head to head · open source
Crater vs Formance
Crater has 8,356 GitHub stars, 1,708 forks, 425 open issues and last shipped 2.2 years ago. Formance has 533 stars, 73 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Crater leads on adoption by 1,468% (8,356 vs 533 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 14%. 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 | ★ 8.4K | ★ 533 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | PHP | Go |
| Last push | 2024-08-10 | 2026-10-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 73 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Crater if
- You weight community size — 8.4K 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
Introduction Crater is an open source web & mobile app that helps you track expenses, payments & create professional invoices & estimates. Web Application is made using Laravel & VueJS while the Mobile Apps are built using React Native. Table of Contents 1. Documentation 2. Download 3. Mobile Apps 4. Discord 5. Roadmap 6. Credits 7. Help us translate 8. License Documentation Installation Steps User Guide Developer Guide API Documentation Download Download Link Mobile Apps Android IOS Source Discord Join the Crater discord server to discuss: Invite Link Roadmap Here's a rough roadmap of things to come (not in any…
read the full Crater overview →
About Formance
Formance Stack • Formance is a highly modular developer platform to build and operate complex money flows of any size and shapes. It comes with several components, that can be used as a whole as the Formance Stack or separately as standalone micro services and libraries: Formance Ledger Programmable double entry, immutable source of truth to record internal financial transactions and money movements Formance Payments Unified API and data layer for payments processing Formance Numscript DSL and virtual machine monetary computations and transactions modeling ⚡️ Getting started with Formance Cloud Sandbox Install…
read the full Formance overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Crater or Formance more popular?
Crater has 8,356 GitHub stars and Formance has 533. 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 (8,356 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.