Copperleaf
Copperleaf's feed is an asset-planning content programme with product news surfacing about once a month
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's feed is a nightly build log — every entry is the same boilerplate with no changelog.
The visible window contains only development releases, several per week and occasionally two in a day, each carrying an identical warning-and-installation body that states outright that the changelog is not included. Some days also emit a bare automated develop tag alongside the full post.
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's feed is a nightly build log — every entry is the same boilerplate with no changelog.
◆ Current state
The visible window contains only development releases, several per week and occasionally two in a day, each carrying an identical warning-and-installation body that states outright that the changelog is not included. Some days also emit a bare automated develop tag alongside the full post.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a public nightly channel, not a release feed, so the entries measure build automation rather than product direction. Stable releases are published elsewhere; nothing in these notes indicates what is being worked on or when the next tagged version lands.
◆ Prediction
Expect the development build stream to continue at the same daily-to-every-other-day rate; the feed will not reveal feature work unless the project starts including changelog content in these posts.
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.
Zluri
Zluri moves access duration from a request field to a rule the admin controls.
Invoice Ninja
Invoice Ninja ships patch releases weekly; the work is payment correctness and accounting sync.
CloudZero
CloudZero is turning AI spend allocation into a budgeting standard, and wiring it into agents.
inDinero
Indinero publishes tax explainers in timed bursts, each cluster ending at the same $750/mo pitch.
Razorpay
Still a cross-border payments content desk — no product releases in the feed.
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.
- 2d agoFirefly IIIDevelopment release for 2026-08-17
- 3d agoFirefly IIIDevelopment release for 2026-08-15
- 4d agoFirefly IIIDevelopment release for 2026-08-14
- 7d agoFirefly IIIDevelopment release for 2026-08-12
- 7d agoFirefly IIIdevelop-20260812.1
- 7d agoFirefly IIIdevelop-20260812
- 26d agoIncreaseManaged compliance and blockchain transfers land in Q2 ⚡
- 3mo agoIncreaseEntity onboarding, 3D Secure and IP-restricted keys
- 7mo 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 1. 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 1. 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.