Budgetwarrior vs Sure

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?
FeatureBudgetwarriorSure
CategoryBudgeting & FinanceBudgeting & Finance
LicenseMITAGPL-3.0
LanguageC++Ruby
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM64 MB1,024 MB
Deploymentbinary, sourcedocker, source
GitHub stars★ 119★ 9,323
First released20132025
ReplacesYNAB, MintMint, Quicken

Why pick each one

Choose Budgetwarrior if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Written in C++
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Budgetwarrior details

Choose Sure if…

  • Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 9.3k GitHub stars
  • Written in Ruby
Sure details

Frequently asked questions

Is Budgetwarrior or Sure better?

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

Are Budgetwarrior and Sure free and open-source?

Yes. Budgetwarrior is licensed under MIT and Sure under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Budgetwarrior and Sure with Docker?

Budgetwarrior: check the project docs for container support. Sure: yes.

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