Actual vs Ghostfolio
Actual and Ghostfolio are both personal finance software. Actual is open source under MIT, with 30k GitHub stars. Ghostfolio is open source under AGPL-3.0, with 9.6k GitHub stars.
Which to pick
- Pick Actual when
- You want zero-based budgeting without a subscription and are willing to run a small sync server for multiple devices.
- Pick Ghostfolio when
- You invest across several brokers and want one private portfolio view, self-hosted or as a paid hosted service.
Side by side
A local-first envelope budgeting app, similar to YNAB, with an optional self-hosted sync server, bank import and rules.
A wealth management app that tracks stocks, ETFs and crypto holdings across accounts and shows performance, allocation and dividends.
Automatic bank sync depends on third-party providers (GoCardless, SimpleFIN) with limited regional coverage.
Market data comes from external providers whose limits can affect accuracy, and some features are reserved for the paid plan.
Production-ready (both)
Self-hosted server and desktop app
Self-hosted server and cloud service
TypeScript, React, Node.js and SQLite
TypeScript, Angular, NestJS, Prisma, PostgreSQL and Redis
Open source, MIT (permissive)
Open source, AGPL-3.0 (network copyleft)
You can build it into a product you sell, as long as you keep its copyright notice.
Use inside your business is unrestricted. If you change it and let customers use it over the internet, you must publish your changes.
30k GitHub stars
9.6k GitHub stars
Established: started 4 years ago, latest release v26.11.0.
Established: started 5 years ago, latest release 3.97.0.
Other comparisons
More personal finance and budgeting apps
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from each project's README and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.