Actual Budget

Last reviewed Aug 26, 2026 · 781 words

Actual replaces a YNAB subscription of about 109 USD a year at last check with a container that idles in 256 MB of RAM, and it uses the same zero-based envelope method, so the habit transfers intact. The only part that is worse than the subscription is bank sync, which depends on your country and takes an extra hour to set up, and the part that is better is that your budget file works with the server switched off.

Local-first means the server is a relay, not the truth

The budget lives in your browser or desktop app as a local SQLite database; the server exists to sync changes between devices. If the server is down, you keep budgeting and it catches up later. Changes merge as a stream of small edits rather than whole-file overwrites, so a laptop and a phone editing the same month don't fight. Turn on end-to-end encryption with a password of its own and the server stores only ciphertext, which makes hosting it on a cheap VPS a comfortable choice. The consequence people forget is that an encrypted file plus a lost encryption password equals a lost budget, so record that password with the same care as the master password for your vault.

The five-minute install

services:
  actual:
    image: actualbudget/actual-server:latest
    ports:
      - "5006:5006"
    volumes:
      - ./actual-data:/data
    restart: unless-stopped

First visit sets the server password. Put Caddy in front for HTTPS, because the browser client uses features that want a secure context and the phone browser will complain over plain HTTP. If nobody outside the house needs it, keep it reachable over Tailscale only and skip the public exposure entirely; the local-first design means the phone works fine while the tunnel is down.

Bank sync depends on where you bank

Actual has no built-in aggregator; it integrates with three services, each configured in the app's settings, and coverage follows geography. In the UK and EU, GoCardless Bank Account Data connects through open banking and is free for personal use at last check. In the US and Canada, SimpleFIN Bridge costs about 1.50 USD a month and covers most banks by reading your existing online-banking login through their partner. Brazil has Pluggy.ai. Everyone else imports files: OFX, QFX, QIF and CSV all work, with a column mapper for CSV that remembers each account's layout. Manual import twice a month takes 5 minutes per account and, in my experience, produces better categorisation than any automatic feed, because you look at each line.

Moving from YNAB

Export your budget from YNAB (the newer service produces a zip with budget and register CSVs; YNAB4 produced a .ynab4 folder) and use File, Import in Actual; both formats are supported. Categories, category groups, accounts and transactions come across; scheduled transactions and the exact goal configuration need re-entering. Payee rules are worth rebuilding early, since Actual's rule engine (match a payee or memo pattern, set category and rename) is what keeps imports from creating 40 variants of the same coffee shop. The YNAB switching guide covers the other candidates if envelopes are not your method.

What it does not do

Reporting is deliberately small: net worth, cash flow, spending by category, and custom reports with a few grouping options. Investment tracking, multi-currency, double-entry ledgers and receipt attachments are absent. If you want a personal accounting system that tracks every asset and liability with proper transactions, Firefly III is the fuller tool and correspondingly heavier; the portfolio trackers are a separate class of tool again. Actual is a budgeting app that knows it is a budgeting app.

Backups take one line

Everything is under /data: the server's account database and each user's budget files. Copy the directory nightly. The app also exports a zip of a budget from its settings page, which is the format you would use to move to another server or reimport after a disaster. If encryption is on, that zip is encrypted too, so the export alone is not a plaintext escape hatch.

What I'd do

The compose above behind Caddy, reachable over Tailscale, end-to-end encryption on with the password in my vault. GoCardless if you are in Europe, SimpleFIN if you are in North America, file import otherwise and without shame. Nightly copy of /data. For a household that already budgets with envelopes, this is the switch from YNAB with the least friction and the most privacy, and I would only look at Firefly III if you need accounting rather than budgeting.