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Firefly III Hosting
Track accounts, budgets, expenses, and financial goals with detailed personal finance reports.
No setup fees-
One click deploy -
1 GB RAM Memory needed -
15 GB Disk Space Needed -
From 2 € Price
Official links
Firefly III’s official links and original website
Firefly III Website
More
Tech
- Docker image
- fireflyiii/core:latest
- Default port
- 8080
- Database
- mariadb
How Firefly III works
Firefly III treats personal finance as a ledger of asset, expense, revenue, liability, and other account types. Users record transactions between those accounts, then apply categories, budgets, tags, bills, and rules to describe what the money represents. Reports turn the accumulated records into views of spending, income, balances, and progress over time.
The application is designed around records that the user controls. Transactions can be entered manually or imported through separate supported workflows, while recurring items and rules reduce repeated work. Firefly III itself is not a bank, payment service, or financial adviser, and it does not move money between real accounts.
Key Firefly III features
Budgets define spending limits for selected categories or periods, and bills represent recurring obligations with expected amounts and dates. Tags and categories provide different ways to group activity, while piggy banks and goals help users reserve money for planned expenses.
Reports cover cash flow, net worth, expenses, revenue, and account balances. Rules can transform imported or newly created transactions, and the API supports integrations built around the user’s own financial data.
Firefly III vs YNAB
Firefly III is a self-hosted ledger and reporting application that gives the operator direct control of the server and database. YNAB is a provider-managed subscription focused on assigning money to categories, connecting supported financial institutions, synchronising across devices, and sharing plans with household members.
YNAB may suit people who want guided budgeting, official mobile applications, bank import, educational support, and a service maintained by the vendor. Firefly III is more appropriate when self-hosting, detailed account structures, configurable rules, and independent control of the stored records are higher priorities.
Who uses Firefly III
Individuals use Firefly III to understand spending, monitor bills, and follow savings goals. Households can maintain a shared view of accounts and recurring obligations, while technically minded users connect import tools or scripts to the application API.
The catalogue deployment should not be presented as including automatic bank synchronisation or financial advice. It is best for people prepared to maintain their records and verify imports rather than expecting the hosting plan to connect every institution automatically.
Self-hosting Firefly III: requirements and cost
Resource use is driven by transaction volume, retained attachments, rules, imports, report queries, and concurrent users. MariaDB stores accounts, transactions, budgets, categories, rules, and configuration. AvaHost provisions the database with Firefly III, but the MariaDB container remains unmanaged. Application email delivery is disabled on the hosted service.
Firefly III has no separate software fee for the hosted application, and its database-adjusted starting point is Plan 2 at €5. Firefly III hosting comes with one-click setup, a private domain, automated HTTPS, automatic application updates, and scheduled backups. The first intended owner should register before the URL is shared, because the initial registration claims the installation.
F.A.Q
Firefly III starts at €5 on Plan 2 after its MariaDB service is included in the resource recommendation. One-click deployment, a custom domain, automated HTTPS, automatic application updates, and scheduled backups are part of the hosted service. Transaction volume, attachments, import activity, complex rules, and report queries are the main reasons to review plan size.
AvaHost creates a MariaDB container beside Firefly III and configures the application to use it. Accounts, transactions, budgets, bills, categories, rules, and settings depend on that database. MariaDB is included but unmanaged, so the database and persistent uploaded data should be preserved as one system during maintenance, export, or recovery.
The installation can use a custom domain with automated HTTPS after the required DNS record points to AvaHost. Select the final address before configuring bookmarks, import tools, or API clients. Then test registration, sign-in, reports, and any integrations that may have stored the earlier platform URL.
The hosted catalogue application does not include a bank-connection service. Firefly III supports manual records and can work with separate import tooling, but institution coverage, credentials, and import behaviour are outside this app plan. Users should verify imported transactions carefully and should not treat the application as a payment service or source of financial advice.