SimpleFIN Bridge
Hacker ApprovedBank data API in Money & business
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.
11 people recommended SimpleFIN Bridge in Hacker News comments, 1 had mixed feelings and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026.
Summary written by Claude from 15 comments.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- mixed feelings
- 1
- warn against or regret it
- 2
The record
Recommended in 7 of 12 months
In 6 different threads.
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
Why it carries the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 of 12 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
- Recommended in 6 threadsNeeds 5 or more, met.
- The biggest thread supplies 46% of its recommendersNeeds half or less, met.
The same rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. Mixed feelings count toward neither side. How the badge works
What people say about it
Reasons grouped from a sample of 14 of the 16 opinions about it, picked in proportion to how many people recommend it, have mixed feelings and criticize it. Each mark is one comment in the sample. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Works well with Actual budget
“Have you tried Actual budget + SimpleFIN as a bridge to get your transactions out of banks?”
Comment from 25 Apr 2026 on Hacker News “actual budget something similar from what i can see via SimpleFIN Bridge”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Trackm, a personal finance web app” “SimpleFIN works well with actual”
Comment from 21 Nov 2025 in “Show HN: Wealthfolio 2.0- Open source investment tracker. Now Mobile and Docker” Reliable automatic transaction fetching
“SimpleFin for fetching data automatically works great for me so far”
Comment from 22 Nov 2025 in “Show HN: Wealthfolio 2.0- Open source investment tracker. Now Mobile and Docker” “Very reasonably priced and it works great.”
Comment from 24 Apr 2026 on Hacker News Good enough for personal budgeting
“if you are just doing simple personal budget tracking they are more than enough”
Comment from 1 Aug 2026 in “From MIT: AI financial advice is surprisingly good” “Its not great (e.g. quota of only ~25 requests per day), but its good enough”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “GnuCash is right. It's also why I built my own finance app”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Scrapes banks without real API
“It works, but barely, since it effectively scrapes with no real API access.”
Comment from 8 Jun 2026 in “Spanish traders set the standard forGnuCash database design”
What people recommend instead
The same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Mixed | Criticize | Approval | Months | Had for | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plaid | 13 | 8 | 37 | 26% | 7 | — | — |
| SimpleFIN BridgeThis page | 11 | 1 | 2 | 85% | 7 | — | Approved |
What people said
14 of the 16 opinions about it, picked in proportion to the three counts, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“provides an API for connecting to many different financial orgs”
“they made some surprising errors with some of my accounts”
“if you are just doing simple personal budget tracking they are more than enough”
“Its not great (e.g. quota of only ~25 requests per day), but its good enough”
“It works, but barely, since it effectively scrapes with no real API access.”
“Have you tried Actual budget + SimpleFIN as a bridge to get your transactions out of banks?”
“Very reasonably priced and it works great.”
“actual budget something similar from what i can see via SimpleFIN Bridge”
“SimpleFin for fetching data automatically works great for me so far”
“It's still MX under the hood though so it's maybe not quite as satisfying of a solution?”
“simplefin can also be used for your own local projects”
“The integration is pretty good.”
“I think without sync with financial institutions it's going to be hard to grow a userbase.”
“SimpleFIN works well with actual”
Counts come from 1,791,911 Hacker News comments labeled by Claude, November 2025 to October 2026, with data through October 31, 2026. Counts updated 2 Nov 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.