Linux budget apps compared: ledgers, envelopes or a running total
Linux has more good free finance software than its reputation suggests. Almost all of it falls into one of three shapes. Pick the shape first, then compare features.
Full ledgers
GnuCash, KMyMoney and Skrooge are double entry accounting programs. Every account has a balance, every transaction has two sides, and the reports are as detailed as you are willing to make them. They suit people who want to reconcile statements and see net worth over years. The cost is the time it takes to enter everything.
Budget and envelope apps
HomeBank and Money Manager Ex run natively on Linux and focus on categories and monthly budgets. Actual Budget follows the envelope method made popular by YNAB, and you can run it as a desktop app or host it yourself. Firefly III is a self hosted web app with budgets, rules and charts. All of them ask you to decide in advance what each dollar is for.
A running total of what you kept
Keep the Diff does one smaller job. When you skip a purchase or spend less than you planned, you log what you were ready to spend and what you actually spent, and the difference goes on a running total. There is no budget to keep and no accounts to reconcile.
Which to pick
- You want every account in one place: GnuCash or KMyMoney.
- You want a monthly budget by category: HomeBank, Money Manager Ex or Actual Budget.
- You want to see what your decisions are worth: Keep the Diff, alone or beside any of the others.
- A Home Screen widget for your no spend days
- A no spend challenge with a partner, without the scoreboard
- An app for logging the money you didn't spend
- Budget apps that don't connect to your bank
- Cash stuffing, and the one thing it cannot record
- Expense tracker vs savings tracker: which one you actually want
- Expense trackers that don't link your bank, and why manual wins
- Free YNAB alternatives, including Actual Budget
- How long does it take to save $1,000?
- How much do you actually save by not buying?
- How to celebrate a savings milestone without spending it
- How to save money without a budget
- How to stop impulse buying by recording what you didn't buy
- Looking for a Copilot Money alternative
- Looking for a Credit Karma budgeting alternative
- Looking for a Goodbudget alternative
- Looking for a Monarch Money alternative
- Looking for a PocketGuard alternative
- Looking for a Quicken Simplifi alternative
- Looking for a Rocket Money alternative
- Looking for a YNAB alternative
- Looking for an EveryDollar alternative
- Mint alternatives if you never wanted your bank connected
- Mint shut down: where that crowd actually went
- No buy tracker apps compared: days, items or money
- No buy year, no spend month, low buy: what the terms mean
- No spend challenge apps compared: what to actually look for
- No spend challenge tips, and the ones you can skip
- No spend January, planned in advance
- Reverse budgeting: saving without deciding what you're allowed to spend
- The 24 hour rule: what waiting one day actually does
- The no spend challenge, without the streak that ruins it
- What canceling a subscription actually saves
- What does impulse buying actually cost you in a year?
- What happens after the no spend month ends
- What is a no spend challenge?
- What to do when you buy it anyway