head to head · open source
Polar vs django-ledger
Polar has 10,270 GitHub stars, 787 forks, 141 open issues and last shipped yesterday. django-ledger has 1,385 stars, 323 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. Polar leads on adoption by 642% (10,270 vs 1,385 stars). Polar is written in Python under Apache-2.0; django-ledger is written in Python under GPL-3.0. Polar has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, django-ledger 23%. Polar 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
| Polar | django-ledger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 10K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 787 | ⑂ 323 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Polar if
- You weight community size — 10K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick django-ledger if
- You want the django-ledger feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and django-ledger fits your workflow better
About Polar
Polar is an open source billing platform and payment infrastructure project for digital products, SaaS applications, and AI workloads. It is written in Python, licensed under Apache 2.0, and built around FastAPI, Next.js, React, and Turborepo. The project positions itself as a financial layer for software that needs to charge for tokens, agents, compute, subscriptions, and usage based models.
read the full Polar overview →
About django-ledger
Django Ledger is an open source double entry accounting system and financial analysis engine built on the Django Web Framework. It is a Python application, distributed under the GPL 3.0 license, and it is designed to be embedded in Django projects that need financial records, ledgers, and reporting.
read the full django-ledger overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Polar or django-ledger more popular?
Polar has 10,270 GitHub stars and django-ledger has 1,385. Polar has the larger community by that measure.
Are Polar and django-ledger free?
Both are open source. Polar is licensed under Apache-2.0 and django-ledger under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Polar and django-ledger?
Polar is written in Python and django-ledger in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Polar or django-ledger?
Choose Polar if you want the larger community (10,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose django-ledger if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.