Money Manager Ex 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 | Money Manager Ex | Sure |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 86 · Excellent | 93 · Excellent |
| Category | Budgeting & Finance | Budgeting & Finance |
| License | GPL-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | C++ | Ruby |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, source | docker, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 2,265 | ★ 10,024 |
| First released | 2005 | 2025 |
| Replaces | Quicken, Mint | Mint, Quicken |
What are Money Manager Ex and Sure?
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
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
Money Manager Ex vs Sure: key differences
Money Manager Ex is written in C++, while Sure is built with Ruby. Licensing differs — GPL-2.0 for Money Manager Ex versus AGPL-3.0 for Sure. Money Manager Ex is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 1,024 MB for Sure. Money Manager Ex is the more established project (first released 2005), while Sure arrived in 2025. Sure has the considerably larger community, at 10,024 GitHub stars versus 2,265. Sure lists first-class Docker deployment; Money Manager Ex does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Money Manager Ex if…
- Simple and approachable
- Portable data file
Watch out for
- Desktop only
- No multi-user support
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 Money Manager Ex or Sure better?
Neither is universally better. Sure has the larger community, while Money Manager Ex is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Money Manager Ex and Sure free and open-source?
Yes. Money Manager Ex is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Sure under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Money Manager Ex and Sure with Docker?
Money Manager Ex: check the project docs for container support. Sure: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Money Manager Ex or Sure?
Money Manager Ex has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 1,024 MB for Sure. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.