head to head · open source
Actual vs YAFFA
Actual has 28,976 GitHub stars, 2,991 forks, 252 open issues and last shipped yesterday. YAFFA has 109 stars, 10 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Actual leads on adoption by 26,483% (28,976 vs 109 stars). Actual is written in TypeScript under MIT; YAFFA is written in PHP under MIT. Actual has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, YAFFA 9%. Actual was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | YAFFA | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 109 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 10 |
| 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 YAFFA if
- You want the YAFFA feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and YAFFA 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 YAFFA
YAFFA (Yet Another Free Financial Application) is a free, MIT licensed, self hosted personal finance web application written in PHP on the Laravel framework, built for people who want long term financial planning without uploading their financial data to the cloud or sharing it with third parties.
read the full YAFFA overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Actual or YAFFA more popular?
Actual has 28,976 GitHub stars and YAFFA has 109. Actual has the larger community by that measure.
Are Actual and YAFFA free?
Both are open source. Actual is licensed under MIT and YAFFA under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Actual and YAFFA?
Actual is written in TypeScript and YAFFA in PHP. 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 YAFFA?
Choose Actual if you want the larger community (28,976 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose YAFFA if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.