head to head
Xero vs Invoice Ninja
Invoice Ninja is the open source alternative to Xero — cloud accounting software. Here is the honest comparison.
Yes — Invoice Ninja is a viable free replacement for Xero. Invoice Ninja is open source under its own open-source terms, written in PHP, with 10,086 GitHub stars, 2,707 forks and 945 open issues; it was last pushed 16 hours ago. Xero costs from $15, while self-hosting Invoice Ninja 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 Firefly III at 24,649 stars. Invoice Ninja ranks #2 of 2 tracked open source Xero alternatives by stars. The tracked set, by adoption: Firefly III (24,649 stars). Replacement criteria on this page: 4 reasons to move to Invoice Ninja and 3 reasons to stay on Xero.
choose Invoice Ninja 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
| Invoice Ninja (open source) | Xero | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (self-hosted) | $15-$78/month |
| License | Custom / other | Proprietary |
| Source code | Public, auditable | Closed |
| Self-hosting | Yes — invoiceninja/invoiceninja | Cloud only |
| Data ownership | Your server, your format | Vendor's cloud |
| Community | ★ 10K · ⑂ 2.7K | — |
| Built with | PHP | — |
Why people look for a Xero alternative
About Invoice Ninja
Invoice Ninja is a source available invoice, quote, project, and time tracking application built with Laravel and PHP. It lives in the Laravel ecosystem and is positioned as an open alternative to QuickBooks, Xero, and FreshBooks. The project provides a web application, API, desktop clients, and mobile clients for businesses that need to bill clients and manage payment related work.
read the full Invoice Ninja overview →
Other open source alternatives to Xero
last updated nightly · ranking method: github stars, live-tracked
Frequently asked questions
Is Invoice Ninja a good replacement for Xero?
Invoice Ninja is an open source alternative to Xero (Cloud accounting software). It is written in PHP and licensed under its own terms, with 10,086 GitHub stars.
Is Invoice Ninja free compared to Xero?
Yes. Invoice Ninja 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 Invoice Ninja?
Migration effort depends on the data formats involved. Check Invoice Ninja's documentation for import options, and compare the feature table above to confirm the capabilities you depend on are covered before switching.