Frappe Lending is free - and that's its main selling point. But running it isn't free. No group lending, no SACCO support, and it requires full ERPNext expertise to operate.
Licence cost
$149/month
vs Free (MIT)
Group lending
Native
vs Not supported
Managed hosting
Available
vs Self-manage only
SACCO support
Yes
vs No
Overview
Frappe Lending is an open-source LMS built by Frappe Technologies (the ERPNext team), available under MIT licence at zero cost. It integrates deeply with ERPNext, giving it free access to a full accounting module, HR, CRM, and inventory. However, it was designed for India-NBFC individual lending - it has no group lending model, no savings passbook, no SACCO cooperative management, and no Africa payment integrations. Deploying and maintaining a Frappe server requires significant technical capacity that most African MFIs and cooperatives don't have in-house.
Feature by feature
|
◆ Kovara
|
Frappe Lending
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Group and solidarity lending - JLG, joint liability, village banking | ||
| SACCO share capital, member equity, cooperative management | ||
| Managed deployment via Kovara Hub - no IT team required | ||
| Africa-first payment integrations - M-Pesa, MTN MoMo, Airtel | ||
| Borrower self-service portal | ||
| Maker-checker and regulatory audit trail | ||
| Built-in double-entry accounting | ||
| Savings and deposits | ||
| Mobile-money payment collection | ||
| Automatic software updates | ||
| KYC and credit bureau integration | ||
| REST API |
Why Kovara wins
Get Kovara running on your server today. $149/month flat - no demo calls, no per-account fees, no surprises.