Kresus vs Sure
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted budgeting & finance options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Kresus | Sure |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Category | Budgeting & Finance | Budgeting & Finance |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | JavaScript | Ruby |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | docker, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 800 | ★ 10,024 |
| First released | 2015 | 2025 |
| Replaces | Mint, Bankin | Mint, Quicken |
What are Kresus and Sure?
Kresus
Kresus is a free, open-source personal finance manager that aggregates your bank accounts and helps you track expenses and budgets. It uses the Woob library to import banking data automatically.
- Automatic bank data import
- Expense categorization
- Budget and chart views
- Alerts on balances
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
Kresus vs Sure: key differences
Kresus is written in JavaScript, while Sure is built with Ruby. Kresus is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for Sure. Kresus is the more established project (first released 2015), while Sure arrived in 2025. Sure has the considerably larger community, at 10,024 GitHub stars versus 800.
Why pick each one
Choose Kresus if…
- Hands-off bank syncing in supported regions
- Lightweight
Watch out for
- Bank support varies by country
- Sparse documentation
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 Kresus 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 Kresus and Sure free and open-source?
Yes. Kresus is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Sure under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Kresus and Sure with Docker?
Kresus: yes. Sure: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Kresus or Sure?
Kresus 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.