YAFFA is an open-source, self-hosted web application for tracking personal finances. It records income and expenses across multiple accounts, organizes them with categories, tags, and payees, and adds budgets, recurring transactions, and reports behind a straightforward browser dashboard.[1][2]
Quick verdict
Individuals who want a private, straightforward budget tracker will get the most from YAFFA. Its self-hosted dashboard with accounts, budgets, recurring transactions, and CSV transfer covers household money management on infrastructure you control, free under the MIT license. The price of that independence is operational responsibility, so anyone wanting automatic bank sync or zero maintenance should choose a managed tracker instead. If you can run Docker Compose and enter transactions yourself, start with YAFFA and weigh Firefly III when you need double-entry accounting or a REST API.[1][2][3][4]
Key features
Account ledger: multiple accounts with transactions organized by categories, tags, and payees for recording income and expenses.[1][2]
Budget tracking: budgets with progress visibility so planned spending can be compared against actual entries.[1][2]
Recurring entries: scheduled recurring transactions for regular income and bills.[1][2]
Reporting: standard, custom, cash-flow, and investment reports plus a transaction report for reviewing money movement.[1]
Data transfer: CSV import for bringing transactions in and export for taking data out.[1]
Self-hosting path: Docker Compose install on your own infrastructure under the MIT license, with the full source on GitHub.[1][2]
Who will love it
Individuals tracking household money: income, expenses, and recurring bills across a few accounts fit the documented workflow without accounting knowledge.[1][2]
Home-lab operators: the Docker Compose install sits naturally next to other self-hosted services on private infrastructure.[1][2]
Tinkerers who read code: the MIT-licensed PHP and Laravel codebase invites inspection, modification, and contribution.[1][2]
Who should avoid it
Non-technical budgeters: anyone unwilling to run Git, Docker, and Compose on their own server should choose a managed tracker instead of self-hosting.[1]
Automatic-sync seekers: transaction entry is manual or CSV-driven, so anyone expecting automatic bank feeds will find the workflow thin.[1]
Teams needing controls: the software is designed for personal use with no documented single sign-on or enterprise support, so shared or compliance-heavy setups are out of scope.[1][2]
The official repository is the observable community signal: 698 stars and 44 forks were observed, with issues documented as the support channel. No Reddit or G2 community reports were inspected, so no attributed community experience is quoted here.[1]
Compatibility and hosting
Questions worth asking
Should I choose YAFFA or Firefly III for self-hosted budgeting?
What do I need to run YAFFA?
You need Git, Docker, and the Docker Compose plugin, then you clone the repository and start the compose stack on your own server. There is no managed signup; the software runs entirely on infrastructure you control.[1]
Is YAFFA really free?
YAFFA is MIT-licensed, so you can use, modify, and share it freely, including for commercial purposes, as long as you keep the license and copyright notice. No paid edition was documented.[1]
Sources and editorial review
Source research. Reviewed on October 13, 2026. Written by Sanjib Sah. AI assisted; reviewed by a human editor.
We have not run or tested this product.
- YAFFA official homepage
official · Observed October 13, 2026
Official marketing homepage; confirms YAFFA identity and open-source personal-finance positioning with dashboard, demo, docs, and GitHub links.
- YAFFA documentation index
official · Observed October 13, 2026
Primary evidence for self-hosting, Docker Compose install, prerequisites, release activity, and the accounts, budgets, recurring, and reporting guides.
- kantorge/yaffa repository
official · Observed October 13, 2026
Primary evidence for identity, MIT licensing, PHP/Laravel/Livewire stack, star/fork counts, and the reporting, budgets, transactions, recurring, accounts, and CSV feature set.
- YAFFA MIT license text
official · Observed October 13, 2026
Confirms the MIT license grant and copyright holder for the licensing claim.
- Firefly III repository
official · Observed October 13, 2026
Relationship evidence: confirms Firefly III as a published self-hosted personal finance manager with the same budgeting workflow, grounding the competitor edge.
Compared with these products
No explicit proprietary baseline is recorded.