Financial Freedom: Open Source Personal Finance Management

What is 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.

What it is

Financial Freedom is an open-source alternative to Mint, YNAB, and similar personal finance services. It sits in the Productivity & Utilities / Personal Finance Management category and is built as a full-stack web application with a Vue frontend and a Laravel backend, released under the GPL-3.0 licence. It is maintained by a two-person, bootstrapped team that has committed to self-funding development rather than taking venture capital.

The concrete problem it targets is the loss of control that comes with mainstream budgeting apps. Financial Freedom is distributed as a Docker application that runs on any host supporting Docker, so the user owns both the software and the financial records it stores. The maintainers contrast this with venture-funded competitors that, in their view, can keep prices artificially low while profiting elsewhere, such as through selling metadata.

Key capabilities

Personal finance management centered on budgeting, one of the project's listed topics.
Self-hosted deployment through Docker on any device or host that supports it.
Documented deployment targets that include AWS, Digital Ocean, and a Raspberry Pi running in the user's own basement.
A Vue frontend paired with a Laravel backend, reflecting the project's vuejs and laravel topics.
Full source availability under GPL-3.0 so users can review exactly what happens with their data.
A stated focus on financial independence, tracked as the financial-independence topic.
Public progress tracking through GitHub Projects, alongside discussion on the project's Discord.

Who uses it and how

People seeking an alternative to Mint, YNAB, and Monarch Money who want their budgeting data to stay private.
Self-hosters who already run Docker workloads on AWS, Digital Ocean, or a Raspberry Pi at home.
Privacy-conscious users who want to read the source, as the GPL-3.0 licence permits, before trusting the app with financial records.
Contributors and community members who follow development through GitHub Projects, GitHub Discussions, and Discord.

Getting started

The README describes running the application on any device or host that supports Docker, with AWS, Digital Ocean, and a Raspberry Pi named as example hosts. The project is currently on hold, and the README explicitly warns against installing it until that notice is removed.

How it compares

Against paid products such as Mint, YNAB, and Monarch Money, which charges about $8 per month, Financial Freedom is GPL-3.0 licensed rather than proprietary and is self-hosted rather than cloud-only, so the user keeps ownership of their data instead of relying on a vendor. The maintainers frame this difference as the reason the project needs to exist, while acknowledging that venture-funded competitors can keep prices low by earning money elsewhere.

When to use it — and when not to

A self-hoster must be willing to run the stack on their own Docker host, with AWS, Digital Ocean, and a Raspberry Pi listed as viable targets. Anyone who needs a working budgeting tool today should look elsewhere: development is on hold, the project is mid-refactor, and the README states that installing it now produces a blank screen. The feature table in the README is empty, so the exact scope of the current release is not fully documented.

project readme (upstream, from github) — read inline

⚠️ Project On Hold - Pursuing Sustainable Self-Funding

[!CAUTION]
Do not attempt to install this project until this message is removed. It's in the middle of a major refactor and you'll just see a blank screen (we were working on the release process first before we put the project on hold). You can review/fork the code if you'd like to see where we left off.

We have many ideas for Financial Freedom, but we're facing the same headwinds that led Maybe Finance to pause their project. Their post resonated deeply with the challenges we're experiencing.

Here's the reality: To make this project successful, we need working capital to dedicate proper time to development. We're not seeking venture capital or investors. As a two-person bootstrapped team, we're committed to self-funding this project so it doesn't owe anything to anyone.

We're currently building professional products and SaaS services to generate revenue that will fund Financial Freedom's development. The market reality is challenging—competitors like Monarch Money charge $8/mo while likely profiting through other means (stock investments, selling metadata, etc.). Venture-funded companies can keep prices artificially low to squeeze out competition while making money elsewhere. This is exactly why Financial Freedom needs to exist, but it also makes sustainable bootstrapping difficult.

Bottom line:

This started as a side project that grew faster than expected
We're determined to build Financial Freedom the right way—self-funded and sustainable
We won't compromise by taking VC money or selling user data
We appreciate your patience as we stick to our values and build this project to last

Introduction

Financial Freedom is an open source alternative to Mint, YNAB, and more. With open source at its core, you have the freedom to review exactly what's happening with your data and participate in the improvement of the product.

Break free from third parties tracking every financial footstep you have. Run this application on any device or host that supports Docker -- if that's something like AWS, Digital Ocean, or even your own Raspberry Pi running in your basement.

Here's what you can do right now:

Watch our progress: Watch us in realtime with GitHub projects.
Join our Discord: We're actively discussing the product and how to make it better.
Star us on GitHub: Give us confidence that we're solving a problem that you care about.
Follow Twitter: We post frequent updates. Check our personal accounts too. (Dan & Jay)
Sponsor Us: We're a two person, bootstrapped team. Help us replace client projects with more time for open source projects.

Features

Contributing

As an open-source project, we strive for transparency and collaboration in our development process. We greatly appreciate any contributions members of our community can provide. Whether you're fixing bugs, proposing features, improving documentation, or spreading awareness - your involvement strengthens the project. Please review our contribution guidelines and code of conduct to understand how we work together respectfully.

Bug Report: If you're experiencing an issue while using these images, please create an issue.
Feature Request: Make this project better by submitting a feature request.
Documentation: Improve our documentation by submitting a documentation change.
Community Support: Help others on GitHub Discussions or Discord.
Security Report: Report critical security issues via our responsible disclosure policy.

Need help getting started? Join our Discord community and we'll help you out!

Our Sponsors

All of our software is free an open to the world. None of this can be brought to you without the financial backing of our sponsors.

Individual Supporters

About Us

We're Dan and Jay - a two person team with a passion for open source products. We created Server Side Up to help share what we learn.

Dan Pastori	Jay Rogers

Find us at:

📖 Blog - get the latest guides and free courses on all things web/mobile development.
🙋 Community - get friendly help from our community members.
🤵‍♂️ Get Professional Help - get support via video + screen-sharing from our team.
💻 GitHub - check out our other open source proj

Frequently asked questions

Is Financial Freedom free to use?

Financial Freedom is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence. There is no licence fee and no seat count — you can self-host it or, where the project offers one, pay a vendor for a managed version instead.

What does Financial Freedom do?

Open-source personal finance management tool

What is Financial Freedom written in?

Financial Freedom is primarily written in Vue. Its source is publicly available at https://github.com/serversideup/financial-freedom, and it has 2,922 GitHub stars.