4,328 stars · ⚠ A COMPOUND LICENCE IN ONE FILE, and the page summary says only "GPL": /blob/stable/LICENSE — on a default branch called `stable`, with NO COPYING in the root — holds the full GPL version 2 text plus the project's own notes stating it is "licensed under the GNU General Public License, Version 2, or (at your option) Version 3", that some files are "Version 2 and/or Version 3", that there is a special exception permitting linking with the OpenSSL library, and that "Some of the source files are in the public domain." No single project-wide copyright holder is named · 5.17 (2026-09-27 — one of the few repositories today whose release date CARRIES ITS YEAR on the page, so no second source was needed) · Track this in Scout
Desktop double-entry accounting for a person or a small business, with invoicing, budgets and investment tracking.
▶Repo detailsthe review · specs · pros & cons · install
What it is
GnuCash is a long-running desktop accounting program for Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, macOS 10.13 and later, and Windows 11. It does double-entry bookkeeping, invoicing, scheduled transactions, budgets and investment tracking, with reports.
What it is good for. Anyone who has outgrown a spreadsheet and does not want a monthly subscription or an account with a company that can change its prices. It suits a sole trader or a very small business that files its own returns, and anyone who wants their own books on their own disk.
- Version 5.17 was released on 27 September 2026, a week before this edition. This is one of the few repositories here whose release date carries its year on the page, so no second source was needed.
- Real double-entry accounting with invoices and investments, from a project that has shipped continuously for over twenty years. Distribution packages exist for most Linux systems, and there are installers for macOS and Windows.
- Online price quotes are available through an optional Perl component, so a share portfolio can be valued without manual typing.
- One licence file contains three different licensing situations, and the summary word on the page is "GPL".
/blob/stable/LICENSE— on a default branch calledstable, notmainormaster, and there is noCOPYINGin the root — holds the full GPL version 2 text plus the project's own notes. Those notes say the software is "licensed under the GNU General Public License, Version 2, or (at your option) Version 3", that some files are "Version 2 and/or Version 3", that there is a special exception permitting linking with the OpenSSL library, and that "Some of the source files are in the public domain." Anyone combining code with it has to track which rule applies to which file. No single project-wide copyright holder is named. - Building from source is the hardest job in this edition: CMake, a full GNOME development stack, libxml2, SWIG 2.0.10 or newer and a C++11 compiler, with the README deferring the detail to another file. There is no
README.mdat all, only a plainREADME, and no single install command anywhere. - You cannot judge the backlog from GitHub. There are 51 open pull requests and the issues tab reads zero, which means bug tracking happens somewhere else. We did not verify where, so the real backlog is unknown. The website linked in the sidebar is also served over plain HTTP. No memory or disk figure is published. One more note worth recording: the ungh mirror reports the last code push as 22 August 2026, which cannot be right, because release 5.17 shipped on 27 September. The mirror is stale on this row and nothing was written into our own recency field from it.
firefly-iii/firefly-iiiThe same job as a web application you host, so it is reachable from a phone; AGPL-3.0, and it needs a web server and a database.
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actualbudget/actualEnvelope budgeting rather than double-entry bookkeeping, with a much friendlier screen and no invoicing.
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The original plain-text accounting program: your books are a text file and the tool reports on it, with no interface at all.
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sudo apt install gnucash
