head to head · open source
Actual vs Financial Freedom
Actual has 28,976 GitHub stars, 2,991 forks, 252 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Financial Freedom has 2,922 stars, 217 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Actual leads on adoption by 892% (28,976 vs 2,922 stars). Actual is written in TypeScript under MIT; Financial Freedom is written in Vue under GPL-3.0. Actual has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Financial Freedom 7%. Actual was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (budgeting, finance), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Actual | Financial Freedom | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 2.9K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Vue |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-05-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 217 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Actual if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Financial Freedom if
- You want the Financial Freedom feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Vue
- You evaluated both and Financial Freedom fits your workflow better
About Actual
Actual is a local first personal finance application built for envelope budgeting, part of the open source personal finance ecosystem. It runs entirely on the user’s device by default, ensuring data remains under full local control, while optionally syncing changes across devices via a self managed or hosted backend.
read the full Actual overview →
About Financial Freedom
Financial Freedom is an open source, self hosted personal finance and budgeting application for people who want to manage their money and build wealth without handing their financial data to a third party.
read the full Financial Freedom overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Actual or Financial Freedom more popular?
Actual has 28,976 GitHub stars and Financial Freedom has 2,922. Actual has the larger community by that measure.
Are Actual and Financial Freedom free?
Both are open source. Actual is licensed under MIT and Financial Freedom under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Actual and Financial Freedom?
Actual is written in TypeScript and Financial Freedom in Vue. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Actual or Financial Freedom?
Choose Actual if you want the larger community (28,976 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Financial Freedom if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.