Chara

Split bills with friends. Keep the data on your own server.

A free, open-source Splitwise alternative with native iOS and Android apps — and a backend you can run yourself with one docker compose up.

App Store · Google Play · Website · Self-host in 10 minutes

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Chara is a mobile-native bill-splitting app — iOS, Android, and Web from one codebase — backed by a small Go API you can run yourself. It's a direct alternative to Splitwise and Steven, with one fundamental difference: it's fully open source under AGPLv3, and your data stays on your server.

A hosted option (Chara Cloud) exists as an optional, paid convenience that funds development. It runs the exact same code in this repository.

Why

• Splitwise has paywalled core features (receipt scanning, search, charts, and capped free-tier expenses) behind a subscription.
• Steven, the Nordic incumbent, is in operational decline.
• Existing open-source alternatives are web-only PWAs or single-platform — none offer native iOS and Android and true self-hosting and Nordic payment-rail integration (Swish, Vipps, MobilePay).

Chara fills that gap.

	Chara	Splitwise	Spliit / SplitPro
Native iOS + Android app	✅	✅	❌ web only
Self-hostable	✅	❌	✅
Open source	✅ AGPLv3	❌	✅
Receipt scanning	✅ free	💰 paid	varies
Multi-currency balances	✅	💰 paid	varies
Several servers in one app	✅	n/a	❌
Ads	❌ none	✅	❌ none

That third-to-last row is the one nothing else does: link your own server and a friend's server in the same app, and see both sets of balances side by side.

Features

• Groups & expenses — split equally, by share, by exact amount, or by percentage.
• Multi-currency — per-expense currency with FX snapshotting; balances never sum across currencies.
• Balances & settlement — net standings per person with debt simplification.
• Multi-server accounts — hold N independent server-accounts in one app and aggregate them into a single UI. Self-host your own and link a friend's server side by side.
• Receipt scanning — optional AI-assisted line-item extraction.
• Auth that fits the deployment — magic link everywhere; Google / Apple Sign-In on the hosted tier. OIDC (Authentik, Keycloak, Authelia, …) for self-hosted instances is planned.
• Push notifications, internationalization, and a privacy-respecting design.

Chara is shipping on the App Store and Google Play and is under active development. See docs/implementation-status.md for what's built today and docs/06-roadmap.md for what's next.

Self-hosting

One machine with Docker (x86 or ARM — a Raspberry Pi is fine) and ~10 minutes:

git clone https://github.com/DowLucas/chara.git
cd chara/deploy
./setup.sh

The script asks three questions, generates every secret, starts the API + Postgres + MinIO from the published ghcr.io/dowlucas/chara-backend image (optionally with Caddy for automatic HTTPS), and prints the address to type into the app under use my server →. Full walkthrough, manual setup, updates and backups: deploy/README.md.

Repository layout

Path	What it is
backend/	Go API — Chi router, sqlc, River job queue, Postgres. See backend/README.md.
app/	Expo (React Native) app — iOS, Android, Web. See app/README.md.
deploy/	Self-host: guided setup.sh, Docker Compose stack, Caddy add-on. See deploy/README.md.
docs/	Product strategy, technical architecture, roadmap, and UX diagrams.

Stack

Layer	Choice
Backend	Go (Chi, sqlc, River, golang-jwt, go-oidc)
Mobile / Web	Expo (React Native)
Database	Postgres 16+ (plain-SQL migrations via golang-migrate)
Storage	S3-compatible (MinIO bundled for self-host)
Push	Expo Push Service (direct APNs/FCM as an advanced option)
Background jobs	River (Postgres-native, no Redis)

Local development

• Backend (Go): backend/README.md. The repo-root ./run-backend script idempotently brings up Postgres, the API, and MinIO.
• App (Expo): app/README.md.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome — bug reports, features, docs, and translations. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md first; it covers the TDD workflow, the minimum-diff philosophy, the i18n rules, and the money-as-integer-minor-units invariant. By participating you agree to the Code of Conduct.

Good places to start: issues labelled good first issue, and translations — every locale lives in a single JSON file under app/lib/locales/ (15 languages today).

If Chara is useful to you, a ⭐ on the repo genuinely helps other people find it.

Security

Found a vulnerability? Please report it privately — see SECURITY.md. Do not open a public issue for security problems.

License

Chara is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0. See LICENSE. The AGPL's network-use clause means that if you run a modified Chara as a network service, you must offer your users the source of that modified version.