Firefly III vs Beancount
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?
Compare Firefly III with
choose an app… Maybe HyperSwitch Actual Budget Lago Akaunting Invoice Ninja Sure Ghostfolio Wealthfolio Crater Wallos BTCPay Server OctoBot Hospitable Ledger Kill Bill ezbookkeeping Frappe Books hledger-web Cashew Self-Host GnuCash Pretzel Finance Rotki Paisa Spliit mempool Fava Money Manager Ex BTC RPC Explorer Crater Self-Hosted Invoicing ExpenseOwl I Hate Money Sequence Finance LNbits Elements Core BlueWallet Lightning RoboSats Tracktor Invio Bitcart OpenBudgeteer WYGIWYH Specter Desktop Kresus Ride The Lightning (Core Lightning) Fedimint Lightning Gateway Bitcoin Knots monetr Budget Zero BudgetBee Tellico SHKeeper Lightning Terminal REI3 Ocular VoucherVault Fulcrum Beancount Import ThunderHub Public Pool Suredbits Wallet Family Accounting Tool Jam BillManager MyFin Alby Hub ✨ Receipt Wrangler SatSale LNDg chantools CLI hledger-flow Tryton Cashu.me Wallet Skrooge OFX Importer Monero Daemon Grisbi DATUM DePay Circuit Breaker Bitfeed Budgetwarrior Nostr Wallet Connect YAFFA Bitcoin Ordinals Shopstr Econumo Libre Relay Bitcoin Node ItchySats Nutstash Wallet Core Lightning nolooking Squeak Road Krystal Bull BTC Tracker Helipad Bassin Costflow Tallycoin Connect PeerSwap sat.watch LndBoss Lightning Node Bitaxe Sentry Mybucks.online Blockstream Blind Oracle DeepSea Dashboard WoofBot (LND) LN Markets Bleskomat Server Canary MinerSentinel TDEX Provider Bitwatch Electrs Kollider LnVisualizer Public Pool's Web Urbit Bitcoin Connector Sparkkiosk Samourai Server LNbits Holesail Proxy Lightning Network+ Toshi Moto bitBalance ElectrumX Bitcoin Regtest Dashboard ChainForensics Lightning Shell lnSwitchboard Oak Node Pancake Saifa
Compare Beancount with
choose an app… Maybe HyperSwitch Actual Budget Lago Akaunting Invoice Ninja Sure Ghostfolio Worktile ERP Wealthfolio Crater Wallos BTCPay Server OctoBot Hospitable Ledger Kill Bill ezbookkeeping Frappe Books hledger-web Cashew Self-Host GnuCash Pretzel Finance Rotki Bigcapital Paisa InvoicePlane Spliit Fava Tryton
Feature Firefly III Beancount Category Budgeting & Finance Budgeting & Finance License AGPL-3.0 GPL-2.0 Language PHP Python Setup difficulty Medium Hard Min. RAM 512 MB 128 MB Deployment docker, bare-metal, source binary, source GitHub stars ★ 24,254 ★ 5,881 First released 2016 2008 Replaces Mint, YNAB QuickBooks, Xero
Why pick each one
Choose Beancount if… Released under the GPL-2.0 license Mature project with 5.9k GitHub stars Written in Python Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM Beancount details
Frequently asked questions Is Firefly III or Beancount better? Firefly III is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Beancount if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Firefly III and Beancount free and open-source? Yes. Firefly III is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Beancount under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Firefly III and Beancount with Docker? Firefly III: yes. Beancount: check the project docs for container support.