Actual Budget

Yes. Actual is 100% free and open source under the MIT license, with no subscription, feature gates or account limits. You only pay if you choose a managed host such as PikaPods or Fly.io; self-hosting and the desktop apps cost nothing.

No. Actual works fully offline as a local-only app — the desktop builds and the browser version store your budget locally in SQLite. A sync server is optional and only needed if you want to share a budget between devices or with other people. You can self-host it with the official Docker image.

Actual uses the same envelope budgeting method as YNAB and can import YNAB4 and nYNAB budgets, but it is open source, free, and local-first: your data stays in a file you control instead of a vendor cloud. There is no official bank connection service, so transactions come in through bank file exports (CSV, OFX/QFX, CAMT), community tools or the API.

Yes, if you enable it. Actual supports end-to-end encryption for synced budgets, so the sync server only stores encrypted data. You can also skip sync entirely and keep everything on one device.

Yes. Actual ships a CLI and a Node API for scripting imports, merging duplicate transactions and editing budgets, and the API can now store synced preferences such as per-account CSV column mappings. Self-hosters can also run the sync server in Docker behind their own reverse proxy.