head to head · open source
Crater vs Formance
Crater has 8,348 GitHub stars, 1,711 forks, 425 open issues and last shipped 2.1 years ago. Formance has 525 stars, 67 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Crater leads on adoption by 1,490% (8,348 vs 525 stars). Crater is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0; Formance is written in Go under a custom or non-standard licence. Crater has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, Formance 13%. Formance was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Crater | Formance | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.3K | ★ 525 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | PHP | Go |
| Last push | 2024-08-10 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 67 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Crater if
- You weight community size — 8.3K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Formance if
- You want the Formance feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Formance fits your workflow better
About Crater
Crater is an open source web and mobile application for tracking expenses and payments and for creating professional invoices and estimates. The web application is built with Laravel and VueJS, while the mobile applications are built with React Native. It lives in the PHP and Laravel ecosystem, is distributed under the AGPL 3.0 license, and is positioned as an open alternative to QuickBooks and FreshBooks.
read the full Crater overview →
About Formance
Formance is an open source, modular developer platform written in Go for building and operating complex money flows of any size and shape, aimed at fintech engineers and platform teams who need to record internal financial transactions and move money without assembling that infrastructure from scratch.
read the full Formance overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Crater or Formance more popular?
Crater has 8,348 GitHub stars and Formance has 525. Crater has the larger community by that measure.
Are Crater and Formance free?
Both are open source. Crater is licensed under AGPL-3.0, and Formance has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Crater and Formance?
Crater is written in PHP and Formance in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Crater or Formance?
Choose Crater if you want the larger community (8,348 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Formance if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.