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Actual vs Financial Freedom

Learn how Actual and Financial Freedom differ in their key features, development activity, technology stack and community adoption, so you can decide which of these budgeting apps is best for you.

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Actual

Privacy-focused personal finance app using envelope budgeting, multi-device sync, optional end-to-end encryption, and bank sync for US, EU, and UK users.
30,076stars+696(+2.4%)

Last 30 days

Screenshot of Actual

Financial Freedom

Self-hosted alternative to Mint and YNAB for budgeting and building wealth while maintaining full control of your financial data.
2,951stars+10(+0.3%)

Last 30 days

This repository was archived by the owner and is no longer maintained.

Screenshot of Financial Freedom

Detailed Comparison

Actual appears to have several advantages over Financial Freedom, particularly in popularity, growth, activity and licensing. Consider your specific needs regarding popularity, growth, activity, technology, maturity, licensing and features when making your decision.

Actual wins
Community & Popularity

Actual significantly outpaces Financial Freedom in community adoption with 30,076 stars compared to 2,951 stars on GitHub. This 10.2x difference suggests Actual has a much larger and more active community. In terms of developer contributions, Actual has 3,258 forks, indicating strong developer engagement.

Actual wins
Growth Momentum

Actual is growing faster, adding 696 stars in the last 30 days (+2.4%) against adding 10 stars for Financial Freedom (+0.3%). Actual is both larger and pulling further ahead.

Actual wins
Development Activity

Actual shows more recent development activity with its last commit 14 hours ago, while Financial Freedom was last updated 1 month ago. This suggests Actual is being more actively maintained.

Comparable
Technology Stack

Both tools share common technology foundations, being built with JavaScript, Typescript. However, they differ in their additional technology choices: Actual uses JSX, SCSS while Financial Freedom leverages CSS, PHP, Vue, Laravel.

Financial Freedom wins
Project Maturity

Financial Freedom has been in development longer, starting 6 years ago, compared to Actual which began 5 years ago. This 1.1-year head start suggests Financial Freedom may have more mature features and established processes.

Actual wins
Licensing

Actual uses the MIT license, which is more permissive than Financial Freedom's GPL-3.0 license, potentially offering greater flexibility for commercial use and integration.

Comparable
Use Cases & Features

Both tools serve similar use cases in Budgeting Apps.

Comparable
Hosting & Deployment

Both Actual and Financial Freedom offer self-hosting capabilities, giving you full control over your data and infrastructure.