Actual Budget

The short version

Actual Budget is a free, open-source envelope budgeting app that stores your data locally and syncs it through a server you control. It is actively developed and follows the classic envelope approach closely. The price of that freedom is setup: you need to host a server, or pay a small fee for someone to host it.

This review is based on research: the official docs, release notes, GitHub repo and the public demo. I did not create an account or connect a bank, so I am not claiming hands-on months of use.

Where it came from

James Long built Actual as a commercial product, then open-sourced it in April 2022. The hosted subscription was shut down in 2024. Today it is run by a volunteer maintainer team, which the maintainers themselves describe as a group that changes over time. Releases are monthly; the latest I found was 26.9.0 (1 September 2026), with active commits as recently as this week.

How the budgeting works

Actual uses the envelope method with a strict rule: you can only budget money you already have. Categories act like little funds. Unspent money rolls into next month's balance. Overspending is different: the category resets to zero and the overspent amount comes out of next month's To Budget, which pushes you to cover it right away. If you want a category to carry a negative balance (say, for reimbursable expenses), there is a setting for that.

The feature I like most is Hold for Next Month, with an auto-hold option for income categories. It is a practical way to get a month ahead, which is the goal a lot of envelope budgeters chase. New users also get an in-app tour as of 26.9.0.

Beyond budgeting: schedules and rules, split transactions, linked transfers, undo/redo, net worth and cash flow reports, a custom report builder, and an experimental Monte Carlo report that estimates how long savings might last in retirement. Off-budget accounts track things like mortgages and investments as balances only. You cannot categorize transactions in them.

Cost

• Self-hosted or desktop app: free.
• Managed hosting (PikaPods): roughly $1.50 to $2 a month. Actual's docs say about $1.50; PikaPods lists $1.80 as its starting price, and the GitHub README says about $2. Check the current price before you sign up.
• Bank sync: the app is free, but the providers are not always. Actual's docs quote $15 a year for SimpleFIN Bridge, which covers North American banks.

There is no in-app paywall, no trial clock and no tiers.

Bank sync: read the fine print

Bank sync is optional, and it comes with caveats:

• You bring your own account with a provider. Supported ones are SimpleFIN (North America), Enable Banking (Europe), Akahu (New Zealand) and Pluggy (Brazil). GoCardless is listed as not accepting new accounts.
• It only works with the server, not the standalone client.
• It is not automatic. You press Bank Sync (or pull to refresh on mobile).
• The provider keys live on the server and are not protected by end-to-end encryption. Self-hosting reduces that risk. Renting a server means trusting the host.

If you would rather import files, CSV, OFX, QFX, QIF and CAMT.053 are all supported, and YNAB4 and nYNAB importers keep your history.

Privacy and data ownership

Actual is local-first: the app works offline, and changes sync in the background. You can turn on end-to-end encryption, so the server only sees encrypted changes. Two catches from the docs: forget the encryption password and you cannot recover the synced copy, and encryption cannot be switched off once enabled. Your local copy is not encrypted, so use full-disk encryption if that matters to you.

Mobile

The official native mobile apps are deprecated. The route on phones is the installable web app (PWA), which the docs say works offline. Community projects offer unofficial native clients. If a polished native app is a must-have, this is the biggest gap.

Who it suits

• People who want real envelope budgeting with no subscription.
• Privacy-minded users and tinkerers comfortable with Docker, or willing to pay a couple of dollars for PikaPods.
• Anyone moving over from YNAB4 or nYNAB, since both have importers.

Who might struggle

• Anyone who wants to sign up and start budgeting in five minutes with a native phone app and support staff.
• Anyone outside the supported bank-sync regions who does not want to import files.
• Anyone who needs investment tracking or confirmed multi-currency budgeting.

What I could not confirm

The previous listing claimed debt tracking with payoff goals (beta). I could not confirm that in the docs I read, so I left that feature flag as it was and left it out of the review text. I also could not verify how well shared budgets work between multiple people beyond what the docs state: two people can edit the same file, and OpenID login is available for multi-user servers, but the docs advise avoiding simultaneous edits.

Bottom line

Actual is a serious, well-maintained piece of software, and the free price tag is real. You trade money for setup and for volunteer-run support. If you want control and a budgeting engine you can trust to stay free, it is hard to beat. If you want a hosted service with native mobile apps and paid support, it is probably not the right fit.