LineLedger costs nothing.
There’s no catch.
It’s open source software you install on your own server. No plans, no seats, no trial that ends, and no paid edition held back from the one you download.
For sole traders, partnerships, limited companies and LLPs. Unlimited companies, users, and transactions — licensed under the GNU AGPLv3.
- Unlimited invoices, bills, customers & vendors
- VAT at HMRC’s rates, with drill-down and a nine-box VAT Return
- Fund accounting for charities and clubs, with restricted funds
- Classes & locations for per-segment P&L
- Works with your payroll provider — LineLedger does no UK payroll itself
- Fixed assets with depreciation schedules
- Multi-currency with realized & unrealized FX
- Estimates, sales orders, purchase orders
- Customer portal + Stripe online payments
- Recurring invoices & bills
- Bank reconciliation
- Inventory (FIFO or weighted-average)
- Drill-through financial reports + budgets
- Multi-company books with combined reports
- Passkey sign-in, 2FA & per-member RBAC
- REST API v1 + Business Q&A MCP server (20 tools)
- Hash-chained audit log
- AI daily insights & email-in receipt capture
- Cash-flow forecast & management report packages
- Backup → portable ZIP → restore
- Every feature on — there is no paid edition
Your only cost is the server
We won’t pretend running software is free of everything. LineLedger needs a machine to sit on: a small VPS runs about £8–15 a month, and a box you already own — an office server, a spare mini PC — costs you nothing extra. That bill comes from your hosting provider, not from us, and you can change providers whenever you like.
Coming from QuickBooks? See the side-by-side → or project what you’d stop paying →
So how do you make money?
We don’t. LineLedger is software we wrote and gave away, and there is nothing here to buy — no hosted plan, no support contract, no enterprise tier, no telemetry, and no data to resell, because your books never reach us. Judge it on the code.
Common questions
- Is it really free?
- Yes. LineLedger is open source under the GNU AGPLv3 and you run it yourself, so there is nothing to pay us — no plans, no seats, no paid edition held back, and no upsell waiting a few months in. Every feature listed on this site is in the version you download.
- Then what does it actually cost to run?
- A server. LineLedger installs with Docker and needs a machine to sit on: a small VPS runs about £8–15 a month, and an office box or home server you already own costs you nothing extra. That bill comes from your hosting provider, not from us.
- What do I need to install it?
- Docker and Docker Compose, and about five minutes. You fetch one compose file, set a few values in a .env, and start it — the prebuilt image handles migrations, storage, and the background workers on first boot. Upgrades are one command.
- How do you make money, then?
- We don’t. LineLedger is software we wrote and gave away, and there is nothing here to buy. That means no telemetry, no data to resell, no growth targets pushing a price up — and it also means you should judge the software on the code rather than on a support contract we’re selling.
- Can you see my books?
- No. LineLedger runs entirely on your server, so your ledger never touches ours — we have no account for you, no database with your figures in it, and no way to reach your data. That is a property of where the software runs, not a promise you have to trust.
- What happens if you stop working on it?
- Your install keeps running — it does not phone home and there is no licence to expire. The AGPLv3 gives you the source, the right to modify it, and the right to hand it to someone else to maintain. Nothing about your books depends on us still being here.
- Can I get my data out?
- It never leaves your server, so it is already out — but yes: export any company to a self-contained portable ZIP, plus CSV and XLSX from every report. The audit chain stays verifiable across a backup and restore.
- Is there a version for non-profits?
- There is no separate version, because there is no price to waive. Non-profits, charities, clubs, and associations get the same install as everyone else — including net-asset subtypes, restricted funds, interfund transfers, and donation receipts.
Open the books today.
One compose file and about five minutes. Nothing to sign up for, and nothing to cancel.