Firefly III

Firefly III is a self-hosted personal finance manager built around double-entry bookkeeping. Every transaction touches two accounts: a source and a destination. You cannot record a purchase without saying where the money came from, and you cannot log income without saying where it went. The result is a complete ledger with no money disappearing into untracked gaps.

Running it on your own server means no subscription and no third party holding your financial history by default. The core app makes no external calls. The rules engine handles most categorisation automatically after initial setup, and the reporting covers spending trends, budget adherence, and net worth across accounts, currencies, and time.

The feature set covers recurring transactions, bill tracking, budgets, savings goals (“piggy banks”), multi-currency accounts, CSV import, and a full REST API that connects well with n8n or Home Assistant.

This is not a beginner tool. It expects you to think in accounting terms, and if you have never encountered debits and credits before, the first few hours feel disorienting. Bank sync is not automatic out of the box. The Data Importer handles local file uploads (CSV and CAMT formats) as well as connections to third-party providers like Nordigen or GoCardless, but getting it wired up takes more effort than most budgeting apps ask for.

Firefly III supports multiple users, but each person runs their own separate financial administration. It is not built for collaborative budgeting where two people share the same transactions and budgets. Couples who want to plan together usually find it awkward for that purpose.

If you pay YNAB $15 a month and mainly want to track where money went rather than do envelope budgeting, this is the obvious place to start. If you want faster imports and a simpler UI and do not need multi-currency, compare Actual Budget first.

Firefly III: Pros & Cons