Comparison

Ledger and Hledger's transactions are a (balanced) group of account postings. Transity's transactions are a group of transfers between two accounts.

Syntax

Checkout the files hledger.journal and journal.yaml for similar transactions modeled in Hledger and in Transity.

There is a lot of ambiguity in the ledger journal format. Are you able to tell the difference between the 2 options?

2019-01-17 Bought food
  expenses:food  $10
  assets:cash

vs

2019-01-17 Bought food
  assets:cash
  expenses:food  $10

Also, it lacks some fields for more precise recording of which parties where involved.

• What food?
• Where did you buy it?
• When exactly did you buy it?
• Which supermarket?

2019-01-17 Bought food
  expenses:food  $10
  assets:cash

Example

A Transity entry as a transaction made of up four transfers:

utc: '2024-04-16 18:50:28'
tags: [domain]
note: 1 year registration of domain "ad-si.com"
transfers:
  - from: adrian:hypo:giro
    to: paypal
    amount: 9.94 €
    transaction-id: '24360863'

  - from: paypal
    to: namecheap
    amount: 10.87 $

  - from: namecheap
    to: icann
    amount: 0.18 $
    tag: [fee]

  - from: namecheap
    to: feram
    amount: 1 domain-year
    note: ad-si.com

Possible Translations to Hledger:

Version A:

2024-04-16 1 year registration of domain "ad-si.com"  ; domain:
  adrian:hypo:giro  -9.94 €
  paypal             9.94 €        ; transaction-id: 24360863
  paypal           -10.87 $
  namecheap         10.87 $
  namecheap        -0.18 $
  icann             0.18 $         ; fee:
  namecheap        -1 domain-year
  feram             1 domain-year  ; note: ad-si.com

Version B:

2024-04-16 1 year registration of domain "ad-si.com"  ; domain:, transaction-id: 24360863
  adrian:hypo:giro
  paypal             9.94 €

2024-04-16 1 year registration of domain "ad-si.com"  ; domain:
  paypal
  namecheap         10.87 $

2024-04-16 1 year registration of domain "ad-si.com"  ; domain:, fee:
  namecheap
  icann             0.18 $

2024-04-16 1 year registration of domain "ad-si.com"  ; domain:, note: ad-si.com
  namecheap
  feram             1 domain-year

Reporting

hledger --file examples/hledger.journal balance
# vs
transity balance examples/journal.yaml

hledger --file examples/hledger.journal register
# vs
transity transactions examples/journal.yaml

hledger --file examples/hledger.journal register --output-format=csv
# vs
transity entries examples/journal.yaml

Features

Several features are missing in Ledger and Hledger:

• No support for precise timestamps (transactions only have an associated date)
• No first class support for Gnuplot (Check out Report Scripts for Ledger CLI with Gnuplot for some scripts)

Performance

Measured with hyperfine including 3 warmups on an early 2015 MacBook Pro.

For a journal file with around 2000 entries:

Transity:

Benchmark #1: transity balance journals/main.yaml
  Time (mean ± σ):      1.287 s ±  0.021 s    [User: 1.790 s, System: 0.140 s]
  Range (min … max):    1.250 s …  1.324 s    10 runs

Hledger:

Benchmark #1: hledger -f test.ledger balance
  Time (mean ± σ):     409.6 ms ±   6.1 ms    [User: 366.6 ms, System: 28.5 ms]
  Range (min … max):   398.8 ms … 417.6 ms    10 runs

Ledger:

Benchmark #1: ledger -f test.ledger balance
  Time (mean ± σ):      76.3 ms ±   9.1 ms    [User: 62.7 ms, System: 9.4 ms]
  Range (min … max):    65.1 ms … 101.8 ms    28 runs