head to head · open source
Midday vs hledger
Midday has 15,014 GitHub stars, 1,876 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. hledger has 4,709 stars, 414 forks, 328 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Midday leads on adoption by 219% (15,014 vs 4,709 stars). Midday is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; hledger is written in Haskell under GPL-3.0. Midday has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, hledger 9%. hledger was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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
| Midday | hledger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 4.7K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Haskell |
| Last push | 2026-06-13 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 414 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Midday if
- You weight community size — 15K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick hledger if
- You want the hledger feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Haskell
- You evaluated both and hledger fits your workflow better
About Midday
Midday is an open source business finance and operations tool for freelancers, contractors, consultants, and solo entrepreneurs. It is built in the TypeScript and Next.js ecosystem, with Supabase and TailwindCSS in its stack, and it aims to gather invoicing, time tracking, file reconciliation, storage, financial overview, and an assistant into one system.
read the full Midday overview →
About hledger
hledger is lightweight, cross platform, multi currency, double entry accounting software that stores all data in a plain text journal format. It lives in the Plain Text Accounting ecosystem, a community of tools and practices built around the plaintextaccounting.org project, and it is inspired by and partly compatible with Ledger CLI, with Beancount files interconvertible as well. The project is written in Haskell, licensed under GPL 3.0 or later, has been developed since 2007, and offers command line, terminal, web, mobile, and editor/IDE interfaces.
read the full hledger overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Midday or hledger more popular?
Midday has 15,014 GitHub stars and hledger has 4,709. Midday has the larger community by that measure.
Are Midday and hledger free?
Both are open source. Midday is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and hledger under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Midday and hledger?
Midday is written in TypeScript and hledger in Haskell. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Midday or hledger?
Choose Midday if you want the larger community (15,014 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose hledger if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.