head to head · open source
Fincept Terminal vs Firefly III
Fincept Terminal has 31,729 GitHub stars, 4,491 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Firefly III has 24,649 stars, 2,289 forks, 169 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Fincept Terminal leads on adoption by 29% (31,729 vs 24,649 stars). Fincept Terminal is written in C++ under a custom or non-standard licence; Firefly III is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0. Fincept Terminal has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, Firefly III 9%. Firefly III was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (finance), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Fincept Terminal | Firefly III | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 25K |
| License | Custom / other | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.5K | ⑂ 2.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Fincept Terminal if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Firefly III if
- You want the Firefly III feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Firefly III fits your workflow better
About Fincept Terminal
Fincept Terminal is an open source financial terminal built in C++ with Qt6, designed to deliver institutional grade market analytics, investment research, and economic data tools in a desktop environment. It provides interactive interfaces for exploring financial data, running quantitative analyses, and executing trading strategies. The project lives in the fintech ecosystem and serves as a free, community driven alternative to proprietary terminals like Bloomberg Terminal.
read the full Fincept Terminal overview →
About Firefly III
Firefly III is an AGPL 3.0 licensed, self hosted personal finance manager written in PHP that uses double entry bookkeeping to track income, expenses, budgets, categories, tags and savings goals, and it is built for individuals and households who want to own and control their own financial data instead of renting a cloud accounting subscription.
read the full Firefly III overview →
More in Productivity & Utilities
Related comparisons
More Personal Finance Management projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Personal Finance Management field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Fincept Terminal or Firefly III more popular?
Fincept Terminal has 31,729 GitHub stars and Firefly III has 24,649. Fincept Terminal has the larger community by that measure.
Are Fincept Terminal and Firefly III free?
Both are open source. Fincept Terminal has no licence declared in this registry, and Firefly III is licensed under AGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Fincept Terminal and Firefly III?
Fincept Terminal is written in C++ and Firefly III in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Fincept Terminal or Firefly III?
Choose Fincept Terminal if you want the larger community (31,729 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Firefly III if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.