Private and open-source alternatives to YNAB
11 budgeting rated against the same public privacy criteria as YNAB (You Need a Budget), with our picks first.
Why look for an alternative?
- Open source: no. Closed source.
- No trackers or telemetry: no. The Exodus report finds Amplitude, Bugsnag and Google Firebase Analytics in the Android app, and the privacy policy names Google Analytics and session recording tools.
- No ads or data sales: no. Funded by subscriptions and says user data is not sold, but the privacy policy describes ad-network cookies, pixels and hashed email addresses shared with platforms for ad targeting.
- Independent audit: no. No independent audit is published.
The alternatives
Plain Text Accounting Grade A
An approach to bookkeeping that keeps records in plain text files and processes them with command-line tools such as Ledger, hledger and Beancount.
Plain Text Accounting scores 100 out of 100 (grade A) on the budgeting criteria. It meets 3 of 3 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry and no ads or data sales..
Actual Grade B
Local-first personal finance app based on envelope budgeting, with optional self-hosted sync between devices and optional end-to-end encryption.
Actual scores 80 out of 100 (grade B) on the budgeting criteria. It meets 3 of 4 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry and no ads or data sales.
BeeCount Grade B
Offline-first expense tracker for Android and iOS, with optional sync through a self-hosted BeeCount Cloud server, iCloud, Supabase, WebDAV or S3.
BeeCount scores 80 out of 100 (grade B) on the budgeting criteria. It meets 3 of 4 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry and no ads or data sales.
GnuCash Grade B
Cross-platform double-entry accounting application for personal and small business finance, with accounts, budgets, scheduled transactions, investments and reports.
GnuCash scores 80 out of 100 (grade B) on the budgeting criteria. It meets 3 of 4 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry and no ads or data sales.
KMyMoney Grade B
Open-source double-entry personal finance manager from KDE for Linux, Windows and macOS, with budgets, investments, scheduled transactions and bank statement import.
Based in Germany (Fourteen Eyes). KMyMoney scores 80 out of 100 (grade B) on the budgeting criteria. It meets 3 of 4 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry and no ads or data sales.
Skrooge Grade B
Open-source personal finance manager from KDE for tracking accounts, budgets, investments and scheduled operations, with reports and import from many file formats.
Based in Germany (Fourteen Eyes). Skrooge scores 80 out of 100 (grade B) on the budgeting criteria. It meets 3 of 4 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry and no ads or data sales.
Firefly III Grade C
Self-hosted personal finance manager with double-entry bookkeeping, budgets, categories, tags, a rule engine, reports and a REST API.
Firefly III scores 65 out of 100 (grade C) on the budgeting criteria. It meets 2 of 4 criteria: open source and no ads or data sales.
rotki Grade C
Self-hosted, open source portfolio tracking and accounting tool for crypto assets and other investments, with data stored locally. Runs on Linux, macOS, Windows and Docker.
Based in Germany (Fourteen Eyes). rotki scores 65 out of 100 (grade C) on the budgeting criteria. It meets 2 of 4 criteria: open source and no ads or data sales.
ezBookkeeping Grade D
Self-hosted personal finance app for recording transactions and analyzing spending, with data kept on the user's own server. Supports two-factor authentication and OIDC login.
ezBookkeeping scores 50 out of 100 (grade D) on the budgeting criteria. It meets 2 of 4 criteria: open source and no ads or data sales.
Money Manager Ex Grade D
Open-source personal finance app for Windows, macOS, Linux and Android for tracking accounts, budgets, investments and scheduled transactions, with data stored in a local database.
Money Manager Ex scores 40 out of 100 (grade D) on the budgeting criteria. It meets 1 of 4 criteria: open source.
HomeBank Grade F
Open-source personal finance program for Windows and Linux for tracking accounts, budgets and spending, with charts, reports and bank file import.
HomeBank scores 30 out of 100 (grade F) on the budgeting criteria. It meets 1 of 4 criteria: open source.