Firefly III vs Kresus
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted budgeting & finance options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Firefly III | Kresus |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Category | Budgeting & Finance | Budgeting & Finance |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | PHP | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | docker, bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 24,712 | ★ 800 |
| First released | 2016 | 2015 |
| Replaces | Mint, YNAB | Mint, Bankin |
What are Firefly III and Kresus?
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
Kresus
Kresus is a free, open-source personal finance manager that aggregates your bank accounts and helps you track expenses and budgets. It uses the Woob library to import banking data automatically.
- Automatic bank data import
- Expense categorization
- Budget and chart views
- Alerts on balances
Firefly III vs Kresus: key differences
Firefly III is written in PHP, while Kresus is built with JavaScript. Kresus is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Firefly III. Firefly III has the considerably larger community, at 24,712 GitHub stars versus 800.
Why pick each one
Choose Firefly III if…
- Powerful budgeting features
- Strong API for automation
Watch out for
- Manual entry unless importing
- Steeper learning curve
Choose Kresus if…
- Hands-off bank syncing in supported regions
- Lightweight
Watch out for
- Bank support varies by country
- Sparse documentation
Frequently asked questions
Is Firefly III or Kresus better?
Neither is universally better. Firefly III has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Firefly III and Kresus free and open-source?
Yes. Firefly III is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Kresus under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Firefly III and Kresus with Docker?
Firefly III: yes. Kresus: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Firefly III or Kresus?
Kresus 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.