Preview. These maps are our reading of public sources and haven't been checked with the projects' maintainers yet.
Budgeting apps
Personal finance apps for tracking spending and budgets.
22 projects95% active57% build on a shared standardMapped 2026-10-26
What they agree on
- Is it actively maintained? active (91% of 22)
- How is the main thing licensed? proprietary or closed source (73% of 22)
- Who is it for? non-developers (77% of 22)
What they argue about
How is it mainly sustained?
Can it run entirely on your own device or infrastructure, without the maker's servers?
Do you need an account to use it?
Which shared standard or format does it mainly build on?
How do transactions mainly get in?
Can it sync with your bank automatically, and does that cost more than the app itself?
What is the main way it helps you budget?
In the default setup, where is your financial data mainly stored?
Does it have built-in AI features, and where does the AI run?
Can you point your own AI assistant at your data (MCP server, agent skill, or open API)?
How do people pay for it?
Where do you mainly use it?
Can two or more people (a couple or household) work on the same finances in it?
Is privacy the headline of how it presents itself?
Projects
| Project | Status | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Actual Budget | Active | Open-source, local-first envelope budgeting app you can run as a desktop app or self-host with a sync server. |
| Banker | Active | Rust command-line client that syncs bank accounts and transactions through Enable Banking into a local SQLite database. |
| Basteon | Active | European net-worth and finance app that syncs banks through Enable Banking but keeps all data in an encrypted database on your phone. |
| BudgetFlow | Active | Web budget planner that draws your budget as money flowing between accounts in a Sankey diagram, with shared budgets. |
| Cadence Money | Active | Canadian budgeting, net worth and goals app for iOS, Android and web that has no AI of its own but offers an MCP server. |
| CoinsBucket | Active | Web budget app that tells you how much you can spend today, with a self-correcting daily budget. |
| Coinvane | Active | Self-hosted personal finance PWA with optional Plaid sync, zero-based budgets, household sharing and encrypted storage. |
| Dibba | Active | iPhone budget tracker that logs spending from Apple Pay taps and bank SMS and adds a voice AI agent. |
| DrakeAI | Active | Free expense tracker you log by typing, speaking or snapping receipts in a chat, on iOS, Android, web and Telegram. |
| Firefly III | Active | Self-hosted open-source personal finance manager with budgets, rules and a separate Data Importer for bank connections. |
| Fundstash | Active | Android and iPhone expense tracker that turns bank SMS, receipts and quick voice notes into transactions using on-device AI, with no accoun… |
| Maali | Active | Mac and Windows personal finance app that imports bank files or SimpleFIN and runs an AI analyst entirely on your computer. |
| Masareef | Active | Android expense tracker that reads bank SMS and payment alerts from 1,200+ banks and wallets (strong in Egypt and the Gulf) on the device. |
| Monarch Money | Active | Popular subscription personal finance app (a Mint successor) with bank sync, budgets, partner sharing and an AI assistant. |
| Nexmy | Active | Italian-made offline Android finance tracker for spending, installments and month-end balance estimates, with an offline command assistant. |
| Pulse Local | Active | Mac budgeting app whose chat answers come from small AI models running on your machine, with optional Plaid bank sync. |
| ReadMyStatement (absorbed Spend.Report) | Active | Upload a bank statement PDF and get a plain-English page of where the money went and which subscriptions repeat; nothing stored, no bank lo… |
| Scone Money (formerly Stoke Money) | Active | Web personal finance app built around a day-by-day cash flow forecast instead of budgets, with Plaid sync and an MCP connector on Pro. |
| Spltty | Maintenance | Ruby CLI that keeps shared household expenses in plain Markdown ledgers, letting Claude do the transcription while the CLI does the math. |
| TallyMint | Active | Quicken-style personal finance software for Windows (one-time purchase, encrypted local file) with a subscription web version. |
| Unblur | Active | Browser tool that turns bank and card CSVs into a categorized spending report, processed entirely client-side. |
| YNAB (You Need A Budget) | Active | The best-known zero-based budgeting subscription app; many indie apps define themselves against it. |
Where they meet
- Actual Budget Discord discord
Linked from actualbudget.org; main venue for Actual users and contributors. - r/ynab subreddit
Large YNAB user subreddit (about 200k members per third-party stats); where users compare YNAB with alternatives. Reddit could not be fetched directly. - r/MonarchMoney subreddit
Unofficial Monarch community (about 50k members per third-party stats). Reddit could not be fetched directly. - r/actualbudgeting subreddit
Actual Budget subreddit (about 11k members per third-party stats). Reddit could not be fetched directly. - awesome-selfhosted: Money, Budgeting & Management awesome list
Lists Actual, Firefly III, Budget Board, OpenBudgeteer, ezbookkeeping and others; the map of self-hosted budgeting apps. - Plain Text Accounting website / hub
Hub for ledger-cli / hledger / beancount users; Spltty's maker cites ledger-cli as inspiration. - Hacker News (Show HN) forum
Where all 18 indie projects here launched between 2026-07-27 and 2026-10-25; most posts got under 10 points.
Follow
RSS for this community: projects added, status changes, and later polls and discussions.
Follow the whole community: OPML of every project's own release feed (where we found one) · OPML of every project's Poll Position feed.
The poll
Every project above was answered against these questions. Core questions are shared by all communities; the rest are this community's own.
- Is it actively maintained? core
active · active, but changed direction (pivot, fork, or rename) · maintenance or slowing · dormant, sunsetting, or archived - How is the main thing licensed? core
permissive open source (MIT/Apache/BSD) · copyleft or source-available with restrictions · open parts around a closed core · proprietary or closed source - How is it mainly sustained? core
individual side project, no revenue · individual with revenue (paid app, tier, ads, or donations) · community, foundation, or research · company with a paid product, tier, or ads · company or startup with a free product (no revenue yet) · big company side project - Can it run entirely on your own device or infrastructure, without the maker's servers? core
yes · yes, but it calls a third-party service you choose (your own API key or account) · partly (some features need the maker's servers) · no, it needs the maker's servers · not applicable - Do you need an account to use it? core
no account · optional account · account required - Who is it for? core
developers · non-developers · both - Is there public evidence it's built with AI coding agents? core
yes, the repo shows it (agent instruction files or agent co-authored commits) · yes, the maker says so · no public evidence - Which shared standard or format does it mainly build on? core
bank statement and export files (CSV, OFX/QFX, QIF, PDF) · SimpleFIN · European open banking (PSD2) via Enable Banking or GoCardless · Plaid · none of these (its own format or interface) · not applicable - How do transactions mainly get in? approach
automatic bank sync through an aggregator (Plaid, SimpleFIN, Enable Banking, GoCardless) · importing files the bank gives you (CSV, OFX, QIF, PDF statement) · reading bank SMS or payment alerts on the phone · typing or saying them (manual or chat-style entry) · not applicable (plans a budget, no transactions) - Can it sync with your bank automatically, and does that cost more than the app itself? value
yes, at no extra cost · yes, for an extra cost (a higher tier or a separately paid sync service) · no automatic bank sync - What is the main way it helps you budget? approach
envelope or zero-based (every dollar gets a job) · category limits or monthly targets · safe-to-spend or cash flow forecast instead of a budget · tracking and reports only, no budget · planning a budget only, no transaction tracking - In the default setup, where is your financial data mainly stored? value
on your own device only · on a server you run yourself · on the maker's servers (including synced copies) · not kept (read once, then discarded) - Does it have built-in AI features, and where does the AI run? value
no built-in AI · yes, on your own device · yes, through an online AI service - Can you point your own AI assistant at your data (MCP server, agent skill, or open API)? approach
yes · no - How do people pay for it? value
free, no paid option · free, with an optional paid upgrade or pay-what-you-want · one-time purchase · subscription - Where do you mainly use it? approach
phone app · desktop app · web browser · command line - Can two or more people (a couple or household) work on the same finances in it? approach
yes · no - Is privacy the headline of how it presents itself? value
yes, privacy is the headline · mentioned, but not the headline · barely or not at all
Sources
Show HN posts 2026-07-27 to 2026-10-25 in this kind, plus well-known reference projects.
62 sources across 22 projects, read on 2026-10-26. Each project page lists its own. Poll version: core-v4.