Softwr

Personal Finance · head to head

Firefly III vs Formance

Firefly III logo

Firefly III

Personal Finance

Free, open source, self-hosted personal finance manager with double-entry style accounting

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Formance logo

Formance

APIs

Open source double-entry ledger and payment orchestration for money-moving software

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Firefly III there is no official managed hosting, so a non-technical user has no easy on-ramp the way Actual Budget offers with its paid hosted sync.; Formance formance holds no money and provides no regulatory cover, so it must be paired with a payments provider or bank, and buyers occasionally mistake a ledger for a treasury system and discover the gap late.
  • They diverge on capability: Firefly III covers Double-entry style ledger, Formance covers Double-entry ledger.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Firefly III and Formance actually diverge.

Attributes where Firefly III and Formance differ
AttributeFirefly IIIFormance
PlatformsWeb, Linux, DockerLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API
CategoryPersonal FinanceAPIs

Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (Open source, no licence fee), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Firefly III

  • Double-entry style ledger
  • Multi-currency accounts
  • Bill and subscription tracking
  • Rule engine
  • Reports and charts
  • API access

Only in Formance

  • Double-entry ledger
  • Numscript transaction DSL
  • Multi-currency
  • Payments connectivity
  • Reconciliation
  • Self-hosted deployment
  • Cloud offering
  • API and SDKs

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Firefly III

  • A self-hoster already running a home server or NAS who wants their financial ledger on the same infrastructurenot Formance
  • Someone who wants double-entry style accuracy rather than simple envelope budgetingnot Formance
  • A privacy-focused user who refuses to put financial data on any third-party server, hosted or otherwisenot Formance
  • A developer who wants API access to build custom bank import scripts for accounts with no standard connectornot Formance

Formance

  • A marketplace splitting a single customer payment between seller, platform fee and tax that needs the split to be atomic and auditablenot Firefly III
  • A fintech whose homegrown balances table produced numbers finance could not reconcile and now needs proper double-entry before an auditnot Firefly III
  • A payments team that wants one normalised model across several PSPs so reconciliation is not written separately for eachnot Firefly III
  • A company that wants its ledger under a licence it can keep running even if the vendor disappearsnot Firefly III

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Firefly III

  • There is no official managed hosting, so a non-technical user has no easy on-ramp the way Actual Budget offers with its paid hosted sync.
  • The double-entry-influenced model is less intuitive for newcomers than simple envelope budgeting, and the learning curve is real.
  • Automatic bank sync depends on the community-run importer and third-party connectors, and coverage and reliability vary a lot by bank and country.
  • Mobile access is via a web interface rather than a polished native app, which is a step behind Actual Budget or Lunch Money on phones.
  • Because there is no company behind it, security patching and feature development depend entirely on volunteer maintainer time.

Formance

  • Formance holds no money and provides no regulatory cover, so it must be paired with a payments provider or bank, and buyers occasionally mistake a ledger for a treasury system and discover the gap late.
  • Numscript is a domain-specific language your team must learn, and while it makes complex splits expressible it also means transaction logic sits outside the languages your engineers already debug well.
  • Self-hosting a ledger that must never lose or duplicate a transaction is a serious operational commitment covering backups, upgrades and Postgres tuning, which is real cost the zero licence fee hides.
  • Enterprise pricing is not published, so the difference between the free path and the supported path cannot be evaluated without a sales conversation.
  • The company is much smaller than the incumbent alternatives, and while the MIT licence protects the code it does not protect the roadmap, so features on the hosted side may arrive slowly or change direction.

Pricing, plan by plan

Firefly III

Free
  • Firefly IIIFree
    • Full functionality, self-hosted
    • No usage limits
    • Community support, donations accepted

Formance

Free
  • Open SourceFree
    • MIT licensed core ledger
    • Numscript transaction DSL
    • Multi-currency tracking
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Managed or private deployment
    • Payments connectivity and reconciliation
    • Support with response commitments

Which should you pick?

Choose Firefly III if

  • You need double-entry style ledger.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux, Docker.
  • You also want multi-currency accounts.
Firefly III review

Choose Formance if

  • You need double-entry ledger.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API.
  • You also want numscript transaction dsl.
Formance review

Questions people ask

Is Firefly III or Formance better?
Neither clearly leads. Firefly III starts at Free and Formance at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Firefly III or Formance?
Firefly III starts at Free and Formance at Free.
Does Firefly III or Formance run on more platforms?
Firefly III runs on Web, Linux, Docker. Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API.
Can I use Firefly III for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Firefly III best used for?
Firefly III is most often used for a self-hoster already running a home server or nas who wants their financial ledger on the same infrastructure, someone who wants double-entry style accuracy rather than simple envelope budgeting, a privacy-focused user who refuses to put financial data on any third-party server, hosted or otherwise, a developer who wants api access to build custom bank import scripts for accounts with no standard connector. Of those, a self-hoster already running a home server or nas who wants their financial ledger on the same infrastructure and someone who wants double-entry style accuracy rather than simple envelope budgeting are not what Formance is typically brought in for.
What can Firefly III do that Formance cannot?
Firefly III covers Double-entry style ledger, Multi-currency accounts, Bill and subscription tracking, Rule engine. Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Firefly III: Can I pay someone to host Firefly III for me?

Not through the core project; some third-party providers sell Firefly III hosting independently, but there is no official managed service.

Formance: Is Formance really open source?

Yes. The core ledger is MIT licensed with full source access and no deployment restrictions.

Firefly III: Does it support multiple currencies?

Yes, natively, including accounts and transactions in different currencies.

Formance: Does Formance move money?

No. It records and orchestrates movements; the actual payments happen at a PSP or bank you connect.

Firefly III: Is it really free with no paid tier?

Yes, the software is free and open source under the AGPL; the project accepts donations but sells nothing.

Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

Not published. It is an annual subscription quoted per customer.

Formance: Do I have to use Numscript?

Yes for anything beyond the simplest transfers. It is how multi-party transactions are expressed atomically.

Share

Related pages

More on Firefly III

More on Formance

Keep looking

Other head to heads