One Swiss Knife in the exact shape of your life.

An Actual Budget alternative with nothing to host.

Actual Budget is the closest thing to us in spirit — local-first, open-source, envelope-style, no ads. The difference is Actual asks you to run a sync server (Docker, a VPS, a Raspberry Pi). The Household Purse is a single HTML file. Nothing to host, nothing to update, nothing to break.

If you're comparing Actual and the Household Purse, you're already the sort of person who believes household finance shouldn't live on someone else's server. This page is only about the last mile: Actual asks you to be the server; we ask you to double-click an HTML file.

What you're comparing
Actual Budget
The Household Purse
Price
Free (open source) or ~$4/mo hosted
$49 once
Where your data lives
Your device — synced via a server you run or Actual hosts
In an HTML file on your computer
What you have to run
A sync server (Docker, VPS, Pi) or a hosted plan
Nothing. It's a file.
Multi-device sync
Yes (via the sync server)
Sync the file through Dropbox/iCloud/USB — no server required
Bank connection
Optional (via GoCardless / SimpleFIN)
None
Open source
Yes (MIT)
No — but the HTML is fully inspectable and yours forever
Requires an account
Only for the hosted plan
No, either way
Setup time
10 minutes to hours (depending on hosting)
One double-click
See The Household Purse Or browse the catalog

Where we agree with Actual

On the important stuff, we're neighbours: envelope method, local-first, no ads, no telemetry, budget yours to keep. If Actual works for you and you're happy running a sync server, keep using Actual — it's a genuinely good project and we'd rather that than any cloud budget any day.

Where we differ

Actual is software you run. The Household Purse is a file you open. Software has updates, ports, containers, dependencies; files have none of that. When someone in a household says "the budget is broken", we'd rather that mean "we spent too much this month" than "the Docker container failed to restart".

The trade you're making

Choosing the Household Purse over Actual costs you extensibility (Actual has plugins and a community) and gains you simplicity (there is nothing that can go wrong that isn't visible in the file). If you value the community and you're comfortable with hosting, Actual is the better fit. If your household would rather a budget that behaves like a document, we are.

The refund

Thirty days, one e-mail, money back. The file stays with you either way.

Common questions

Can I move from Actual Budget to the Household Purse?

Yes — export your Actual data as CSV and paste it into the Purse's transactions tab. Category mapping is manual, one-time, and takes a few minutes.

Why pay $49 when Actual is free?

You're not paying for the budgeting; you're paying for the absence of hosting. Actual's true cost is the time you spend maintaining the sync server (or the $4/mo for their hosted plan, which adds up to the Household Purse price in about a year). If your time is worth nothing, Actual wins on price. If it isn't, this is honestly cheaper.

Does the Household Purse support GoCardless / SimpleFIN like Actual can?

No. No bank connection of any kind, by design.

Is it open source?

No. The HTML is fully inspectable — you can open it in a text editor and read every line — and it's yours to keep forever, but we don't publish the source under an OSS licence. If open-source is a hard requirement, Actual is the right choice.

Multiple devices?

Put the file in a folder your devices already sync (Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive, Syncthing). No sync server, no ports, no maintenance.