Alternatives / PocketGuard
Looking for an open source PocketGuard alternative? We compared 8 open source budgeting and personal finance apps by license, bank sync, and maintenance. Actual and Firefly III are the best-known budgeting tools, while Maybe and Financial Freedom are archived.
Written by Maxime DERAME
Last updated:
| Alternative | Best for | License |
|---|---|---|
| Maybe | Net worth tracker (archived) | AGPL-3.0 |
| Actual | Local-first envelope budgeting | MIT |
| Firefly III | Double-entry finance manager | AGPL-3.0 |
| Sure | Assets, debts, budgets, and AI queries | AGPL-3.0 |
| Financial Freedom | Budgeting via CSV import (archived) | GPL-3.0 |
| Monetr | Paycheck-based budgeting (source available) | FSL-1.1-MIT |
| YAFFA | Expenses, budgets, and investments | MIT |
| Suprascribe | Subscription tracker (narrow) | AGPL-3.0 |
We looked for open-source tools that track spending and budgets like PocketGuard. We verified each project's license, recent activity, stars, and self-hosting in its repository, and flag archived projects. See our methodology for the full criteria.
Actual is a local-first envelope budgeting app with multi-device sync and optional end-to-end encryption, importing from YNAB. Firefly III is a self-hosted manager with double-entry bookkeeping, a rule engine, reporting, and a REST API.
Sure is a self-hostable platform for assets, debts, budgets, and net worth with AI-powered queries. Monetr is a paycheck-based budgeting tool with forecasting, and YAFFA covers expenses, budgets, and investments.
Maybe and Financial Freedom are archived on GitHub, so they receive no updates. Actual's bank sync covers only US, EU, and UK users and you run the sync server yourself. Monetr uses FSL-1.1-MIT, which is source available.
Suprascribe is a narrow tool that scans email for recurring charges, with automatic discovery behind a one-time five euro Pro purchase.
Actual, YAFFA are MIT. Firefly III, Sure, Maybe, and Suprascribe are AGPL-3.0. Financial Freedom is GPL-3.0. Monetr is FSL-1.1-MIT.
Actual, Firefly III, Sure, Monetr, YAFFA, and Suprascribe had commits within weeks of this update.
PocketGuard is a proprietary app that links to your bank accounts through aggregators and shows what you can safely spend. Open-source budgeting apps keep your finances on your own server, but automatic bank sync is limited or manual.
Maybe was a personal finance and net worth app that consolidated accounts, investments, loans, and assets with goal tracking and projections. The AGPL-3.0 repository is archived and no longer maintained, and its final release marks the end of the project. Sure is a community fork that continues the code.
Pricing: Free and open source; no longer maintained.
Actual is a local-first personal finance app with envelope budgeting, bank sync, imports from multiple formats, split transactions, reports, undo and redo, an API, and YNAB importers. It supports multi-device sync with optional end-to-end encryption and can be self-hosted.
Pricing: Free and open source; bank sync depends on third-party providers.
Firefly III is a self-hosted personal finances manager using double-entry bookkeeping, with multi-currency support, a rule engine for automation, a data import tool, detailed reports, and a JSON REST API.
Pricing: Free and open source.
Sure is a community fork of the abandoned Maybe Finance project. It tracks accounts, debts, and net worth, with transaction categorization, budgets, smart rules, and AI-powered queries, and can be self-hosted.
Pricing: Free and open source; a hosted service may be offered.
Financial Freedom is a self-hosted personal finance app from Server Side Up with Docker deployment, CSV bank imports, and a privacy focus, with automated bank synchronization planned. It runs anywhere Docker runs.
Pricing: Free and open source.
Personal finance application for tracking spending, categorizing expenses, planning recurring bills, forecasting balances, and allocating money around upcoming costs and savings goals. It is closer to YNAB than a group expense splitter. Current releases use FSL-1.1-MIT, a Fair Source license rather than standard open source; some banking features depend on external providers such as Plaid.
Pricing: Self-hostable source-available project; banking integrations may rely on external providers.
YAFFA is a personal finance web application focused on long-term financial planning, with expense tracking, budgets, investment monitoring, transaction categorization, analytics, forecasting, and automated receipt processing.
Pricing: Free and open source.
Suprascribe is an AGPL-3.0 open-source tool that scans your email (Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, or any IMAP provider) to find recurring charges, with spending overviews and two-click unsubscribe. Pro features, automatic discovery and advanced management, cost a one-time €5. It requires access to your inbox and covers only subscriptions, and it is a very small project.
Pricing: Free to self-host; Pro features cost a one-time €5.
| Alternative | Type | License | Self-hosted | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maybe | Net worth tracker | AGPL-3.0 (archived) | Yes | Not recommended |
| Actual | Budgeting | MIT | Yes | Closest replacement |
| Firefly III | Finance manager | AGPL-3.0 | Yes | Detailed tracking |
| Sure | Finance platform | AGPL-3.0 | Yes | Net worth |
| Financial Freedom | Budgeting | GPL-3.0 (archived) | Yes | Not recommended |
| Monetr | Budgeting | FSL-1.1-MIT | Yes | Bill planning |
| YAFFA | Finance manager | MIT | Yes | Mixed tracking |
| Suprascribe | Subscription tracker | AGPL-3.0 | Yes | Recurring charges |
Want envelope budgeting you control
Actual works offline, imports from YNAB, and has optional end-to-end encryption.
Want detailed bookkeeping and rules
Firefly III has a strong rule engine, detailed reports, and a REST API.
Want net worth tracking
Sure tracks assets, debts, and budgets with AI queries.