head to head
Xero vs Firefly III
Firefly III is the open source alternative to Xero — cloud accounting software. Here is the honest comparison.
Yes — Firefly III is a viable free replacement for Xero. Firefly III is open source under AGPL-3.0, written in PHP, with 24,649 GitHub stars, 2,289 forks and 169 open issues; it was last pushed 5 hours ago. Xero costs from $15, while self-hosting Firefly III carries no licence fee — the trade is your operational time instead of a subscription. 1 other open source Xero alternative is tracked here, led by Invoice Ninja at 10,086 stars. Firefly III ranks #1 of 2 tracked open source Xero alternatives by stars. The tracked set, by adoption: Invoice Ninja (10,086 stars). Replacement criteria on this page: 4 reasons to move to Firefly III and 3 reasons to stay on Xero.
choose Firefly III if
- Your Xero bill is growing with seats or usage
- You need your data in a format and server you control
- Your compliance posture requires auditing the code that touches sensitive data
- You have (or can rent) a server and basic Docker comfort
stick with Xero if
- You need the polished onboarding and support SLAs of a commercial vendor
- Your team has zero capacity to operate software, even self-hosted-simple
- You depend on a Xero integration ecosystem that the OSS alternatives have not replicated
Side by side
| Firefly III (open source) | Xero | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (self-hosted) | $15-$78/month |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Proprietary |
| Source code | Public, auditable | Closed |
| Self-hosting | Yes — firefly-iii/firefly-iii | Cloud only |
| Data ownership | Your server, your format | Vendor's cloud |
| Community | ★ 25K · ⑂ 2.3K | — |
| Built with | PHP | — |
Why people look for a Xero alternative
About Firefly III
Firefly III is an AGPL 3.0 licensed, self hosted personal finance manager written in PHP that uses double entry bookkeeping to track income, expenses, budgets, categories, tags and savings goals, and it is built for individuals and households who want to own and control their own financial data instead of renting a cloud accounting subscription.
read the full Firefly III overview →
Other open source alternatives to Xero
last updated nightly · ranking method: github stars, live-tracked
Frequently asked questions
Is Firefly III a good replacement for Xero?
Firefly III is an open source alternative to Xero (Cloud accounting software). It is written in PHP and licensed under AGPL-3.0, with 24,649 GitHub stars.
Is Firefly III free compared to Xero?
Yes. Firefly III is open source — there is no licence fee, and you can self-host it. Xero is typically a paid subscription, so the trade-off is licence cost against the operational work of running it yourself.
How do I migrate from Xero to Firefly III?
Migration effort depends on the data formats involved. Check Firefly III's documentation for import options, and compare the feature table above to confirm the capabilities you depend on are covered before switching.