Actual Budget vs Money Manager Ex

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?
FeatureActual BudgetMoney Manager Ex
CategoryBudgeting & FinanceBudgeting & Finance
LicenseMITGPL-2.0
LanguageTypeScriptC++
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM256 MB128 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, sourcebare-metal, source
GitHub stars★ 28,019★ 2,243
First released20222005
ReplacesYNAB, MintQuicken, Mint

Why pick each one

Choose Actual Budget if…

  • Snappy offline-first experience
  • Privacy-focused sync
Actual Budget details

Choose Money Manager Ex if…

  • Simple and approachable
  • Portable data file
Money Manager Ex details

Frequently asked questions

Is Actual Budget or Money Manager Ex 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 Money Manager Ex free and open-source?

Yes. Actual Budget is licensed under MIT and Money Manager Ex under GPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Actual Budget and Money Manager Ex with Docker?

Actual Budget: yes. Money Manager Ex: check the project docs for container support.

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