-Host arrived in 2022. Firefly III has the considerably larger community, at 24,712 GitHub stars versus 4,649.
Why pick each one
Choose Cashew Self-Host if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (4.6k GitHub stars)
Choose Firefly III if…
- Powerful budgeting features
- Strong API for automation
Watch out for
- Manual entry unless importing
- Steeper learning curve
Frequently asked questions
Is Cashew Self-Host or Firefly III better?
Neither is universally better. Firefly III has the larger community, while Cashew Self-Host is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Cashew Self-Host and Firefly III free and open-source?
Yes. Cashew Self-Host is licensed under MIT and Firefly III under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Cashew Self-Host and Firefly III with Docker?
Cashew Self-Host: yes. Firefly III: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Cashew Self-Host or Firefly III?
Cashew Self-Host has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Firefly III. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.