head to head · open source
Lago vs moneymanagerex
Lago has 10,568 GitHub stars, 750 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped yesterday. moneymanagerex has 2,267 stars, 340 forks, 452 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Lago leads on adoption by 366% (10,568 vs 2,267 stars). Lago is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; moneymanagerex is written in C++ under GPL-2.0. Lago has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, moneymanagerex 15%. Lago 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
| Lago | moneymanagerex | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 11K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 750 | ⑂ 340 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lago if
- You weight community size — 11K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick moneymanagerex if
- You want the moneymanagerex feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and moneymanagerex fits your workflow better
About Lago
Lago is an open source metering and usage based billing API written in Go under AGPL 3.0. It lives in the Business Software and Finance & Accounting ecosystem and sits between product usage and revenue. It turns events such as AI tokens, compute, API calls, seats, and custom events into billable metrics, pricing, credits, entitlements, invoices, and payments.
About moneymanagerex
Money Manager Ex is a free/libre, open source, cross platform personal finance application written mainly in C++17 and built with wxWidgets. It is distributed under the GPL 2.0 license and is available for GNU/Linux, macOS, Windows, Android, and iOS. The project states that its design goals are simplicity and user friendliness for everyday use.
read the full moneymanagerex overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lago or moneymanagerex more popular?
Lago has 10,568 GitHub stars and moneymanagerex has 2,267. Lago has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lago and moneymanagerex free?
Both are open source. Lago is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and moneymanagerex under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lago and moneymanagerex?
Lago is written in Go and moneymanagerex in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Lago or moneymanagerex?
Choose Lago if you want the larger community (10,568 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose moneymanagerex if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.