hledger vs Ledger
hledger
hledger.orgLedger
ledger-cli.orgSide by side
| Figure | hledger | Ledger |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 2 | 1 |
| Spec score · General Ledger Software | 8.6 (#7) | 8.4 (#11) |
| Spec score · Bookkeeping Software | 8.5 (#25) | 8.2 (#32) |
| Automated reconciliation | Yes | Yes |
| Bank feeds | Yes | No |
| Inventory tracking | Yes | No |
| Invoice creation | No | No |
| Reports | It generates balance sheet, income statement, and cashflow reports, including multi-period reports. | Its commands can generate monthly and average reports, check balances, reconcile accounts, and track stock capital gains. |
| Support | Community support is provided through Matrix, IRC, chat, mail lists and bug trackers. | The project points users to its IRC channel and mailing list for questions and discussions. |
| What it does | hledger is cross-platform, plain-text, double-entry accounting software for tracking money, investments, cryptocurrencies, invoices, time and inventory. | Ledger is a double-entry accounting system accessed from the UNIX command line. |
Plans
In their own words
hledger
hledger is free accounting software for tracking money, investments, cryptocurrencies, time, and other countable items in plain-text files. It provides multi-currency double-entry accounting and generates balance sheet, income statement, and cashflow reports, including reports across multiple periods. It offers command-line, terminal, and web interfaces; the web interface can also serve a JSON API.
hledger imports CSV and can output text, HTML, CSV, JSON, or SQL. It can interoperate with Ledger and Beancount formats. The software runs locally and offline, keeping plain-text data under the user's control. Bank feeds, automated reconciliation, and inventory tracking are supported; invoice creation is not. Official binaries are available for Linux x64, Mac x64 and arm64, and Windows x64, with no official Linux ARM binaries. The web app normally runs locally and is accessible only from the user's machine. hledger is Free Software under GNU GPLv3+ with no purchase price or monthly fees.
Ledger
Ledger is a double-entry accounting system used from the UNIX command line. Users record transactions in Ledger’s text format and maintain the files themselves; Ledger does not create or modify them. Entries must balance, and an unbalanced entry produces an error instead of a report. Commands can generate monthly and average reports, check balances, reconcile accounts, and track stock capital gains. Ledger supports multiple currencies in an account and can convert between them. Its data files accept UTF-8, dates use ISO format, and decimal values can follow US or European formats. The software is released under the BSD license and is listed as free. It runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows; downloads also include packages or binaries for BSD. The documentation links to the Ledger 3 manual, man page, C++ API documentation, and ledger-mode manual. The project directs users to an IRC channel and mailing list for discussion, and to GitHub for bug reports.