SHSelfHostIndex

Actual Budget vs Cashew Self-Host

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted budgeting & finance options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
Actual Budget Local-first envelope budgeting app VS CA Cashew Self-Host Self-hosted sync server for personal budgeting
FeatureActual BudgetCashew Self-Host
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score98 · Excellent54 · Fair
CategoryBudgeting & FinanceBudgeting & Finance
LicenseMITMIT
LanguageTypeScriptDart
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM256 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, sourcedocker, source
GitHub stars★ 29,118★ 4,649
First released20222022
ReplacesYNAB, MintYNAB, Mint

What are Actual Budget and Cashew Self-Host?

Actual Budget

Actual is a free, open-source personal finance app focused on zero-based, envelope-style budgeting. It is local-first with end-to-end encrypted sync across devices.

  • Envelope budgeting method
  • Local-first with encrypted sync
  • Fast and responsive UI
  • Bank import via plugins

Read the full Actual Budget guide →

Cashew Self-Host

This project provides a self-hosted sync backend so users of the open-source budgeting client can keep their expense data on their own server. It stores transactions, budgets, and categories without a commercial cloud.

  • Expense and budget tracking
  • Self-hosted sync
  • Category management
  • Mobile companion

Actual Budget vs Cashew Self-Host: key differences

Actual Budget is written in TypeScript, while Cashew Self-Host is built with Dart. Actual Budget has the considerably larger community, at 29,118 GitHub stars versus 4,649.

Why pick each one

Choose Actual Budget if…

  • Snappy offline-first experience
  • Privacy-focused sync

Watch out for

  • Bank sync needs extra setup
  • Fewer reports than alternatives
Actual Budget details

Choose Cashew Self-Host if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Active community (4.6k GitHub stars)
Cashew Self-Host details

Frequently asked questions

Is Actual Budget or Cashew Self-Host better?

Neither is universally better. Actual Budget has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Actual Budget and Cashew Self-Host free and open-source?

Yes. Actual Budget is licensed under MIT and Cashew Self-Host under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Actual Budget and Cashew Self-Host with Docker?

Actual Budget: yes. Cashew Self-Host: yes.

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