Firefly III vs Sure
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 | Sure |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 97 · Excellent | 93 · Excellent |
| Category | Budgeting & Finance | Budgeting & Finance |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | PHP | Ruby |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | docker, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 24,712 | ★ 10,024 |
| First released | 2016 | 2025 |
| Replaces | Mint, YNAB | Mint, Quicken |
What are Firefly III and Sure?
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
Sure
Sure is a self-hosted personal finance application maintained by the community as a continuation of an archived finance project. It tracks accounts, transactions, budgets, and net worth in a single dashboard.
- Accounts and transaction tracking
- Budgets and net worth view
- Community-maintained
- Self-hosted with Docker
Firefly III vs Sure: key differences
Firefly III is written in PHP, while Sure is built with Ruby. Firefly III is the lighter option, starting around 512 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for Sure. Firefly III is the more established project (first released 2016), while Sure arrived in 2025. Firefly III has the considerably larger community, at 24,712 GitHub stars versus 10,024.
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 Sure if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 10k GitHub stars
- Written in Ruby
Frequently asked questions
Is Firefly III or Sure 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 Sure free and open-source?
Yes. Firefly III is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Sure under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Firefly III and Sure with Docker?
Firefly III: yes. Sure: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Firefly III or Sure?
Firefly III has the smaller minimum footprint at 512 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for Sure. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.