head to head · open source
Firefly III vs YAFFA
Firefly III has 24,649 GitHub stars, 2,289 forks, 169 open issues and last shipped yesterday. YAFFA has 109 stars, 10 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Firefly III leads on adoption by 22,514% (24,649 vs 109 stars). Firefly III is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0; YAFFA is written in PHP under MIT. Firefly III has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, YAFFA 9%. Firefly III 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
| Firefly III | YAFFA | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 109 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 10 |
| 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 YAFFA if
- You want the YAFFA feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and YAFFA 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 YAFFA
YAFFA (Yet Another Free Financial Application) is a free, MIT licensed, self hosted personal finance web application written in PHP on the Laravel framework, built for people who want long term financial planning without uploading their financial data to the cloud or sharing it with third parties.
read the full YAFFA overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Firefly III or YAFFA more popular?
Firefly III has 24,649 GitHub stars and YAFFA has 109. Firefly III has the larger community by that measure.
Are Firefly III and YAFFA free?
Both are open source. Firefly III is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and YAFFA under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Firefly III and YAFFA?
Firefly III is written in PHP and YAFFA 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, Firefly III or YAFFA?
Choose Firefly III if you want the larger community (24,649 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose YAFFA if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.