head to head · open source
Polar vs paisa
Polar has 10,270 GitHub stars, 787 forks, 141 open issues and last shipped yesterday. paisa has 3,211 stars, 213 forks, 91 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. Polar leads on adoption by 220% (10,270 vs 3,211 stars). Polar is written in Python under Apache-2.0; paisa is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Polar has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, paisa 7%. 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 | paisa | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 10K | ★ 3.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 787 | ⑂ 213 |
| 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 paisa if
- You want the paisa 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 paisa 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 paisa
Paisa personal finance manager. Builds on top of ledger double entry accounting tool. Lives in ledger, ledger cli, personal finance, plaintext accounting, visualization ecosystem. Category Business Software / Finance & Accounting. Language TypeScript. License AGPL 3.0. README says software licensed under AGPL 3 or later. Homepage https://paisa.fyi. Demo https://demo.paisa.fyi. GitHub description and tagline both say Paisa – Personal Finance Manager. README badge links to Matrix at https://matrix.to/ / paisa:matrix.org. README includes Matrix badge. README includes license text. README includes status. README says…
read the full paisa overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Polar or paisa more popular?
Polar has 10,270 GitHub stars and paisa has 3,211. Polar has the larger community by that measure.
Are Polar and paisa free?
Both are open source. Polar is licensed under Apache-2.0 and paisa under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Polar and paisa?
Polar is written in Python and paisa 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 paisa?
Choose Polar if you want the larger community (10,270 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose paisa if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.