Sure

Open source alternative to Monarch Money, Empower, YNAB, Mint, Copilot Money and Quicken Simplifi

10.8K stars
AGPL-3.0
Active this week
Last commit today

Last verified Nov 4, 2026

Track personal finances, investments, and budgets in a self-hosted app, with AI-assisted insights. Open source alternative to YNAB and Monarch Money.

Visit website GitHub10.8K Deploy on Hostinger

Read the full breakdownWho it is for, how it works, trade-offs and the FAQ

who it's for

Who Sure is for#

Individuals leaving YNAB or Monarch Money

Anyone paying $99-$109/year for a personal finance subscription and wanting to end that recurring cost. Sure covers the same core workflow: account linking, transaction categorization, budgeting by category, and net worth tracking. The transition requires migrating transaction history via CSV export from the old service.

Skip if:

If you rely on YNAB's specific zero-based budgeting methodology or its mobile app experience, Sure's budgeting implementation may differ in ways that require workflow adjustment.

Privacy-conscious households moving off commercial platforms

Users who do not want bank account credentials and transaction history stored on third-party servers. Self-hosting keeps all financial data within your own infrastructure, with no third party accessing your account connections.

Skip if:

If you are not comfortable managing a server or troubleshooting Docker configuration, the self-hosted path requires a minimum of technical familiarity. One-click Render deployment reduces but does not eliminate this requirement.

Developers building or extending personal finance tooling

The Ruby on Rails codebase and AGPL-3.0 license allow inspection, modification, and contribution. Developers can extend Sure with custom transaction importers, additional account types, or integrations with existing financial infrastructure.

Skip if:

If you need a production-ready app with no ongoing maintenance, a commercial service with a full-time engineering team may be more reliable than a community fork.

the problem

The problem it solves#

Personal finance tools charge annual fees for a category of software that handles your most sensitive data. YNAB costs $109/year, Monarch Money $99/year, Copilot Money $95/year. For long-term users, the cumulative cost reaches hundreds or thousands of dollars with no equity: cancel the subscription and your budgeting history disappears.

The deeper problem is data exposure. Every bank account balance, investment value, and transaction you sync goes onto a third-party server you do not audit or control. When Mint shut down in January 2024, users discovered this risk firsthand: years of financial history became inaccessible overnight, with an inadequate export window and no migration path. Any commercial service can make the same call.

how Sure solves it

How it solves it#

Account aggregation from 10,000+ institutions

Connects to over 10,000 financial institutions to sync bank accounts, credit cards, investments, and crypto balances automatically. Manual entry and CSV import are available for accounts at institutions not in the directory.

Transaction management with categories, tags, and rules

Every transaction can be categorized, tagged by merchant, linked to transfers, and annotated. Automation rules apply categories and tags based on patterns, reducing manual sorting for recurring expenses. CSV import handles transactions from institutions that do not support direct linking.

Budget tracking with custom allocations

Set category budgets, monitor overages, and compare spending trends across periods. Smart allocation settings let you define target percentages for each spending category, so the budget can adjust as income changes.

Net worth and asset visualization

All accounts and assets are charted in one view: bank balances, investment portfolios, crypto holdings, and liabilities. The dashboard shows cashflow, net worth history, and spending outflows side by side.

AI financial assistant

An integrated AI assistant answers natural-language questions about your finances: spending patterns, savings rate, budget variances, and historical comparisons. The feature requires an AI provider token (OpenAI or a compatible external service) for self-hosted deployments.

strengths · trade-offs

Strengths and trade-offs#

Strengths

No subscription fees for self-hostersRunning Sure on your own server costs nothing beyond the infrastructure. There is no per-seat fee, no annual subscription, and no feature tier locked behind a paywall. For a category where commercial services charge $99-$109/year indefinitely, the savings compound over time.
Active community with over 10,000 GitHub starsThe repo reached 10,797 stars and 733 forks since its July 2025 launch, with active commits through November 2026. The community actively maintains the codebase, addressing issues and shipping features.
Multiple one-click deployment optionsRender, PikaPods, and Hostim all offer one-click Sure deployments, lowering the setup burden for users without server administration experience. For users comfortable with Docker, the app self-hosts on any server with Postgres and Redis.

Trade-offs

-466 open issues reflect community fork maintenance burdenWith 466 open issues as of November 2026, the queue is substantial for a community-maintained project. Issues ranging from performance problems to feature requests compete for contributor attention. Users self-hosting should expect some rough edges and monitor GitHub for fixes relevant to their setup.
-Self-hosting requires Postgres and RedisThe app needs a PostgreSQL database and a Redis instance in addition to the web process. This is more infrastructure than a SQLite-backed tool. Render's one-click template provisions both automatically, but bare-metal or VPS installs require both services configured before the app will start.
-AGPL-3.0 restricts managed hosting for othersAGPL-3.0 permits self-hosting for personal and commercial internal use at no cost. It requires distributing source changes if you run a modified version as a network service accessible to others. Building a commercial hosted product based on Sure requires complying with AGPL's distribution terms.

versus alternatives

Sure vs alternatives#

Sure vs YNAB

YNAB is built around zero-based budgeting, where every dollar is assigned to a category before it is spent. Sure covers budgeting but takes a broader scope: net worth tracking, investment accounts, and transaction organization all sit alongside the budgeting tools.

Feature	Sure	YNAB
License	AGPL-3.0	Proprietary
Self-hosting	Yes	No
Pricing	Free (self-hosted)	$109/year
AI assistant	Yes	No
Net worth tracking	Yes	Limited

Sure is the better fit for users who want to combine budgeting with investment and net worth tracking in one place, and who want to eliminate the subscription fee. YNAB is worth considering if zero-based budgeting is your primary workflow and you want a fully managed experience with dedicated mobile apps and no server to maintain.

Sure vs Monarch Money

Monarch Money covers accounts, budgeting, net worth, and financial planning, making its feature scope the closest to Sure among commercial alternatives.

Feature	Sure	Monarch Money
License	AGPL-3.0	Proprietary
Self-hosting	Yes	No
Pricing	Free (self-hosted)	$99.99/year
AI assistant	Yes	Yes
Open source	Yes	No

The primary decision point is data ownership versus polish. Sure keeps your financial data on your own server and costs nothing for self-hosters; Monarch Money offers a more refined managed experience. Users comfortable with Docker who want their data off third-party servers will find Sure a direct replacement.

Sure vs Copilot Money

Copilot Money is a personal finance app focused on the macOS and iOS experience, with automatic account syncing and an emphasis on design.

Feature	Sure	Copilot Money
License	AGPL-3.0	Proprietary
Self-hosting	Yes	No
Pricing	Free (self-hosted)	$95/year
Platform	Web, macOS, mobile	macOS, iOS only

Sure serves users across web, macOS, and mobile with self-hosting. Copilot Money is better suited to Apple-platform users who prioritize a native app experience and are not concerned with self-hosting.

Mint

Mint shut down on January 1, 2024. Users who depended on Mint for free personal finance tracking need a replacement; Sure is a self-hosted alternative at no ongoing subscription cost for users comfortable managing their own infrastructure.

tech stack · detected from GitHub

What it's built on#

Languages: DartJavaScriptRuby
Frameworks: Rails
Databases: PostgreSQL
Cache: Redis

frequently asked

FAQ#

Is Sure the same as Maybe Finance?

Sure is a community fork of the original Maybe Finance project, which was abandoned in mid-2023 after the team could not sustain the business. The original team open-sourced the code, and the Sure community took over development under the name Sure. The core app is derived from that codebase, with ongoing improvements from community contributors. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Maybe Finance Inc.

How do I self-host Sure?

Sure is designed to self-host with Docker and requires a PostgreSQL database and a Redis instance. The official guide in the project's docs covers the full setup. One-click deployment templates for Render, PikaPods, and Hostim are also available for users who prefer managed infrastructure rather than a manual install.

What does the AGPL-3.0 license allow?

AGPL-3.0 permits you to run Sure on your own server for personal or internal commercial use at no cost, with no restrictions on the number of users. If you modify the code and offer a modified version as a network service to others, you must make your source changes available under AGPL-3.0. Self-hosting for yourself or your household is unrestricted; building a commercial hosted product based on Sure requires distributing any modifications.

Does Sure support automatic account syncing?

Yes. Sure connects to over 10,000 financial institutions for automatic account linking and transaction sync. Manual entry and CSV import are supported for accounts at institutions outside the directory, or for users who prefer not to link accounts directly.

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