SHSelfHostIndex

Crater vs Invoice Ninja

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?
CR Crater Free invoicing and expense tracking app VS Invoice Ninja Open-source invoicing and billing platform
FeatureCraterInvoice Ninja
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score23 · At risk93 · Excellent
CategoryBudgeting & FinanceBudgeting & Finance
LicenseAALElastic-2.0
LanguagePHPPHP
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, sourcedocker, bare-metal, source
GitHub stars★ 8,347★ 10,106
First released20202014
ReplacesFreshBooks, InvoicelyFreshBooks, QuickBooks

What are Crater and Invoice Ninja?

Crater

Crater is a free, open-source invoicing application built with Laravel and Vue.js. It lets freelancers and small businesses create invoices and estimates, track expenses, and accept payments.

  • Invoices and estimates
  • Expense tracking
  • Mobile companion apps
  • Multi-currency support

Read the full Crater guide →

Invoice Ninja

Invoice Ninja is a free, open-source platform for invoicing, billing, payments, and time tracking. It serves freelancers and small businesses with quotes, recurring invoices, and client portals.

  • Invoices, quotes, and payments
  • Client self-service portal
  • Time and expense tracking
  • Recurring billing automation

Read the full Invoice Ninja guide →

Crater vs Invoice Ninja: key differences

Both projects are written in PHP. Licensing differs — AAL for Crater versus Elastic-2.0 for Invoice Ninja. Invoice Ninja is the more established project (first released 2014), while Crater arrived in 2020.

Why pick each one

Choose Crater if…

  • Clean modern interface
  • Free mobile apps

Watch out for

  • Smaller feature set than rivals
  • Slower release cadence
Crater details

Choose Invoice Ninja if…

  • Comprehensive billing features
  • Many payment gateway integrations

Watch out for

  • License not OSI-approved
  • Setup can be involved
Invoice Ninja details

Frequently asked questions

Is Crater or Invoice Ninja better?

Neither is universally better. Invoice Ninja has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Crater and Invoice Ninja free and open-source?

Yes. Crater is licensed under AAL and Invoice Ninja under Elastic-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Crater and Invoice Ninja with Docker?

Crater: yes. Invoice Ninja: yes.

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