Stigg
Stigg brings contract management and overages GA — usage-based billing gets enterprise contract depth.
Comparison · Finance
Firefly III vs Increase
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Firefly III and Increase — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Firefly III vs Increase: at a glance
What is Firefly III?
Firefly III publishes daily development builds; no stable release in the current window
The most recent Firefly III entries are all automated daily development releases from the 'develop' branch — pre-release builds explicitly labeled as potentially buggy. No stable release appears in the current window. The project is actively building toward the next stable release, but the changelog surface shows only nightly automation output.
What is Increase?
A banking-as-a-service API that now sells compliance and blockchain rails, not just payments
Increase ships a quarterly newsletter rather than a running changelog, so each entry bundles a quarter of API work. The last three quarters have moved past core payment rails into the surrounding infrastructure: managed compliance, entity onboarding sessions, 3D Secure, push provisioning and IP-restricted API keys. SDK coverage has widened to C#, PHP and Ruby, and the documentation was reworked to be readable by LLMs.
Firefly III vs Increase: editorial side-by-side
Firefly III
5.0FINANCE
Firefly III publishes daily development builds; no stable release in the current window
◆ Current state
The most recent Firefly III entries are all automated daily development releases from the 'develop' branch — pre-release builds explicitly labeled as potentially buggy. No stable release appears in the current window. The project is actively building toward the next stable release, but the changelog surface shows only nightly automation output.
◆ Where it's heading
Daily development builds indicate active development, but the content is opaque — nightly release notes don't surface what features are accumulating. To assess direction, the upstream GitHub repository changelog would need to be read directly.
◆ Prediction
A stable Firefly III release will follow once the development branch stabilizes — the daily build cadence suggests active work. Specific features are not visible from these entries alone.
Increase
3.8FINANCE
A banking-as-a-service API that now sells compliance and blockchain rails, not just payments
◆ Current state
Increase ships a quarterly newsletter rather than a running changelog, so each entry bundles a quarter of API work. The last three quarters have moved past core payment rails into the surrounding infrastructure: managed compliance, entity onboarding sessions, 3D Secure, push provisioning and IP-restricted API keys. SDK coverage has widened to C#, PHP and Ruby, and the documentation was reworked to be readable by LLMs.
◆ Where it's heading
The arc runs from moving money to operating a bank program end to end. Early quarters added rails (FedNow, Push-to-Card, check transfers); recent ones add the compliance, onboarding and dispute machinery a customer would otherwise build or buy separately. Q2 2026 adds blockchain transfers alongside managed compliance, and flags cross-border payments and lending APIs as next.
◆ Prediction
Expect the cross-border payments and lending APIs named in the Q2 2026 letter to ship as the next quarter's headline, extending the same pattern of absorbing adjacent financial products into the core API.
Alternatives to Firefly III and Increase
Other Finance products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Firefly III or Increase.
Purchasely
Purchasely 6.0 overhauls the SDK's core — initialization, presentation, and purchase flow get a full rewrite.
Credit Repair Cloud
Credit Repair Cloud overhauled its navigation, added compliance-first onboarding for SSN and LPOA, and launched identity alert emails
LNbits
LNbits 1.6.0 ships WASM extensions — sandboxed add-ons that can be shared without security vetting overhead.
inDinero
inDinero's changelog is a content marketing feed — founder finance guides, no product feature releases visible here.
CloudZero
CloudZero ships Kubernetes rightsizing directly inside MCP clients, bringing cloud cost ops into AI assistants
See all Firefly III alternatives → · See all Increase alternatives →
Recent activity from Firefly III and Increase
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 4d agoFirefly IIIFirefly III dev build 2026-09-03
- 4d agoFirefly IIIFirefly III develop snapshot 20260903
- 5d agoFirefly IIIFirefly III develop snapshot 20260902.1
- 6d agoFirefly IIIFirefly III develop snapshot 20260902
- 6d agoFirefly IIIFirefly III dev build 2026-09-01
- 8d agoFirefly IIIFirefly III dev build 2026-08-31
- 1mo agoIncreaseManaged compliance and blockchain transfers land in Q2 ⚡
- 4mo agoIncreaseEntity onboarding, 3D Secure and IP-restricted keys
- 8mo agoIncreaseFedNow, Push-to-Card and a Cards Disputes API
- 1y agoIncreaseEvent log filtering and check transfer work
- 1y agoIncreaseFile links, check deposit images, Apple Pay history
- 1y agoIncreaseOAuth applications, lockboxes and exports
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Firefly III and Increase?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Firefly III is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 3.8), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Firefly III better than Increase?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Firefly III is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 3.8), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Finance products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Firefly III?
Top Firefly III alternatives in Finance are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Firefly III alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/firefly-iii for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Increase?
Top Increase alternatives in Finance are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Increase alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/increase for the full list with editorial commentary on each.