head to head · open source
hledger vs Bigcapital
hledger has 4,821 GitHub stars, 425 forks, 328 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Bigcapital has 4,152 stars, 599 forks, 214 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hledger leads on adoption by 16% (4,821 vs 4,152 stars). hledger is written in Haskell under GPL-3.0; Bigcapital is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. hledger has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Bigcapital 14%. hledger was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (accounting), 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
| hledger | Bigcapital | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.8K | ★ 4.2K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Haskell | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-14 | 2026-11-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 425 | ⑂ 599 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick hledger if
- You weight community size — 4.8K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Haskell
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Bigcapital if
- You want the Bigcapital feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Bigcapital fits your workflow better
About hledger
hledger Robust, intuitive plain text accounting Welcome! This is a brief intro to hledger. For a more detailed version, see the home page: hledger is lightweight, cross platform, multi currency, double entry accounting software. It lets you track money, investments, cryptocurrencies, invoices, time, inventory and more, in a safe, future proof plain text data format with full version control and privacy. hledger aims to help both computer experts and regular folks gain clarity in their finances and time management. Though the UIs are basic, hledger can model any accounting situation and provide precise, clear…
read the full hledger overview →
About Bigcapital
Simple, smart online accounting software for small and medium businesses. Bigcapital Cloud What's Bigcapital? Bigcapital is a smart and open source accounting and inventory software, Bigcapital keeps all business finances in right place and automates accounting processes to give the business powerful and intelligent financial statements and reports to help in making decisions. Getting Started We've got serveral options on dev and prod depending on your need to get started quickly with Bigcapital. Self hosted Bigcapital is available open source under AGPL license. You can host it on your own servers using Docker…
read the full Bigcapital overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hledger or Bigcapital more popular?
hledger has 4,821 GitHub stars and Bigcapital has 4,152. hledger has the larger community by that measure.
Are hledger and Bigcapital free?
Both are open source. hledger is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Bigcapital under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hledger and Bigcapital?
hledger is written in Haskell and Bigcapital in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, hledger or Bigcapital?
Choose hledger if you want the larger community (4,821 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Bigcapital if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.