Actual Budget

What is Actual Budget?

Actual Budget is a local-first personal finance app with envelope budgeting, bank sync and detailed reports. It runs entirely on your own machine or server, so your financial data is never stored by a third party.

Best for

People wanting YNAB-style budgeting without the subscription

Why choose Actual Budget

Actual Budget is what you reach for when you like the envelope-budgeting philosophy but not the subscription attached to it. YNAB's method genuinely changes how people spend, and the software teaches it well — but the method is public knowledge, and there is no reason to rent it monthly forever. Actual implements the same envelope model, runs entirely in your browser with a local database, and syncs between your devices through a server you control. Your entire financial history stays on your own hardware.

Replaces

• YNAB
• Mint
• Monarch Money

Key features

• Envelope budgeting
• Bank sync via GoCardless
• Reports and net worth tracking
• End-to-end encryption

What to watch out for

The polish gap is real. YNAB has years of refinement, a large support team and mobile apps that feel native; Actual is community-run and its mobile experience is a wrapper around the web interface rather than a true app. Automatic bank sync depends on GoCardless, which supports a growing but not complete list of banks, and coverage varies sharply by country — outside Europe you may be importing CSV files by hand. Treat it as a tool for someone willing to do a little manual maintenance.

How to deploy

• Docker
• Desktop app

Getting started

Start with the local-first desktop app before you touch a server: it stores your budget in the browser itself, and you can evaluate the whole method without committing to any infrastructure. When you are ready to sync, run the official sync server via Docker, then point each device at it during setup. Enable end-to-end encryption with a passphrase you will not lose, because the server operator — you — cannot recover data without it. Export a backup file periodically and keep it somewhere that is not the server.

Typical setup

The common setup is deliberately modest: a laptop or desktop runs the budget locally, and a small always-on machine — a Raspberry Pi, a NAS or the cheapest VPS available — acts as the sync server so phones and browsers share the same data. There is no cloud account anywhere in the picture. People who use it seriously pair it with a folder of exported backup files stored somewhere off the sync server, so that a hardware failure costs them a week of transactions rather than the entire history.

Who should look elsewhere

Do not choose it if automatic bank imports are non-negotiable and your bank is outside GoCardless's coverage, because you will be reconciling from CSV exports every month. It is also a poor fit for anyone who wants a polished native mobile budgeting app or who expects responsive human support — both are real YNAB advantages worth paying for if you rely on them.

Project health

• GitHub stars: 29,235
• Last code push: 2026-09-29
• Open issues: 258
• Status: actively developed

Figures pulled from the GitHub API and refreshed periodically.