SHSelfHostIndex

Kill Bill vs Lago

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?
KI Kill Bill Open-source subscription billing platform VS LA Lago Open-source billing and metering API
FeatureKill BillLago
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score90 · Excellent93 · Excellent
CategoryBudgeting & FinanceBudgeting & Finance
LicenseApache-2.0AGPL-3.0
LanguageJavaRuby
Setup difficultyHardHard
Min. RAM2,048 MB2,048 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, sourcedocker, kubernetes, source
GitHub stars★ 5,758★ 10,603
First released20102022
ReplacesZuora, ChargebeeStripe Billing, Chargebee

What are Kill Bill and Lago?

Kill Bill

Kill Bill is a mature, open-source subscription billing and payments platform. It handles recurring billing, invoicing, payment routing, and analytics for businesses with complex billing needs.

  • Recurring subscription billing
  • Pluggable payment gateways
  • Invoicing and tax handling
  • Analytics plugin

Read the full Kill Bill guide →

Lago

Lago is an open-source metering and usage-based billing platform. It helps SaaS companies build complex pricing, invoicing, and subscription billing with a developer-friendly API.

  • Usage-based metering
  • Flexible pricing models
  • Invoicing and credit notes
  • Webhooks and API-first

Read the full Lago guide →

Kill Bill vs Lago: key differences

Kill Bill is written in Java, while Lago is built with Ruby. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Kill Bill versus AGPL-3.0 for Lago. Kill Bill is the more established project (first released 2010), while Lago arrived in 2022.

Why pick each one

Choose Kill Bill if…

  • Battle-tested at scale
  • Highly extensible plugins

Watch out for

  • Java stack is heavy
  • Operationally complex
Kill Bill details

Choose Lago if…

  • Powerful for SaaS billing
  • Developer-friendly

Watch out for

  • Complex multi-service stack
  • Overkill for simple invoicing
Lago details

Frequently asked questions

Is Kill Bill or Lago better?

Neither is universally better. Lago has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Kill Bill and Lago free and open-source?

Yes. Kill Bill is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Lago under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Kill Bill and Lago with Docker?

Kill Bill: yes. Lago: yes.