Bill splitting apps on GitHub: what to check before you use one

What do you get from a bill splitting app on GitHub?

You get source code and a README, not a finished service. Search GitHub for a bill splitter and the results are repositories: code, a license, a list of releases and instructions for running it.

Some projects also run a public website. Others expect you to host your own copy. That difference decides what you are signing up for. On a public site, someone else’s server holds your group’s expenses. With your own copy, you hold the server, the database and every update, and your friends use the address you give them.

Which open source bill splitting apps can you use?

Spliit, SplitPro and Cospend are three that show the range, from a website with no accounts to an add-on for a server you may already run. As of October 2026, this is how the options compare, with EvenOut in the first row:

Option	License and price	Where it runs	Fits when
EvenOut	Free plan with no daily expense limit and no ads. Pro is $9.99 a month or $79.99 a year	Hosted. You sign in with Google or email	You want to split costs, not run software
Spliit	MIT. Its homepage says “No ads. No account. Open Source. Forever Free.”	A website, or your own copy on Vercel or Docker	Nobody in the group will sign up for anything
SplitPro	MIT. Calls itself “An open source alternative to Splitwise”	Your own copy. The README says the old community instance is no longer maintained	You will host it yourself
Cospend	AGPL-3.0. No price, the maintainer asks for donations	Inside a Nextcloud server	You already run Nextcloud

Spliit: no accounts, and the link is the key

Spliit describes itself as a minimalist application to track and share expenses with friends and family. You make a group and share its link, and the link is the only access control. Its privacy policy says it plainly: anyone who has the link can read the group and change it.

Its website lists groups, categories, receipt images, balances, reimbursements and splits by percentage, shares or amount. Recurring expenses (daily, weekly or monthly) are marked Beta, and so is the AI receipt scan. If you host your own copy, the AI features need an OpenAI-compatible provider. On the public website, a scanned receipt picture and the titles you type for category suggestions go to OpenAI.

The author lists the trade-offs in a blog post: a new device starts empty until you reopen your group links, and there are no notifications, no “friends” feature and no payment integrations. Deleting a group from the server is not possible in the app, so you email the project to have it removed. The public site’s hosting, database and receipt scanning are paid for by donations, with the ledger public on Open Collective.

SplitPro: the README says what is missing

SplitPro calls itself “An open source alternative to Splitwise”. Its latest release on GitHub is v2.1.5, dated 1 August 2026. The README lists its gaps.

Its feature list covers equal, percentage, share, exact, adjustment and settlement splits, optional group debt simplification, an activity feed that shows edits and deletions, currency conversion, data export, Plaid bank import and recurring expenses. Recurring expenses need PostgreSQL pg_cron, push notifications in the progressive web app need extra setup, and receipts are kept on local disk. Sign-in is required, and self-hosters can use OIDC.

The README also says the old community instance at splitpro.app “is no longer maintained and is stuck at version 1.3.4”, although that site’s homepage still invites you to split expenses for free. The README is the one to trust. SplitPro’s Splitwise import is partial: “Expenses themselves are not imported yet.”

Cospend: a shared budget manager inside Nextcloud

Cospend describes itself as “a group/shared budget manager” for housemates, trips or any shared expenses. It is an app for Nextcloud, so it runs only inside a Nextcloud server, and its mobile clients are separate apps. GitHub lists the license as AGPL-3.0, the latest release is v4.1.3 (2 September 2026), and the maintainer asks for donations instead of charging.

It keeps a balance per member, builds a settlement plan, handles recurring bills and custom per-member amounts, makes public links, and imports and exports CSV files compatible with IHateMoney and Splitwise. If your household or club already has a Nextcloud server, this is a feature of something you run anyway. If not, you would be setting up a server for one app.

What should you check before you trust a repository?

Five checks tell you most of what you need: the license, the latest release, the README’s own list of gaps, who runs the hosted copy, and where the data goes.

• License. MIT and AGPL-3.0 set different conditions, so read the license file if you plan to change the code or offer a copy to other people.
• Latest release. A recent release date is a better sign that someone is fixing bugs than a star count. SplitPro’s latest is dated 1 August 2026 and Cospend’s 2 September 2026. An old date is a question to ask, not a verdict.
• The README’s own list of gaps. Look for words such as “not yet”, “Beta” and “no longer maintained”. SplitPro’s README and Spliit’s author both name limits.
• Who runs the hosted copy. If a project points you to a public site, find out who pays for it before you put a trip’s worth of expenses there. Spliit’s public site runs on donations.
• Where the data goes and how to remove it. Spliit’s policy says a group cannot be deleted from the server in the app. A self-hosted copy keeps data on your own server, and then backups are your job.

How can you test one in an evening?

A short test with a $50.00 bill shows whether a splitter handles cents and mistakes sensibly.

1. Make a group with three people.
2. Add a $50.00 expense paid by one person and split equally. The shares should be $16.67, $16.67 and $16.66 in some order, which add back to $50.00. If all three show $16.67 the shares add to $50.01, and if all three show $16.66 they add to $49.98.
3. Try a second expense split by exact amounts that add up to $1.00 less than the total. A good splitter warns you instead of saving it quietly.
4. Add any second expense, delete it, and confirm the balances return to what they were after the first.
5. Find out how a group is removed: a button, a command or an email to the maintainer.

When is a hosted app the simpler route?

If what you need is to split costs with people, not to run software, a hosted app does the job with nothing to set up. EvenOut is one. You sign in with Google or email, make a group or add a friend, and enter expenses; each one can be split equally, by exact amounts, by percent, by shares or by item, and remainder cents are shared out, not lost. The free plan has no daily expense limit and no ads, and charts, search and recurring expenses are free. Adding and editing expenses work without a connection and sync later. Friends who are not on EvenOut can be added to a group as guests. Pro covers receipt scanning and the assistant, and nothing else.

If you are coming from Splitwise, the CSV import is free and takes one group per file. More projects of this kind are covered in open source Splitwise alternatives you can self-host, and Splitwise alternatives when friends won’t sign up covers the no-account route.

For most people, EvenOut is the pick: nothing to host, nothing to maintain, and no daily expense limit or ads on the free plan. The exceptions are plain. Pick Spliit if nobody should have to sign up and you accept that the link is the access control. Pick SplitPro if you will host it and want currency conversion or bank import. Pick Cospend if Nextcloud is already running.