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Firefly III

Personal/small-org finance manager for cashflow visibility

oss-osi-approved stub guide

Overview

Firefly III is a double-entry finance manager. Solo operators sometimes track space cashflow here while accountants own official books.

At a glance

FieldValue
Categoriesaccounting
Deploymentself-hosted
License classoss-osi-approved (AGPL-3.0-only)
Cost modelfree-self-hosted
Implementation difficultyeasy
Maintenance burdenmedium
Maturitystable
Verificationpartially-verified (2026-07-17)

Cost reality

Free self-hosted; not a replacement for statutory accounting software in many jurisdictions.

Pricing and free-tier limits change frequently; re-check official pricing before budget decisions.

Tasks reduced or augmented

Software does not replace community or ops staff. It may reduce or augment:

  • Cashflow categorization
  • Budget envelopes for ops

Human oversight still needed

  • Not a substitute for accountant tools where required
  • Data sensitivity

Data held

  • accounts

  • transactions

  • budgets

  • Personal data: yes

  • Payment data: no / not primary

Risks

AreaNotes
Vendor lock-inEvaluate export formats and API completeness before deep customization.
SecurityApply updates promptly; restrict admin access; enable TLS.
ComplianceOperator remains responsible for privacy and local regulatory obligations.
LicensingConfirm license fits commercial coworking use.
OperationalPlan backups, monitoring, and a restore drill before production use.

Coworking fit

Roles: owner-operator, finance

Workflows: reporting-kpis, invoice-collections

Problems: replace-spreadsheets, self-host-for-data-control

Smallest useful experiment

Import three months of business transactions and categorize membership vs facilities costs.

Typical time to first value: 1–3 days

Implementation guide

See the human-written implementation guide.

Verification

Seed entry compiled from official project sites and repositories. Re-verify pricing, license text, and feature claims before production decisions. Star counts and free-tier numeric limits intentionally omitted unless verified at review time.