# SimpleFIN Bridge

Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/simplefin/

11 people recommended SimpleFIN Bridge in Hacker News comments, 1 had mixed feelings and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 12 months, in 6 threads. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend it as a reasonably priced way to pull bank transactions into budgeting apps like Actual. Critics say it relies on scraping and has a low daily request quota.

Summary written by Claude from 15 comments.

## Why people recommend it

- Works well with Actual budget (3 comments in the sample): "Have you tried Actual budget + SimpleFIN as a bridge to get your transactions out of banks?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47900712)) "actual budget something similar from what i can see via SimpleFIN Bridge" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47407287)) "SimpleFIN works well with actual" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46006711))
- Reliable automatic transaction fetching (2 comments in the sample): "SimpleFin for fetching data automatically works great for me so far" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46016698)) "Very reasonably priced and it works great." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47895631))
- Good enough for personal budgeting (2 comments in the sample): "if you are just doing simple personal budget tracking they are more than enough" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49139684)) "Its not great (e.g. quota of only ~25 requests per day), but its good enough" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48477196))

## What people warn about

- Scrapes banks without real API (1 comment in the sample): "It works, but barely, since it effectively scrapes with no real API access." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48446070))

## What people recommend instead

- [Plaid](https://hackerapproved.com/p/plaid/): 13 recommend, 8 mixed, 37 criticize

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://www.simplefin.org/)

## The badge

A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged.

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "SimpleFIN Bridge", https://hackerapproved.com/p/simplefin/ (11 recommend, 1 mixed, 2 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.