Firefly III vs Budget Zero
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
VS
Budget Zero
Self-hosted zero-based budgeting tool
| Feature | Firefly III | Budget Zero |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 97 · Excellent | 62 · Good |
| Category | Budgeting & Finance | Budgeting & Finance |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | PHP | Vue |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 24,712 | ★ 655 |
| First released | 2016 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Mint, YNAB | YNAB, Mint |
What are Firefly III and Budget Zero?
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
Budget Zero
Budgetzero is an open-source, offline-first envelope budgeting application. It works entirely in the browser with local storage and optional CouchDB sync for multi-device budgeting.
- Envelope budgeting
- Offline-first browser app
- Optional CouchDB sync
- Import from YNAB
Firefly III vs Budget Zero: key differences
Firefly III is written in PHP, while Budget Zero is built with Vue. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Firefly III versus GPL-3.0 for Budget Zero. Budget Zero is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Firefly III. Firefly III is the more established project (first released 2016), while Budget Zero arrived in 2019. Firefly III has the considerably larger community, at 24,712 GitHub stars versus 655. Firefly III lists first-class Docker deployment; Budget Zero does not.
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 Budget Zero if…
- Works fully offline
- Simple budgeting workflow
Watch out for
- Small project
- Limited reporting
Frequently asked questions
Is Firefly III or Budget Zero better?
Neither is universally better. Firefly III has the larger community, while Budget Zero is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Firefly III and Budget Zero free and open-source?
Yes. Firefly III is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Budget Zero under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Firefly III and Budget Zero with Docker?
Firefly III: yes. Budget Zero: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Firefly III or Budget Zero?
Budget Zero has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Firefly III. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.