head to head · open source
Firefly III vs Financial Freedom
Firefly III has 24,649 GitHub stars, 2,289 forks, 169 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Financial Freedom has 2,922 stars, 217 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Firefly III leads on adoption by 744% (24,649 vs 2,922 stars). Firefly III is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0; Financial Freedom is written in Vue under GPL-3.0. Firefly III has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Financial Freedom 7%. Firefly III was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (budgeting, 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 | Financial Freedom | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 2.9K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | PHP | Vue |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-05-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 217 |
| 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 Financial Freedom if
- You want the Financial Freedom feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Vue
- You evaluated both and Financial Freedom fits your workflow better
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 →
About Financial Freedom
Financial Freedom is an open source, self hosted personal finance and budgeting application for people who want to manage their money and build wealth without handing their financial data to a third party.
read the full Financial Freedom overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Firefly III or Financial Freedom more popular?
Firefly III has 24,649 GitHub stars and Financial Freedom has 2,922. Firefly III has the larger community by that measure.
Are Firefly III and Financial Freedom free?
Both are open source. Firefly III is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Financial Freedom under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Firefly III and Financial Freedom?
Firefly III is written in PHP and Financial Freedom in Vue. 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 Financial Freedom?
Choose Firefly III if you want the larger community (24,649 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Financial Freedom if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.