head to head · open source
Firefly III vs ezBookkeeping
Firefly III has 25,061 GitHub stars, 2,361 forks, 169 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ezBookkeeping has 5,944 stars, 741 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Firefly III leads on adoption by 322% (25,061 vs 5,944 stars). Firefly III is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0; ezBookkeeping is written in Go under MIT. Firefly III has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, ezBookkeeping 12%. ezBookkeeping was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 6 topic tags (accounting, docker, expenses, 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.
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Side by side
| Firefly III | ezBookkeeping | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 5.9K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 741 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Firefly III if
- You weight community size — 25K 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 ezBookkeeping if
- You want the ezBookkeeping feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and ezBookkeeping fits your workflow better
About Firefly III
[![Packagist][packagist shield]][packagist url] [![License][license shield]][license url] [![Stargazers][stars shield]][stars url] [![Donate][donate shield]][donate url] Firefly III A free and open source personal finance manager Explore the documentation View the demo · Report a bug · Request a feature · Ask questions Billionaires and fascists are breaking democracies and international alliances. Their profits are costing us our safety. (Digital) sovereignty is more important than ever. Firefly III is free open source software and originates from, and lives in the European Union (🇳🇱). Support your local…
read the full Firefly III overview →
About ezBookkeeping
ezBookkeeping Introduction ezBookkeeping is a powerful, lightweight, self hosted personal finance app that is easy to use. It helps you record daily transactions, import data from various sources, and quickly search and filter your bills. You can analyze historical data using built in charts or perform custom queries with your own chart dimensions to better understand spending patterns and financial trends. ezBookkeeping is easy to deploy, and you can start it with just one single Docker command. Designed to be resource efficient, it runs smoothly on devices such as home servers, NAS and Raspberry Pi…
read the full ezBookkeeping overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Firefly III or ezBookkeeping more popular?
Firefly III has 25,061 GitHub stars and ezBookkeeping has 5,944. Firefly III has the larger community by that measure.
Are Firefly III and ezBookkeeping free?
Both are open source. Firefly III is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and ezBookkeeping under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Firefly III and ezBookkeeping?
Firefly III is written in PHP and ezBookkeeping 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, Firefly III or ezBookkeeping?
Choose Firefly III if you want the larger community (25,061 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose ezBookkeeping if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.