SHSelfHostIndex

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?
Actual Budget Local-first envelope budgeting app VS MO Money Manager Ex Free cross-platform personal finance manager
FeatureActual BudgetMoney Manager Ex
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupRead-the-docs project
Health score98 · Excellent86 · Excellent
CategoryBudgeting & FinanceBudgeting & Finance
LicenseMITGPL-2.0
LanguageTypeScriptC++
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM256 MB128 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, sourcebare-metal, source
GitHub stars★ 29,118★ 2,265
First released20222005
ReplacesYNAB, MintQuicken, Mint

What are Actual Budget and Money Manager Ex?

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 →

Money Manager Ex

Money Manager Ex is a free, open-source personal finance application. It tracks accounts, transactions, budgets, and investments in a simple desktop interface backed by an SQLite database.

  • Account and budget tracking
  • Investment management
  • Reports and charts
  • SQLite-backed database

Read the full Money Manager Ex guide →

Actual Budget vs Money Manager Ex: key differences

Actual Budget is written in TypeScript, while Money Manager Ex is built with C++. Licensing differs — MIT for Actual Budget versus GPL-2.0 for Money Manager Ex. Money Manager Ex is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Actual Budget. Money Manager Ex is the more established project (first released 2005), while Actual Budget arrived in 2022. Actual Budget has the considerably larger community, at 29,118 GitHub stars versus 2,265. Actual Budget lists first-class Docker deployment; Money Manager Ex does not.

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 Money Manager Ex if…

  • Simple and approachable
  • Portable data file

Watch out for

  • Desktop only
  • No multi-user support
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.

Which is lighter on resources, Actual Budget or Money Manager Ex?

Money Manager Ex has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Actual Budget. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.

Related comparisons