Actual Budget
A transparent ledger with imports, rules and reports on your own disk; automatic bank sync is optional.
Technical Profile & Specs
verified 2026-08-11
- Cost
- $0 / forever (Open Source)
- License
- MIT
- Hosting Model
- Local or hosted (your machine or their cloud)
- Platforms
- desktopwebself-hostedone-click install
- Installation
- Native desktop app for local-only use, or the official Docker/Node server for browser access and device sync
- Where Your Data Lives
- Each client works from a local SQLite budget; the server keeps account metadata plus budget blobs under its data directory, and optional end-to-end encryption covers budget contents but not bank-sync tokens.
- The Catch / Trade-off
- Actual provides a transparent ledger but its hosted API, multi-currency workflow, automatic aggregation, and flexible transaction-analysis experience are less turnkey than Lunch Money's.
Replaces 5 paid apps
up to $50.96/mo ($612/yr) in subscriptions
Actual Budget FAQ
Common questions
Is Actual Budget free and open source?+
Actual Budget is an open-source tool licensed under MIT that runs on local or hosted. A transparent ledger with imports, rules and reports on your own disk; automatic bank sync is optional.
What paid software does Actual Budget replace?+
Actual Budget serves as a free replacement for 5 paid SaaS applications: Lunch Money, Monarch Money, Quicken Classic Deluxe, Quicken Simplifi, YNAB, saving up to $50.96/month ($612/year) in subscription bills.
How do you install and set up Actual Budget?+
Installation: Native desktop app for local-only use, or the official Docker/Node server for browser access and device sync.
What is the catch or trade-off with Actual Budget?+
Actual provides a transparent ledger but its hosted API, multi-currency workflow, automatic aggregation, and flexible transaction-analysis experience are less turnkey than Lunch Money's.