Crater vs Hospitable Ledger
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?
Crater
Free invoicing and expense tracking app
VS
Hospitable Ledger
Plain-text accounting toolkit and CLI
| Feature | Crater | Hospitable Ledger |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Budgeting & Finance | Budgeting & Finance |
| License | AAL | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | PHP | C++ |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | bare-metal, binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 8,338 | ★ 6,011 |
| First released | 2020 | 2003 |
| Replaces | FreshBooks, Invoicely | QuickBooks, Quicken |
Why pick each one
Choose Hospitable Ledger if…
- Extremely portable data
- Scriptable and version-controllable
Frequently asked questions
Is Crater or Hospitable Ledger better?
Crater is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Hospitable Ledger if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Crater and Hospitable Ledger free and open-source?
Yes. Crater is licensed under AAL and Hospitable Ledger under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Crater and Hospitable Ledger with Docker?
Crater: yes. Hospitable Ledger: check the project docs for container support.