Accounting software you can run yourself
What this situation needs
Some businesses want the ledger on their own hardware: for control, for cost, or because an accountant needs a file rather than a login. These products publish a desktop or self-hosted route.
Suitability scores follow a published rubric: 45 points when the product runs entirely on your own machine or server at no licence cost, 25 points for a complete double-entry ledger, 20 points for stated multi-currency or multi-company support, and 10 points for an official upgrade path to a hosted edition.
Ranked for Accounting software you can run yourself
Suitability is an editorial score out of 100; facts on each row are verified- Rank 1No preview yet
GnuCash
Free desktop double-entry accounting under the GNU General Public License, for personal and small-business books.
Free
Suitability 92 of 100. Desktop double-entry books under the GNU General Public License on five operating systems, with multi-currency accounts.
Not yet scored - Rank 2
Akaunting
Cloud accounting sold by company and user count, from US$12 a month, with a self-hosted deployment offered separately.
Flat rate from $12/mo
Suitability 80 of 100. Open-core: the code can be self-hosted, and cloud plans exist when you would rather not.
Not yet scoredCompare with GnuCash - Rank 3
Odoo Accounting
The accounting app of an open-source business suite, free for one app and US$7.25 per user a month for all of them.
Free plan, paid from $7.25/mo
Suitability 74 of 100. Open-source suite whose Custom plan includes on-premise hosting and the external API.
Not yet scoredCompare with GnuCash - Rank 4No preview yet
Invoice Ninja
Invoicing and billing with a free tier for five clients and a US$14 a month Pro plan.
Free plan, paid from $14/mo
Suitability 66 of 100. Hosted plans with a self-hosted deployment route for the same invoicing product.
Not yet scoredCompare with GnuCash