head to head · open source
Lago vs SolidInvoice
Lago has 10,568 GitHub stars, 750 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SolidInvoice has 971 stars, 235 forks, 190 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Lago leads on adoption by 988% (10,568 vs 971 stars). Lago is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; SolidInvoice is written in PHP under MIT. Lago has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, SolidInvoice 24%. Lago was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (billing), 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
| Lago | SolidInvoice | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 11K | ★ 971 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 750 | ⑂ 235 |
| 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 SolidInvoice if
- You want the SolidInvoice feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and SolidInvoice 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 SolidInvoice
SolidInvoice is an MIT licensed, self hostable invoicing and billing platform built on Symfony and PHP for freelancers and small businesses that want to send quotes and invoices without handing their client data to a subscription SaaS.
read the full SolidInvoice overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lago or SolidInvoice more popular?
Lago has 10,568 GitHub stars and SolidInvoice has 971. Lago has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lago and SolidInvoice free?
Both are open source. Lago is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and SolidInvoice under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lago and SolidInvoice?
Lago is written in Go and SolidInvoice 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, Lago or SolidInvoice?
Choose Lago if you want the larger community (10,568 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose SolidInvoice if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.