Actual is a local-first personal finance manager for Mac that keeps every dollar figure, account balance, and budget category stored entirely on your own device — no cloud account required, no subscription, no data harvesting.
What is Actual?
Actual is an open-source budgeting application built around the envelope-budgeting method, where every pound or dollar of income gets assigned a job before it gets spent. Unlike Mint, YNAB, or Copilot, which pipe your financial data through third-party servers, Actual treats your ledger as yours alone: the database lives on disk, syncs peer-to-peer if you want it to, and never touches a corporate data centre unless you explicitly host a sync server yourself.
The project started as a paid app, went open-source, and is now maintained by an active community. That history shows in the polish — the interface feels considered, not cobbled together.
What does Actual do best?
Actual earns its keep through a combination of a genuinely fast, responsive UI and an uncompromising commitment to local data ownership. Budget editing is instant — there's no round-trip to a remote API every time you reassign a category. Transactions import via OFX/QIF, manual entry, or bank-sync rules you define yourself, and the reconciliation workflow is clean enough that I actually look forward to running it at the end of the month.
- Envelope budgeting: allocate income to categories before you spend; rollover surpluses automatically.
- Flexible reports: net worth curves, spending breakdowns by payee or category, and cash-flow charts — all rendered locally in milliseconds.
- Split transactions: one grocery run, three categories — handled without friction.
- Rules engine: auto-categorise recurring payees so imported transactions arrive already sorted.
- Optional sync: self-host the Actual Server container and get end-to-end encrypted sync across Mac, iOS, and the web — still no third-party middleman.
Is Actual free?
Yes — Actual is completely free to download and use. The core desktop app is open-source and carries no licence fee. If you want multi-device sync, you run (or rent) your own Actual Server instance, which is equally free and open-source; the only cost is whatever hosting you choose (a $5/month VPS handles it comfortably, or a Fly.io free tier works for personal use).
This stands in sharp contrast to YNAB, which charges a meaningful annual subscription, or Copilot, which is Mac/iOS only and subscription-gated. Actual's model is: pay nothing, own everything.
Who should use Actual?
Actual is the right tool for Mac users who want serious budgeting power and refuse to hand financial data to a SaaS vendor. If you've been burned by a cloud-budget service sunsetting your account, upping prices, or quietly selling aggregate spending data — Actual is the antidote.
It rewards users who enjoy the zero-based or envelope approach: every month starts with income distributed across categories, and the discipline of keeping those envelopes funded is where the behavioural change happens. If you prefer a lighter touch — just tagging transactions after the fact — you might find it more structured than you need; something like MoneyMoney or iFinance 5 may fit better.
Developers and self-hosters will feel especially at home: the codebase is approachable, the community ships improvements quickly, and running your own sync server is well-documented.
How does Actual compare to YNAB?
YNAB and Actual share the same core philosophy — give every dollar a job — but diverge sharply on business model and architecture. YNAB is a polished, subscription-funded SaaS with deep bank-sync integrations via Plaid; Actual is self-hosted, free, and keeps your data off the internet by default.
In day-to-day use, Actual's reports feel snappier because they query a local SQLite file rather than a remote API. YNAB's bank-sync coverage is wider out of the box; Actual's is growing via community-built importers. If you're already on YNAB and happy, there's no urgent reason to switch — but if the subscription or the data-privacy angle bothers you, Actual is now a credible peer, not a rough alternative.
What are the best Actual alternatives?
The honest shortlist depends on your priorities:
- YNAB — best-in-class envelope budgeting with broad bank-sync, but subscription-only and cloud-first.
- Copilot — beautiful Mac/iOS native design, AI-assisted categorisation, subscription required.
- MoneyMoney — Mac-native, German banking focus, one-time purchase, local storage.
- Ledger / hledger — plain-text accounting for command-line devotees; maximally private, minimal UI.
- Firefly III — self-hosted web app with a similar ethos to Actual but more complex to set up.
For the combination of free cost, envelope methodology, and true local ownership, nothing on this list beats Actual today.
