Akaunting

What is Akaunting?

Akaunting is free, open source accounting software for small businesses and freelancers that you can self-host on your own server. It handles invoicing, expense tracking, and financial reporting through a web app built on the Laravel PHP framework and Vue.js, with a built-in app store for adding modules.

What is Akaunting best for?

Freelancers and small businesses that want to send invoices, track expenses, and see basic financial reports without paying a monthly per-seat subscription — and who are comfortable running a PHP web app. It suits control-conscious operators who’d rather own their financial data than keep it in someone else’s cloud.

What can Akaunting do?

• Create and send professional invoices and quotes, with multi-currency support
• Track bills and expenses and categorize transactions
• Generate financial reports — income, expenses, and cash-flow summaries
• Manage customers and vendors, and share invoices via a client portal (an app)
• Extend the core with 100+ first- and third-party apps from the built-in app store (double-entry, inventory, payroll, projects, CRM, POS)
• Run on PHP 8.1+ with MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, or SQLite

Where does Akaunting fall short?

• The free self-hosted edition is thinner than “free open source accounting” suggests. It’s essentially invoicing, expense tracking, and basic reports, capped at one user plus one accountant. Core bookkeeping like double-entry accounting, inventory, and payroll are paid apps from the app store, not included features.
• It’s source-available under BSL 1.1, not OSI open source. Each release only converts to the GPLv3 open source license four years after that version’s release date.
• It has fewer built-in integrations than QuickBooks or Xero, and there’s no native time tracking — capabilities like payment gateways and the client portal are separate apps you install and, in many cases, pay for.

Is Akaunting free?

Partly. The self-hosted Standard edition is free to download and run — you only pay for your own server. But many features people expect from accounting software (double-entry, inventory, payroll, custom fields) are paid apps sold in the app store, and Akaunting Cloud is a subscription: $12/mo for Standard up to $218/mo for Ultimate, with advanced apps unlocked at the higher tiers.

What does Akaunting replace?

Akaunting is a self-hosted alternative to QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks, and Wave. It covers the same core small-business jobs — invoicing, expenses, and reporting — on your own infrastructure, though matching their full accounting depth means adding paid apps. For pure billing, Invoice Ninja is a close cousin; for personal-finance and double-entry needs, Firefly III and ERPNext are worth comparing.

FAQ

Is Akaunting open source? It’s source-available under the Business Source License (BSL) 1.1, not OSI-approved open source. The code is public and free to self-host, and each version becomes GPLv3 open source four years after its release.

Can I self-host Akaunting for free? Yes. The Standard self-hosted edition is free to run on your own server. Just know the free tier is limited to one user plus one accountant, and advanced accounting modules are paid add-ons.

Is Akaunting a good QuickBooks alternative? For invoicing and expense tracking, yes — with no per-seat subscription. If you need full double-entry books, payroll, and inventory out of the box, you’ll be buying apps, so weigh that against QuickBooks or Xero pricing.

What do I need to run Akaunting? A web server (Apache, Nginx, or IIS) with PHP 8.1+ and the required PHP extensions, plus a MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, or SQLite database. Composer and Node.js are used during installation.