Foliolytic vs Ghostfolio

The 30-Second Read — Different Trade-offs

Ghostfolio is the leading open-source self-hostable portfolio tracker. It runs as a Docker container, uses Postgres for storage, and is licensed under AGPL — you can audit the source, contribute features, fork the codebase, and run it on your own server with no fee. Official container images are published for linux/amd64, linux/arm/v7, and linux/arm64; setup is supported on CasaOS, Home Assistant, Runtipi, TrueCharts, Umbrel, and Unraid for the home-server crowd. For people who don't want to self-host, there's a managed cloud version: free Basic tier plus Premium at approximately €9/month for hosted infrastructure and a professionally-sourced market-data feed.

Foliolytic takes a different path. There's no install, no signup, no Docker container, no Postgres, no SSL cert to renew, and no broker login required. Open the site, drop a file, get 70+ risk-adjusted return metrics. The compromise: no saved state by default. When you want refreshed analytics, you re-upload. For a tool used a few times a year for portfolio review, that compromise is small. For an always-on dashboard, you'd want Ghostfolio.

Feature-by-Feature Comparison

The table compares Foliolytic against Ghostfolio's self-hosted/cloud-Premium feature set (cloud Basic is more limited).

When Ghostfolio Is Better

Ghostfolio earned its open-source-self-hostable reputation legitimately. If your situation matches below, Ghostfolio is the right choice.

• You want fully owned data, on your own hardware, with auditable code. Self-hosted Ghostfolio is one of the cleanest answers in the portfolio-tracker space — AGPL source, your Docker host, your Postgres, your backups. No vendor can change pricing, sunset the product, or alter the privacy policy on you.
• You want a persistent always-on dashboard. Ghostfolio keeps your portfolio between sessions — you don't re-upload. Useful for daily check-ins, multi-user family setups, or sharing with a spouse/accountant.
• You're already a self-host enthusiast. If you're already running Home Assistant, Nextcloud, or other self-hosted services on a homelab, adding Ghostfolio is incremental, not new infrastructure.
• Multi-user installations. Ghostfolio supports multi-user instances — useful if you're running it for a family or a small group of friends.
• You want to contribute to the code. Open source. You can fix bugs, add brokers, or extend metrics. Foliolytic is closed.
• You want a PWA you can install to home screen. Ghostfolio supports PWA install. Foliolytic is web-only and not installable as a PWA.

When Foliolytic Is Better

If you want the privacy outcome without the infrastructure work, Foliolytic is the better choice. If you want deeper quant metrics than Ghostfolio's core set provides, also Foliolytic.

• You don't want to run infrastructure. Self-hosting Ghostfolio is honest work — Docker, Postgres, environment variables, reverse proxy, SSL, market-data provider, periodic version upgrades. Foliolytic has zero of that.
• You want deeper risk-adjusted return analytics. Ghostfolio computes basic Sharpe and XIRR. Foliolytic computes Sharpe, Sortino, Calmar, Treynor, Probabilistic Sharpe, Deflated Sharpe, Hurst exponent, Modigliani M², Burke ratio, Sterling ratio, K-ratio, Pain ratio, Ulcer Index, plus alpha, beta, R² against multiple benchmarks. Two different analytical depths.
• You don't want to think about market-data providers. Ghostfolio requires you to pick and configure a data provider (Yahoo Finance, Alphavantage, etc.). Foliolytic uses a bundled, managed historical-price database with full coverage for 1,400+ tickers including international markets.
• You don't want to maintain anything. Foliolytic ships updates that everyone gets immediately. No Docker pull, no DB migration, no service restart.
• You want hedge-fund-grade analytics out of the box. PSR, DSR, Hurst, Modigliani M², Burke, Sterling, K-ratio — calibrated against 100+ years of historical market data. Not in Ghostfolio's core feature set.
• You want it to "just work" on a friend's laptop. Foliolytic runs anywhere with a browser. Ghostfolio requires you to host the instance or have a cloud subscription.

Pricing

Privacy — Two Different Mechanisms

Both tools land in the "actually private" category, but they get there by different routes.

Ghostfolio self-hosted: Your data lives on your server, in your Postgres, behind your reverse proxy. You trust the AGPL source code and your own ops. Nothing reaches a third party.

Ghostfolio cloud: Your data is on Ghostfolio's infrastructure, similar to any SaaS tracker. Privacy depends on their policy and ops; structurally comparable to other server-side trackers.

Foliolytic: No signup, no broker login, no PII collected. We don't sell or share data with third parties, and we never store your broker credentials. Drop a CSV and analyze — that's the entire flow.

For the privacy-conscious self-host crowd, the choice between "I own the server" and "there is no server" usually comes down to personal preference plus how much you enjoy infrastructure work.

How to Switch from Ghostfolio to Foliolytic

If you decide you don't want to maintain a Docker instance any more, the migration is straightforward.

Step 1 — Export from Ghostfolio

Use Ghostfolio's built-in Activities export to download your transaction history as CSV. Foliolytic's format detector recognizes generic activity CSVs.

Step 2 — Or skip Ghostfolio and re-upload your original broker CSV

If you have your original brokerage transaction CSV (Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, Interactive Brokers, etc.), drop that directly onto foliolytic.com. Foliolytic auto-detects 30+ broker formats.

Step 3 — Decommission your Ghostfolio instance

Stop the Docker container, back up the Postgres data (just in case), and free up the server resources. No further maintenance.

Optional — Run both side by side

Some users keep a self-hosted Ghostfolio instance for daily multi-user dashboard use and add Foliolytic for the deeper quant metrics Ghostfolio doesn't compute. The tools don't conflict.

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