Freelance invoicing
professional invoices for clients
// official site: craterapp.com ↗
FINANCE · PRO TIER
Craterpro
Crater is an open-source invoicing platform — create invoices, estimates, recurring billing, expense tracking. Multi-currency, multi-language, tax handling, payment gateway integration. Built on Laravel + Vue.js with a focus on simplicity for freelancers and small businesses.
// What it is
A closer look.
Crater is an open-source invoicing platform — create invoices, estimates, recurring billing, expense tracking. Multi-currency, multi-language, tax handling, payment gateway integration. Built on Laravel + Vue.js with a focus on simplicity for freelancers and small businesses.
For freelancers and small consultancies who don't need full accounting (Akaunting) but need professional invoicing, Crater is the lighter alternative.
// Use cases
What it's for.
Concrete scenarios where teams pick Crater over the SaaS alternative.
Recurring billing
auto-generate subscription invoices
Expense tracking
log expenses per project / client
Multi-currency
invoice internationally
Payment collection
Stripe / PayPal payment links
// Who it's for
Built for these teams.
If your team profile matches one of these, Crater is a strong fit out of the box.
Freelancers
invoicing clients professionally
Small consultancies
managing 10-50 active clients
Indie SaaS founders
invoicing custom-deal customers
Agencies
running simple billing without full ERP
Cost-conscious users
moving off FreshBooks / Wave / similar
// Differentiators
Why teams pick Crater.
When evaluating self-hosted options for this category, here are the dimensions on which Crater consistently lands above the alternatives.
- ✓AGPLv3 — fully open
- ✓Simple UX — focused on invoicing, not full accounting
- ✓Multi-tenant — host invoicing for multiple businesses
- ✓Mobile app — iOS + Android for invoice creation
- ✓Active development — frequent releases
- ✓Multi-language — i18n for global users
// Integrations
Connects to.
The stack you'll plug Crater into — services, protocols, and adjacent apps in the BluixApps catalog.
◇
Payment
Stripe, PayPal payment links
◈
Email
SMTP for invoice sending
◆
Auth
local + OAuth (Google, custom OIDC)
▣
API
REST API for programmatic invoice creation
▦
PDF
auto-generated invoice PDFs
▩
Tax
configurable per-region tax rules
▼
Mobile apps
iOS + Android companion
// Adoption & deployment
Notable users & community
- 6k+ GitHub stars
- Used by freelancers and small businesses worldwide
- Active community on GitHub
- Backed by single team with sustainable maintenance
- Featured in invoicing tool roundups
What we ship
- Docker compose: Crater + MariaDB + Redis
- Pinned
craterapp/crater:7.0(release-tagged) - HTTPS via Let's Encrypt
- Admin user via env config
- Persistent volumes for MariaDB + storage
- SMTP placeholder for invoice email
- Backup hook covers MariaDB + uploads
// Tips & operations
Run it properly.
Operational guidance from running this in production — what to lock down, what surprises people.
// PERFORMANCE
Set company branding upfront
invoices reference company logo + details
// SECURITY
Configure SMTP
email-sending depends on SMTP
// OPERATIONS
Tax rules per region
configure before generating invoices
// RELIABILITY
Customer / item presets
speeds invoice creation
// DEPLOYMENT
Backup MySQL
your invoice history; daily at minimum
// SCALING
PDF storage
auto-generated PDFs accumulate; cleanup policy useful
1024
// min ram (MB)
4
// min disk (GB)
8080
// access port
http
// protocol
pro
// bluixapps tier
Project resources
Official sitecraterapp.com ↗