head to head · open source
Lago vs Polar
Lago has 10,748 GitHub stars, 782 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Polar has 10,454 stars, 811 forks, 141 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lago leads on adoption by 3% (10,748 vs 10,454 stars). Lago is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; Polar is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Lago has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Polar 8%. Polar was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (payments), 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 | Polar | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 11K | ★ 10K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 782 | ⑂ 811 |
| 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 Polar if
- You want the Polar feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Polar fits your workflow better
About Lago
Lago Agentic first, open source monetization infrastructure for AI products Meter tokens, compute, API calls, or any product usage. Turn usage into pricing, credits, entitlements, invoices, payments, and revenue. Use Lago Direct for your own product, or Lago Embedded to power monetization for your customers. Run the AI billing demo · Documentation · Talk to us about Lago Cloud “Lago has been able to follow the pace of our releases and has allowed us to focus on what we do best.” Timothée Lacroix, CTO at Mistral AI · Read the customer story See Lago price an AI workload Run the maintained demo from this…
About Polar
Website • Docs • API Reference Polar: A billing platform for the intelligence era Turn usage into revenue. Polar is the financial layer for a new generation of intelligent software, built for AI startups that need to charge for tokens, agents, and compute without building billing infrastructure from scratch. Ship any pricing model in an afternoon. Usage billing, subscriptions, seats, credits, trials, and discounts. Compose them however your product charges. Meter what matters. Bill tokens, API calls, agent runs, GPU seconds, and storage with precision down to the event. Checkouts that convert , realtime metrics…
read the full Polar overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lago or Polar more popular?
Lago has 10,748 GitHub stars and Polar has 10,454. Lago has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lago and Polar free?
Both are open source. Lago is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Polar under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lago and Polar?
Lago is written in Go and Polar 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, Lago or Polar?
Choose Lago if you want the larger community (10,748 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Polar if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.