What is firela-bot?

firela-bot serves as the AI advisor component of the FIREla personal finance ecosystem. It reads your Beancount ledger to provide personalized FIRE planning insights. The built-in BillClaw engine automatically pulls transactions from multiple banking sources, then exports them to Beancount, Ledger, or CSV. The application runs on Cloudflare Workers as a React single-page app with a Hono API backend, using Cloudflare D1 for data storage and KV for configuration. It's licensed under AGPL-3.0 and targets the free tier, requiring no infrastructure costs. A companion mobile app for on-device statement parsing is under development.

Should you self-host firela-bot?

firela-bot scores 45/100 on selfhost.directory (how scoring works) and ranks #37 of 62 in Personal Finance. It has 267 GitHub stars.

It shipped 7 stable releases in the past year. The latest, v0.8.1, came out on 18 October 2026. New versions land roughly every 1 days.

Setup is moderate: expect some configuration beyond a single command. It is Other-licensed and written mostly in Typescript.

Its closest alternative on selfhost.directory is Firefly III (82/100, 25 023 stars). It scores higher overall, so compare the two before you pick. See firela-bot vs Firefly III side by side.

Features

AI Financial Advisor
Automated Billing Ingestion
Beancount Ledger Integration
CLI Tool
Gmail OAuth Integration
GoCardless Integration
Multi-format Export
Plaid Integration
Scheduled Sync
Self-Hosted on Cloudflare Workers
Webhook Support
Zero-Config Deployment

FAQ

Can I self-host?

Yes, billclaw is built for self-hosting: it deploys to Cloudflare Workers' free tier with your own API keys. The parser and sanitizer are open-source Dart libraries you can run and audit yourself.

Who is Firela for?

US users first, with expansion planned to China, Germany, and other regions. Target audience includes privacy-conscious individuals, FIRE movement participants, and Beancount/plaintext-accounting users who want a ledger that outlives every app.

How is Firela different from Mint, YNAB, or Monarch?

Firela is open source (AGPL-3.0), parses statements locally, and masks personal data on device — your data lives in an open format you control. Mint was shut down in 2024, YNAB is closed-source at $109/year, Monarch is $99/year and requires banking credentials.

Which regions does Firela cover?

Statement parsing covers China (Alipay, WeChat Pay, major banks), Hong Kong (HSBC), and Europe (Degiro). PII detection covers CN, HK, US, and 62 IBAN country formats plus universal types like email and credit card numbers.

Why Beancount?

Beancount is a mature, open-source plain-text double-entry accounting format that is universal and future-proof — your ledger doesn't depend on any single app staying alive.

Do I need an account?

No, the parser and sanitizer libraries run locally on your device without any Firela account. billclaw is self-hosted on your own Cloudflare account with your own API keys.

Is Firela really open source?

Yes, the public repos are AGPL-3.0, making the privacy claims auditable — you can read the parser and sanitizer code line by line, run it yourself, and verify what it does.

How does Firela handle my personal data?

An on-device PII sanitizer detects and masks 11 types of sensitive data including Chinese ID cards, HKID, US SSN, IBAN, phone numbers, emails, and bank cards before any data leaves your phone.

Which banks and platforms can Firela parse?

Statement parsers are community-contributed and cover China (Alipay, WeChat Pay, major banks), Hong Kong (HSBC), and Europe (Degiro and others), delivered as WebAssembly modules that run on your device.

Is Firela free?

Yes, the code is free and open source under AGPL-3.0, and billclaw is designed to self-host on Cloudflare Workers' free tier with no infrastructure cost.

What is Firela?

Firela is an open-source (AGPL-3.0) beancount ecosystem for privacy-first personal finance, including a mobile lifetime-ledger client and billclaw, a self-hostable collector deployable on Cloudflare Workers.