Midday: The Open-Source Swiss Army Knife for Freelancers
Freelancing is great—until you realize you’re juggling five different apps just to invoice clients, track time, and figure out where your money went last month. Enter Midday, an open-source project that bundles invoicing, time tracking, financial insights, and even an AI assistant into one cohesive tool. With nearly 10k GitHub stars and AGPL-3.0 licensing, it’s built for developers who want control over their business tools—without the SaaS subscription fatigue.
What It Does
Midday is a monorepo-powered (Bun, Next.js, Supabase) toolkit designed to streamline freelancer workflows. It handles:
- Time tracking: Live project tracking with productivity insights.
- Invoicing: Web-based invoices with real-time collaboration (coming soon).
- Magic Inbox: Auto-matches receipts/transactions to reduce manual reconciliation.
- Secure vault: Centralized storage for contracts and documents.
- AI assistant: Answers financial questions (e.g., “Why did my spending spike last month?”).
Why It’s Cool
- All-in-one, but modular: Need just time tracking? Skip the rest. The monorepo structure lets you pick what you use.
- Open-source with teeth: Unlike many “open-core” tools, Midday’s AGPL-3.0 license ensures real openness (though commercial use requires a separate license).
- Modern stack: Bun for speed, Supabase for backend, Tauri/Expo for cross-platform apps, and Mistral/OpenAI for the assistant.
- Freelancer-first: Features like seamless CSV exports for accountants or bank integrations (Plaid, GoCardLess) solve real pain points.
How to Try It
- Clone the repo:
git clone https://github.com/midday-ai/midday.git - Follow the docs for local setup (Bun required).
- Deploy dependencies (Supabase, Resend for email, etc.)—the repo lists all services used.
Prefer a hosted version? Check out midday.ai for their managed offering.
Final Thoughts
Midday feels like the tool many freelancers would’ve hacked together themselves—if they had the time. The open-source approach is refreshing, and the stack choices (Bun + Next.js + Supabase) make it a fun codebase to explore. If you’re tired of duct-taping Stripe + Toggl + Dropbox, this might be your next weekend project.
P.S. The AI assistant is eerily good at finding old invoices.
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