head to head · open source
Polar vs Frappe Books
Polar has 10,270 GitHub stars, 787 forks, 141 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Frappe Books has 4,967 stars, 1,148 forks, 141 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. Polar leads on adoption by 107% (10,270 vs 4,967 stars). Polar is written in Python under Apache-2.0; Frappe Books is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Polar has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Frappe Books 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 | Frappe Books | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 10K | ★ 5.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 787 | ⑂ 1.1K |
| 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 Frappe Books if
- You want the Frappe Books 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 Frappe Books 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 Frappe Books
Frappe Books is a free, open source desktop accounting application for small and medium sized businesses that runs offline on macOS, Windows and Linux, storing all financial data in a local SQLite file rather than on a remote server.
read the full Frappe Books overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Polar or Frappe Books more popular?
Polar has 10,270 GitHub stars and Frappe Books has 4,967. Polar has the larger community by that measure.
Are Polar and Frappe Books free?
Both are open source. Polar is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Frappe Books under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Polar and Frappe Books?
Polar is written in Python and Frappe Books 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, Polar or Frappe Books?
Choose Polar if you want the larger community (10,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Frappe Books if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.