head to head · open source
Actual vs Sure.am
Actual has 28,976 GitHub stars, 2,991 forks, 252 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Sure.am has 9,966 stars, 494 forks, 501 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Actual leads on adoption by 191% (28,976 vs 9,966 stars). Actual is written in TypeScript under MIT; Sure.am is written in Ruby under AGPL-3.0. Actual has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Sure.am 5%. Sure.am 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 | Sure.am | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 10.0K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 494 |
| 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 Sure.am if
- You want the Sure.am feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and Sure.am 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 Sure.am
Sure.am is a community maintained personal finance application that exists as a fork of the archived Maybe Finance project. It is written in Ruby, distributed under the AGPL 3.0 license, and lives in the open source personal finance management ecosystem as a self hosted application.
read the full Sure.am overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Actual or Sure.am more popular?
Actual has 28,976 GitHub stars and Sure.am has 9,966. Actual has the larger community by that measure.
Are Actual and Sure.am free?
Both are open source. Actual is licensed under MIT and Sure.am under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Actual and Sure.am?
Actual is written in TypeScript and Sure.am in Ruby. 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 Sure.am?
Choose Actual if you want the larger community (28,976 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Sure.am if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.