Akaunting
Depends
Confidence: Medium
Choose Akaunting if you are a freelancer or micro-business wanting free, self-hostable invoicing and can patch security updates yourself.
Comparison
Akaunting vs Frappe Books
Akaunting lands on Depends, and Frappe Books lands on Worth it.
Frappe Books
Worth it
Confidence: Medium
Buy if you're a freelancer or small business wanting free, offline double-entry accounting with no subscription.
| Compare | Akaunting | Frappe Books |
|---|---|---|
| Verdict | Depends | Worth it |
| Best for | Freelancers sending invoices | Freelancers and solo businesses |
| Who it's not for | Companies needing payroll or audited, compliant books | Teams needing cloud or multi-user access |
| Privacy | Recurring CVEs, including a published RCE exploit and an auth bypass; self-hosters must patch fast.10 | No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed. |
| Support quality | Community forum; paid experience called disappointing | No official support; third-party resellers charge extra |
| Public sentiment | Users find basic bookkeeping easy but frequently report disappointment and question how free it really is.⁴ | Users praise it as a genuinely free, simple desktop accounting tool for solo businesses, while the loudest complaint is the lack of an online version. |
| Biggest gotcha | RCE affects versions below 3.1.3; patch immediately if self-hosting10 | Desktop-only: top GitHub request is online hosting with anywhere access; not available yet |
Pick Akaunting when
- Freelancers sending invoices
- Self-hosting enthusiasts
- Micro-businesses tracking expenses
- Privacy-conscious users avoiding lock-in
When Akaunting is not a fit
- Companies needing payroll or audited, compliant books
- Teams unwilling to self-host or patch security updates
- Buyers who want guaranteed vendor support
- Growing firms needing multi-entity accounting
Pick Frappe Books when
- Freelancers and solo businesses
- Small businesses wanting free desktop accounting
- Open-source and offline-first users
- Simple invoicing plus double-entry bookkeeping
When Frappe Books is not a fit
- Teams needing cloud or multi-user access
- Anyone wanting Stripe or bank-feed auto-import
- Businesses needing official support or SLAs
- Buyers wanting a vendor security page
Sources
- Akaunting homepageakaunting.comofficial
- Akaunting Plansakaunting.comofficial
- Why Akaunting Cloudakaunting.comofficial
- G2 reviews (12 reviews)g2.comreview
- Capterra review: disappointing experiencecapterra.co.zareview
- Software Advice reviewssoftwareadvice.comreview
- Reddit: self-hosted, features unusablereddit.comreview
review
- LinkedIn: disappointing payroll reviewlinkedin.comreview
- Exploit-DB: Akaunting < 3.1.3 RCEexploit-db.comsecurity
- GitHub advisory GHSA-m69m-hm22-9xmxgithub.comsecurity
- SentinelOne CVE-2026-71251 auth bypasssentinelone.comsecurity
- Akaunting raises $500Kakaunting.comnews
official
- frappe/books: Free Accounting Softwaregithub.comofficial
review