Actual Budget vs Costflow
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?
Compare Actual Budget with
choose an app… Maybe HyperSwitch Firefly III Lago Akaunting Invoice Ninja Sure Ghostfolio Wealthfolio Crater Wallos BTCPay Server OctoBot Hospitable Ledger Beancount Kill Bill ezbookkeeping Frappe Books hledger-web Cashew Self-Host GnuCash Pretzel Finance Rotki Paisa Spliit mempool Fava Money Manager Ex BTC RPC Explorer Crater Self-Hosted Invoicing ExpenseOwl I Hate Money Sequence Finance LNbits Elements Core BlueWallet Lightning RoboSats Tracktor Invio Bitcart OpenBudgeteer WYGIWYH Specter Desktop Kresus Ride The Lightning (Core Lightning) Fedimint Lightning Gateway Bitcoin Knots monetr Budget Zero BudgetBee Tellico SHKeeper Lightning Terminal REI3 Ocular VoucherVault Fulcrum Beancount Import ThunderHub Public Pool Suredbits Wallet Family Accounting Tool Jam BillManager MyFin Alby Hub ✨ Receipt Wrangler SatSale LNDg chantools CLI hledger-flow Tryton Cashu.me Wallet Skrooge OFX Importer Monero Daemon Grisbi DATUM DePay Circuit Breaker Bitfeed Budgetwarrior Nostr Wallet Connect YAFFA Bitcoin Ordinals Shopstr Econumo Libre Relay Bitcoin Node ItchySats Nutstash Wallet Core Lightning nolooking Squeak Road Krystal Bull BTC Tracker Helipad Bassin Tallycoin Connect PeerSwap sat.watch LndBoss Lightning Node Bitaxe Sentry Mybucks.online Blockstream Blind Oracle DeepSea Dashboard WoofBot (LND) LN Markets Bleskomat Server Canary MinerSentinel TDEX Provider Bitwatch Electrs Kollider LnVisualizer Public Pool's Web Urbit Bitcoin Connector Sparkkiosk Samourai Server LNbits Holesail Proxy Lightning Network+ Toshi Moto bitBalance ElectrumX Bitcoin Regtest Dashboard ChainForensics Lightning Shell lnSwitchboard Oak Node Pancake Saifa
Compare Costflow with
choose an app… Maybe HyperSwitch Firefly III Lago Akaunting Invoice Ninja Sure Ghostfolio Wealthfolio Cashew Self-Host Paisa Money Manager Ex ExpenseOwl Kresus Budget Zero BudgetBee Tellico Beancount Import MyFin OFX Importer Budgetwarrior
Feature Actual Budget Costflow Category Budgeting & Finance Budgeting & Finance License MIT MIT Language TypeScript JavaScript Setup difficulty Easy Medium Min. RAM 256 MB 128 MB Deployment docker, bare-metal, source source, binary GitHub stars ★ 28,019 ★ 33 First released 2022 2019 Replaces YNAB, Mint Expensify, Mint
Why pick each one
Choose Costflow if… Released under the MIT license Written in JavaScript Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM Costflow details
Frequently asked questions Is Actual Budget or Costflow better? Actual Budget is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Costflow if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Actual Budget and Costflow free and open-source? Yes. Actual Budget is licensed under MIT and Costflow under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Actual Budget and Costflow with Docker? Actual Budget: yes. Costflow: check the project docs for container support.