Free point-of-sale software with public source and local checkout.
An offline-first POS for retail shops and restaurants. The primary API and database run on the shop computer; electronic payments, optional cloud services, downloads and integrations can still need a network.
Posnic's own source is AGPL-3.0-only. Release packages also bundle separately licensed components, including MongoDB Community Server under SSPL-1.0. Review the package notices and reproduced package evidence before making a package-level licence statement.
Website · Verified product facts · Package evidence · User guide · Developer guide · Architecture · API · Discussions
This synthetic cash sale was completed and reopened during the bounded offline workflow verification. The published test notes state what was blocked, what passed and what the result does not prove.
Posnic runs its primary database and API on the till itself. In a bounded v1.3.0 Windows test, one synthetic cash sale completed and reopened while external hosts were blocked inside Electron. This does not prove an operating-system-wide outage, complete shift, payment-terminal path, power-loss recovery or every workflow. Review the versioned evidence and limitations.
- Free local edition. The v1.3.0 desktop packages have no trial clock and have a zero software price. Posnic's own source is AGPL-3.0-only; packaged dependencies retain their own licences. Hardware, support, backups, optional services and downtime can still create operating costs.
- Local data path. The local edition needs no Posnic account, and its published privacy policy says it sends no analytics or telemetry to Posnic. See PRIVACY.md.
- Posnic source under AGPL-3.0-only. Read it, change it, self-host it and fork it under the licence terms. Review each bundled component separately.
| Selling | Fast keyboard and touch billing, barcode scanning, returns, part payments, held bills, quick sale |
| Stock | Items, variants, categories, purchases, supplier returns, inventory logs, low-stock alerts |
| Customers | Customer accounts, categories with their own pricing, outstanding balances |
| Tax | GST invoices, IGST and CGST/SGST, HSN codes, GST reports for filing |
| Restaurants | Kitchen order tickets, table management, kiosk and customer displays |
| Hardware | Documented paths for thermal printers, barcode scanners, cash drawers, weighing scales and second displays; verify the exact device in the hardware matrix |
| Reports | Sales, purchases, inventory, expenses, profit, staff activity — all exportable |
| Branches | Multiple outlets, per-branch stock, staff roles and permissions |
Download the package for your platform from the latest release, run it, and follow the wizard. Stable v1.3.0 packages include MongoDB Community Server under its separate SSPL-1.0 licence, so no separate database install is needed for the bundled setup. See third-party notices.
Verify your download against SHA256SUMS.txt in the release.
Windows may warn that the publisher is unrecognised: More info → Run anyway. macOS: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway. Linux: make the
.AppImageexecutable, or install the.deb.
First launch takes a few minutes while it sets up its database. After that, seconds. Full walkthrough in the user guide.
git clone https://github.com/Posnic/POS.git
cd POS
npm install
npm --prefix api install
npm startNeeds Node 22.12+. The build tooling fetches MongoDB Community Server 7.0.14 and the desktop process chooses a port derived from the app name to reduce collision risk. Review the architecture and package licences before building or distributing an artifact.
npm run build # Windows installer
npm run build:mac
npm run build:linuxSee the developer guide for tests, linting and conventions.
The desktop packages have a zero software price and no trial clock. Posnic's own source is AGPL-3.0-only, while bundled components keep their separate licences. Posnic Cloud is a paid service for shops that want more than one till.
| Posnic (this repo) | Posnic Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Selected local workflows and local operational records | ✅ | ✅ |
| Local database and backups | ✅ | ✅ |
| Documented printer, scanner, drawer and scale paths | ✅ | ✅ |
| GST invoicing and reports | ✅ | ✅ |
| Sync across tills and branches | ✅ | |
| Off-site backups, remote dashboard | ✅ | |
| Installer under your own brand | ✅ |
We do not move features from the left column to the right. What is free today stays free. Cloud has to earn its price by being useful, not by making the free edition worse. This is written down in GOVERNANCE.md.
| User guide | Running a shop with Posnic, first sale to closing the till |
| Developer guide | Setup, tests, conventions, good first issues |
| Architecture | How it fits together, and the parts that bite |
| REST API | 584 endpoints, generated from the routes |
| Hardware | Printers, scanners, drawers, scales — and how far each claim is checked |
| Backups | What is backed up, when, and what it does not protect you from |
| Disaster recovery | Getting back to working, with RPO and RTO as numbers |
| Release runbook | How a release goes out, and four ways to take one back |
| Support lifecycle | Which versions get fixes, and for how long |
| Incident response | Who decides, who is told, and when |
| Terms of use | Customer terms for Posnic Cloud |
| Subprocessors | Who else can touch your data. For the local edition: nobody |
| Cloud operations | What the paid service is made of, and what is still to be decided |
| Data processing addendum | For customers who need a written DPA |
| Contributing | How to get a change merged |
| Support | Where to ask, and what happens to your issue |
| Governance | Who decides what, and what we have promised |
| Privacy | What the app collects, and what it does not |
| Security | What Posnic protects, what it cannot, and reporting a vulnerability |
| Third-party notices | Separately licensed software included in release packages |
| CodeMeta | Machine-readable product, publisher, source, licence and platform identity |
| Code of conduct | How we treat each other |
Bug reports, fixes, translations, hardware quirks from real shops, documentation — all welcome, and none of it requires permission to start.
Good places to begin are listed in the developer guide: 19 known-failing tests, 21 real latent bugs the linter found, and two very large files that want splitting.
Read CONTRIBUTING.md first. Security issues go to SECURITY.md, privately — never a public issue.
Posnic is built by a small team in Tamil Nadu, India, and given away because a shop should not have to rent its own till. If it saves you money, sending a little back is what keeps the next release coming.
| ☕ Buy us a chai | one-off or monthly, from a dollar up |
| ☁️ Posnic Cloud | sync, off-site backups, remote dashboards — the paid service that funds this one |
| 🏢 Commercial licence | keep your modifications private — info@posnic.com |
Sponsors are named in releases unless they would rather not be.
Posnic Innovations, Tamil Nadu, India.
| Sales and licensing | info@posnic.com |
| Support | SUPPORT.md · Discussions |
| Security | security@posnic.com — privately, never a public issue (SECURITY.md) |
| Web | posnic.com |
Paid setup, migration from an existing till, hardware selection, custom reporting and white-labelled installers are all available. The software stays free either way — see GOVERNANCE.md for what we have promised never to move behind a paywall.
Posnic's own source is GNU AGPL-3.0-only. Use, change, self-host and redistribute that source under the licence terms. Release packages also include separately licensed components; read THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md and the licence material shipped with the exact artifact. This summary is not legal advice.
The Posnic name and logo are trademarks and are not covered by the AGPL — see GOVERNANCE.md § Trademark.
Companies needing to keep modifications private can buy a commercial licence: info@posnic.com. Such a licence covers the code Posnic owns. Contributors keep the copyright in what they write and there is no CLA, so community code can only be relicensed with its author's agreement — a deliberate limit on our own power, set out in GOVERNANCE.md § Contributor copyright.