Hi everyone!
I have been using Grisbi for at least 15 years now to get around personal finances/expense tracking.
It is a very basic tool that tracks expenses, clearances, etc… Nothing crazy but it helps a lot to follow your budget, keep things on track. Everything is backed up through a file that I sync with Nextcloud.
For some reasons, I won’t be able to use it as easily in the coming months (new restrictions on my work laptop) so I’m looking for a Web-based selfhost-friendly alternative. I’ve already narrowed it down to 3:
- Firefly III which looks pretty nice (and PHP is kind of a plus in my case)
- Actual Budget which looks pretty cool too
- Kresus much more barebone but might get the job done eventually
Do you have some feedback on any of those applications? Do you know any other alternatives worth looking at? Have you had the same kind of experience going from Gnucash/Grisbi/other to Web-based app?
Actual.
Tried most of them about a year ago and then it was best for my needs. Situation could be different now but for me Actual still works great.
YMMV
I am also looking for something similar. But one feature every one of these apps is missing is tracking expenses that get paid back later. For example with some of my friends I make a list of expenses so we can decide who should pay for dinner next time. Do you know of any apps that can do that?
I have had a lot of issues setting up Firefly III on different systems so I never got to get it working.
Eventueel I ended upfinding Actual Budget, while not perfect it works really well and I have been using it for more than a year now
I find the DB sync system in Actual a bit odd. Don’t get me wrong it seems to work but I’m afraid it might corrupt in some corner cases.
Have been using it for a while on different systems including some pretty unstable test systems and I haven’t had any issues. It does have some issues with that you cannot trust the automatic import since AB might create extra transactions
I am still bummed, that there is no easy way to pull the data from my bank automatically into these budgeting apps. They all rely on paid 3rd party tools for that and who knows what those do with my data
You can setup your own if you wish, but a lot of these parties also have had an audit done on security and on privacy. That is not gonna matter if you live in the US, but that is a problem
Actual let’s you import downloaded statements in qfx or whatever format
That’s how I used it anyway since I didn’t want any third party I would just download a months worth of transactions and import them into actual then start setting up automatic tagging or manual if it’s a one off transaction
PHP is kind of a plus
That’s not something you hear very often.
I already have a lot of things using PHP (phpBB, Wordpress, FreshRSS, etc…) so that’s kind of a no-brainer for me. But I get the point, not very popular these days.
I just wish I had something useful to add.
Used beancount with fava for a little while but it didn’t really stick.
I’ve been self-hosting Actual as an alternative to YNAB and I’m completely sold. It’s really great, especially with bank account syncing activated. If you like envelope based budgeting I’d definitely go with Actual.
I moved to actual about 3 months ago from YNAB4. I’d moved to nYNAB then back to YNAB4 after a second price hike and then to actual.
No regrets. I run it as a docker on unraid and reverse proxy so I can access it remotely.
Feels a ton like YNAB.
Works on Windows, my macbook. The only missing thing IMHO is a dedicated mobile app (for Android in my case). The web works ok, but a dedicated app could improve the experience
This may not fully solve the problem, but have you tried using it through Hermit or Native Alpha? These are browsers designed to make websites work like apps on Android.
Combined with my password manager (Bitwarden), it’s usually as fast or even faster than some apps, with a side benefit of a single app install rather than an app for each service.
So far this has worked well for Amazon, Walmart, libraries, my healthcare login, bank, ebay, Home Depot and Lowes, etc.
I’ll check this out. But some things really need an app. Like gps for payees like ynab4 app has.
But the speed is certainly a factor.
Another vote for actual. It’s my first budgeting app so I don’t have anything to compare it to, but it was super simple to set up (as far as self hosted apps go), I really like the web ui, and simplefin works to sync with all of my banks/accounts. My only gripe with it so far is that it could probably use a better mobile experience.
FF3 is great, I have used it for years and I can’t complain
How do you get your data in? Do you use the third party import services plugin or set up scraping of your statements that needs you to pass the statements in explicitly? I’ve been wanting to get into using Firefly 3 but the question of how I should do the data import has been a hurdle that’s stopped me with indecision a few times.
Oh, I do it all manually since I find it harder to keep track when things happen automatically.
But I know it has all kinds plugins for importing transactions
Ah fair enough. Well done keeping on top of it - I know I’ll never be able to consistently do it manually so will dig into the other ways.
