Free, open-source envelope budgeting app with bank sync, multi-device access, and self-hosted or managed hosting for privacy-focused personal finance.
Actual Budget is an open-source personal finance app that implements envelope-style budgeting, where every dollar of actual income is assigned to a category before it's spent. It positions itself as a fast, local-first, privacy-focused alternative to subscription budgeting apps.
The app is developed openly on GitHub by a community of contributors and is free to use. Because it has no company-run backend by default, users choose how to run the sync layer: fully self-hosted, or through a managed hosting provider such as PikaPods.
Actual Budget supports multi-device sync with optional end-to-end encryption, bank account syncing through GoCardless (EU/UK) and SimpleFIN (US/Canada), and transaction imports from QIF, OFX, QFX, CAMT.053, and CSV files.
It also includes custom reporting, net worth tracking, undo/redo history, a dark mode, a documented API for developers, and built-in tools to migrate existing budgets from YNAB4 or nYNAB.
Actual Budget itself is free with no paid tiers. Users who don't want to run their own sync server can pay a third-party host, such as PikaPods, for managed hosting; a portion of those hosting fees is donated to the project's Open Collective.
Yes, Actual Budget is free and open source. The only potential cost is optional third-party hosting for the sync server.
You need a sync server for multi-device use, which you can self-host or run through a managed host like PikaPods; the app itself works locally without one.
Yes, Actual Budget includes built-in tools to import budgets from YNAB4 and nYNAB.
Actual Budget is local-first and supports optional end-to-end encryption for data synced between devices.