Actual Budget

What hackers pick instead

• Monarch MoneyPeople recommend Monarch for smooth account syncing, aggregation and categorization, budget rollovers, and insights that can save money. Critics say it is too expensive and locks users into a rigid budgeting system.17recommend
• YNABPeople credit YNAB's zero-based budgeting method and clean design with better money habits. The most common caveat is that its subscription price rose and felt not worth it.17recommend
• QuickenLong-running personal finance software with strong support, praised as the king of its category. Main caveat: no Linux version, and the web version lacks desktop features.10recommend
• Tiller FinancePeople recommend Tiller for syncing bank transactions into a spreadsheet you control, so you can run your own calculations. Critics mention only that it adds another third party to the process.10recommend
• FinBodhiRecommended as a local-first, end-to-end encrypted double-entry finance app that syncs across devices and keeps your data private. Critics note it did not work in Firefox.8recommend

Every quote

The 31 most detailed of 37 comments. Each links to the original.

1. self hosted ActualBudget and SimpleFin for fetching data automatically works great for me so far

   Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Show HN: Wealthfolio 2.0- Open source investment tracker. Now Mobile and Docker”

2. It's FOSS, and has nifty power user features like a DSL for distributing monthly funds

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “One Number I Trust: Plain-Text Accounting for a Multi-Currency Household”

3. you can still use Actual as a PWA and later sync to the server when you're back online

   Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “What I self-host”

4. ActualBudget is a pretty great YNAB alternative that is free and locally hosted.

   Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Show HN: Wealthfolio 2.0- Open source investment tracker. Now Mobile and Docker”

5. a nice FOSS envelope budget app that can import transactions from my bank

   Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “One Number I Trust: Plain-Text Accounting for a Multi-Currency Household”

6. Actual Budget uses SimpleFIN in the US. The integration is pretty good.

   Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Show HN: Wealthfolio 2.0- Open source investment tracker. Now Mobile and Docker”

7. It is really good software for managing personal finance.

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Ask HN: What's your experience self-hosting in 2026?”

8. faster and more features than the commercial options had

   Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Show HN: Wealthfolio 2.0- Open source investment tracker. Now Mobile and Docker”

9. it's open source and self-hosted. I'd recommend either.

   Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Show HN: Wealthfolio 2.0- Open source investment tracker. Now Mobile and Docker”

10. it works surprisingly well when "off network"

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “I Won't Download Your App. The Web Version Is A-OK”

11. especially loving Immich and Actual Budget

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)”

12. I was pretty impressed with it back then.

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Show HN: Wealthfolio 2.0- Open source investment tracker. Now Mobile and Docker”

13. the local-first nature is really neat

    Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “What I self-host”

14. I've really enjoyed Actual Budget

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Show HN: Wealthfolio 2.0- Open source investment tracker. Now Mobile and Docker”

15. is fantastic and self-hostable

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Ente – Opening Our Books”

16. Actual is great for budgeting

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Show HN: Wealthfolio 2.0- Open source investment tracker. Now Mobile and Docker”

17. Actual Budget is incredible.

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Show HN: Trackm, a personal finance web app”

18. It does everything I need.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “One Number I Trust: Plain-Text Accounting for a Multi-Currency Household”

19. Actual Budget uses this well and merges PRs much faster, because they have the "it's experimental" to hide behind.

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “The exponential curve behind open source backlogs”

20. AFAIK, "actual" supports only repeating... So it seems like it won't meet your expectations

    Mixed · Sep 2026

21. Switched from ynab4 (used some version since 2011) to Actual Budget a few month ago.

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Show HN: Wealthfolio 2.0- Open source investment tracker. Now Mobile and Docker”

22. Actual Budget can use that and it seems to work more like a privacy-oriented Plaid.

    Mixed · Dec 2025 · in “Show HN: Wealthfolio 2.0- Open source investment tracker. Now Mobile and Docker”

23. 90% is automated, I just categorize a few transactions a week manually.

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Attention is all you have”

24. Completely deterministic, as all things related to numbers should be.

    Recommends · Apr 2026

25. I use that to track credit card spending and my checking account.

    Recommends · Apr 2026

26. things like actual budget are stepping up to take the slack

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “1Password pricing increasing 20% in March”

27. pikapods supports running things like actual budget for you

    Mixed · May 2026 · in “Why I'm leaving GitHub for Forgejo”

28. actual budget something similar from what i can see

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Show HN: Trackm, a personal finance web app”

29. realising what I actually needed was Actual Budget

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “An update on recent Claude Code quality reports”

30. It also paired well with Actual budget

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “GnuCash is right. It's also why I built my own finance app”

31. for self-hostable stuff also consider

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “From MIT: AI financial advice is surprisingly good”