Simple Balance

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Simple Balance vs. Actual Budget

Actual Budget and Simple Balance are both open source budget apps that are free to run on a server you look after, and they differ most in whether anybody hosts them for you. Actual Budget has had no hosted service since 2024: you set up a server, pay a company such as PikaPods about $1.50 a month to run one, or keep your budget in a single browser with no sync. Simple Balance is also a hosted app, free for three accounts in use at once, with ads, or $3 a month or $30 a year for Premium. Actual Budget uses envelope budgeting and can sync with your bank through a service such as SimpleFIN. Simple Balance has no bank connection today, so you import a CSV file you download from your bank.

Checked . Prices and features change. Every fact about the other app links to the page it came from, and this page is checked again every three months.

Feature comparison.

FeatureSimple BalanceActual Budget
Hosted for you, and what it costsFree, or $3 a month or $30 a year for PremiumNot by Actual Budget, whose hosted service shut down in 2024. PikaPods hosts it for about $1.50 a month[7][13]
A free plan, hosted for youYes, with every feature, for three accounts in use at once and with adsNo. A free web app keeps your budget in that one browser, with no sync, auto-save or backups[6]
Run your own copyYes, free, on a server you look after, with no plan, no account limit and no adsYes, free. A server you set up is the standard way to use Actual Budget[1][6]
How your transactions get inYou download a CSV file from your bank and import it, or type entries in. There’s no bank connection today.Optional bank sync on a server you run, with your own keys, through SimpleFIN at $15 a year in North America and other services elsewhere. Or you import a file.[2][10]
Files it importsCSVCSV, QIF, OFX, QFX and CAMT[3]
How budgets workA budget for each category or group, which can carry what’s left into the next monthEnvelope budgeting, where you budget only money you already have[4]
Sharing with a partnerNo. Each person who signs up has their own books.Several people on one server, once you set up an OpenID sign-in provider[8]
Open sourceYes, under the AGPL-3.0 licenseYes, under the MIT license[5]
AI assistantsAn MCP server an assistant can sign in to, to read, to propose entries for you to approve, or to make changes as you allowNo official one. Its docs list MCP servers other people built[9]
Where you use itA web browser, on a computer or a phone. There’s no app-store app.The web from your own server, desktop apps for Windows, Mac and Linux, and an iPhone app in beta. No Android app[6][7]

When Actual Budget is the better choice.

  • You want bank sync and don’t mind setting it up. Actual Budget’s optional sync runs on your own server through a service such as SimpleFIN, and Simple Balance has no bank connection today.[2]
  • You want envelope budgeting, giving out only money you already have.[4]
  • Your bank offers OFX, QFX, QIF or CAMT files and not CSV.[3]
  • You want a desktop app, on Windows, Mac or Linux.[6]
  • You want the MIT license, which asks less of anybody who changes the code and shares it than the AGPL-3.0 license does.[5]

When Simple Balance is the better choice.

  • You don’t want to run a server or pay for one. Simple Balance’s cloud app has a free plan and nothing to install, and Actual Budget has had no hosted service of its own since 2024.[7]
  • You keep money in more than one currency. Each account keeps its own, and nothing is converted at an exchange rate.
  • You want an AI assistant to work in your books through an MCP server that comes with the app. Actual Budget’s docs point to ones other people built.[9]
  • You want to open any total and see the transactions behind it, with a history where a correction never erases what it corrected.

Moving from Actual Budget.

Actual Budget exports an account’s transactions from the menu on that account’s page, as a CSV file, so each account arrives in a file of its own.[11][12]

Simple Balance puts every row of a file into the one account you choose, so a file that holds more than one account needs splitting into one file per account first. Its amounts have to be plain numbers, without a currency sign, and a row that can’t be read waits on Staged for you to fix rather than counting.

Your bank’s own CSV files work as well, and they’re what the import is built for. Budgets don’t come across either way: set them up again on Budgets, and the bills that repeat on Recurring.

Importing a statement, step by step

Sources.

  1. Actual Budget on GitHub
  2. Bank sync, Actual Budget docs
  3. Importing transactions, Actual Budget docs
  4. Actual Budget
  5. Vision, Actual Budget docs
  6. Installing Actual Budget, Actual Budget docs
  7. Frequently asked questions, Actual Budget docs
  8. Multi-user support, Actual Budget docs
  9. Community projects, Actual Budget docs
  10. SimpleFIN bank sync, Actual Budget docs
  11. Accounts, Actual Budget docs
  12. Actual Budget's CSV export, in its source code
  13. PikaPods, Actual Budget docs

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