LegalClaw vs LexNebulis
LegalClaw
erpclaw.aiLexNebulis
github.comSide by side
| Figure | LegalClaw | LexNebulis |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 1 |
| Spec score · Trust Accounting Software | 8.6 (#9) | 8.5 (#11) |
| Billing | Billing supports retainers, contingency, hourly, and flat-fee arrangements, with billable hours tracked by matter and attorney. | The wiki says the platform supports LEDES 1998B and 2000 export, UTBMS codes, and electronic invoice submission. |
| Conflict checking | Pre-engagement screening checks client and party history before a matter is opened. | Conflict searches use Soundex, Metaphone and Levenshtein matching for phonetic and fuzzy names. |
| Document management | Documents include versioning, court filing, archival and full-text search. | Documents are stored with MinIO, versioned, tagged and organized by matter. |
| Installation | The documented installation uses OpenClaw and the command clawhub install erpclaw, with database initialization performed locally. | The setup script generates secrets, builds containers, starts services, runs migrations and creates the initial administrator. |
| Integrations | The legal page says Stripe can collect retainers and case payments; ERPClaw’s integrations page also describes Stripe, Plaid, Shopify, and S3 integrations. | Listed integrations include Stripe and LawPay payments, QuickBooks and CSV accounting export, and Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, and OneDrive storage. |
| Matter management | Matter workflows cover client intake, lifecycle tracking, parties, summaries and client portfolios. | Matters can use custom fields, status workflows, responsible attorneys and linked documents. |
| Purpose | LegalClaw is ERPClaw’s legal vertical for matter management, time billing, trust accounting, and law-firm operations. | LexNebulis is a self-hosted legal practice management platform for small law firms. |
| System requirements | The installation guide requires Python 3.10 or newer and git, while Docker, Redis and PostgreSQL are unnecessary for the default setup. | Installation requires Docker 24 or newer, Docker Compose 2 or newer, at least 2 GB RAM and 10 GB disk. |
| Time and billing | Billing supports six-minute time entries, expenses, invoice generation, payment recording and accounts-receivable aging. | Time entry supports timers, manual entries, expenses, LEDES-compatible invoices and batch billing. |
| Trust accounting | The module supports IOLTA and escrow accounts, deposits, disbursements, transfers, reconciliation and interest distribution. | Trust/IOLTA accounting includes per-client ledgers, three-way reconciliation, deposits, disbursements and overdraft safeguards. |
| What it does | LegalClaw is ERPClaw’s legal-practice module for matters, billing, documents, trust accounting, court calendars, conflicts and bar/CLE compliance. | LexNebulis is a self-hosted legal-practice management platform aimed at small law firms. |
Plans
In their own words
LegalClaw
LegalClaw is ERPClaw’s legal vertical for matter management, time billing, trust accounting, and law-firm operations. Its legal feature set lists 69 law-firm-specific actions across trust accounting, billing, documents, and reporting. Billing handles retainer, contingency, hourly, and flat-fee arrangements, with billable hours tracked by matter and attorney. Matter documents include version control and retention policies; reports cover realization, collection, and attorney productivity. The small-firm offering describes conflict screening against client and party history, as well as court-date and statute-of-limitations tracking. Trust tools include individual client subledgers, three-way reconciliation, separation of trust funds, and an immutable ledger with a chain-hashed audit trail. LegalClaw is self-hosted and supports SQLite or PostgreSQL; installation requires Python 3.10 or newer and git. The Self-Hosted plan is free, with every module, unlimited users and companies, and community support via GitHub. Managed hosting is priced at onboarding by request. The listed platform options include API, Linux, macOS, self-hosted, and web.
LexNebulis
LexNebulis is a free, self-hosted legal practice management platform for small law firms. It handles clients and matters, documents, calendars, time tracking, billing, and trust accounting. Legal workflows include conflict checks, client intake, document templates and generation, e-signature, and a client portal. Billing supports LEDES 1998B and 2000 export, UTBMS codes, and electronic invoice submission. Listed connections cover Stripe and LawPay payments, QuickBooks and CSV accounting export, and Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, and OneDrive storage. Security features include encryption at rest and in transit, bcrypt password hashing, JWT authentication, and TOTP or WebAuthn/FIDO2 two-factor authentication. Its append-only audit log uses SHA-256 hash chaining to make tampering or deletion detectable. The software is free for commercial use under Apache License 2.0. Installation requires Docker and Docker Compose v2, at least 2 GB RAM, and at least 10 GB disk space. The guide specifies a Linux server and recommends Ubuntu 22.04 or later; macOS is specified for development. The project wiki describes a target range of 1 to 50 users.