BudgetBee vs Sure
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted budgeting & finance options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
BudgetBee
Self-hosted personal finance and budgeting manager
VS
Sure
Community-driven personal finance app
| Feature | BudgetBee | Sure |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 80 · Excellent | 93 · Excellent |
| Category | Budgeting & Finance | Budgeting & Finance |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | JavaScript | Ruby |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, source | docker, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 644 | ★ 10,024 |
| First released | 2024 | 2025 |
| Replaces | YNAB, Mint | Mint, Quicken |
What are BudgetBee and Sure?
BudgetBee
BudgetBee is an open-source, self-hosted personal finance manager that runs entirely on your own infrastructure via Docker. It tracks day-to-day expenses, plans monthly budgets, monitors upcoming bills, and visualizes financial health through charts.
- Expense and budget tracking
- Upcoming bill monitoring
- Charts and reports
- Runs entirely via Docker
Sure
Sure is a self-hosted personal finance application maintained by the community as a continuation of an archived finance project. It tracks accounts, transactions, budgets, and net worth in a single dashboard.
- Accounts and transaction tracking
- Budgets and net worth view
- Community-maintained
- Self-hosted with Docker
BudgetBee vs Sure: key differences
BudgetBee is written in JavaScript, while Sure is built with Ruby. Licensing differs — MIT for BudgetBee versus AGPL-3.0 for Sure. BudgetBee is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for Sure. Sure has the considerably larger community, at 10,024 GitHub stars versus 644.
Why pick each one
Choose BudgetBee if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in JavaScript
Choose Sure if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 10k GitHub stars
- Written in Ruby
Frequently asked questions
Is BudgetBee or Sure better?
Neither is universally better. Sure has the larger community, while BudgetBee is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are BudgetBee and Sure free and open-source?
Yes. BudgetBee is licensed under MIT and Sure under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run BudgetBee and Sure with Docker?
BudgetBee: yes. Sure: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, BudgetBee or Sure?
BudgetBee has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for Sure. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.