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.
Sure
Community-driven personal finance app
| Feature | Budgetwarrior | Sure |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 45 · Fair | 93 · Excellent |
| Category | Budgeting & Finance | Budgeting & Finance |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | C++ | Ruby |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | docker, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 119 | ★ 10,024 |
| First released | 2013 | 2025 |
| Replaces | YNAB, Mint | Mint, Quicken |
What are Budgetwarrior and Sure?
Budgetwarrior
Budgetwarrior is a command-line personal finance tool for tracking accounts, expenses, and budgets directly from the terminal. It stores data in plain text files and gives quick summaries and reports for people who prefer the CLI.
- Terminal interface
- Plain-text data storage
- Budget and expense tracking
- Quick reports
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
Budgetwarrior vs Sure: key differences
Budgetwarrior is written in C++, while Sure is built with Ruby. Licensing differs — MIT for Budgetwarrior versus AGPL-3.0 for Sure. Budgetwarrior is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for Sure. Budgetwarrior is the more established project (first released 2013), while Sure arrived in 2025. Sure has the considerably larger community, at 10,024 GitHub stars versus 119. Sure lists first-class Docker deployment; Budgetwarrior does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Budgetwarrior if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Written in C++
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Watch out for
- Command-line only
- No mobile access
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 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.
Which is lighter on resources, Budgetwarrior or Sure?
Budgetwarrior has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for Sure. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.