Beancount vs Sure
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 Beancount with
choose an app… Maybe HyperSwitch Actual Budget Firefly III Lago Akaunting Invoice Ninja 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
Compare Sure with
choose an app… Maybe HyperSwitch Actual Budget Firefly III Lago Akaunting Invoice Ninja 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 KMyMoney 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
Feature Beancount Sure Category Budgeting & Finance Budgeting & Finance License GPL-2.0 AGPL-3.0 Language Python Ruby Setup difficulty Hard Medium Min. RAM 128 MB 1,024 MB Deployment binary, source docker, source GitHub stars ★ 5,881 ★ 9,323 First released 2008 2025 Replaces QuickBooks, Xero Mint, Quicken
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 Choose Sure if… Released under the AGPL-3.0 license First-class Docker support for quick deployment Mature project with 9.3k GitHub stars Written in Ruby Sure details
Frequently asked questions Is Beancount or Sure better? Sure 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 Beancount and Sure free and open-source? Yes. Beancount is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Sure under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Beancount and Sure with Docker? Beancount: check the project docs for container support. Sure: yes.