Why GoCardless changes everything
GoCardless Bank Account Data was the backbone of automatic bank synchronization for thousands of European users of self-hosted budget managers. Since July 2025, the sign-up page simply reads: "New signups for Bank Account Data are currently disabled." Existing accounts continue to work, but any new installation of Firefly III or Actual Budget can no longer rely on GoCardless to retrieve transactions automatically.
This change forces a decision on two levels: choose a bank sync alternative compatible with your region, and make sure the chosen application supports it. Firefly III and Actual Budget are not in the same position on this point — and that is not their only structural difference.
Two budget philosophies, not two variants of the same tool
The most common confusion between these two applications comes from the fact that they do "the same thing" on the surface: record transactions, track balances, produce reports. In reality, they model the relationship with money in opposite ways.
Firefly III is built on double-entry accounting: every transaction moves money from a source account to a destination account. This model is the one used by professional accounting software — every cent has a traceable origin and destination. It targets profiles who want a precise and auditable view of their flows, with fine granularity on categories and budgets.
Actual Budget is built on the envelope method (zero-sum budgeting, popularized by YNAB): every euro received is immediately assigned to an envelope before being spent. The goal is not to understand what happened, but to decide in advance where every euro goes. This model suits profiles who want to change their spending habits, not just observe them.
What this model choice means in practice
- Firefly III: ideal for managing multiple accounts, credit cards, investment assets, and multiple currencies in a single dashboard
- Actual Budget: ideal for proactive budgeting, reducing impulse spending, and staying within envelopes month after month
- Firefly III supports advanced automation rules and CSV imports from any bank via its Data Importer
- Actual Budget has an envelope sync tool that proposes automatic adjustments based on defined goals
- Firefly III produces financial reports close to accounting statements, useful for professional or semi-professional use
- Actual Budget produces flow and trend reports oriented toward personal decision-making, with a Sankey diagram since v26.5.0
- Firefly III requires more initial configuration (categories, rules, accounts); Actual Budget is usable in under ten minutes
Comparison table
| Criterion | Firefly III | Actual Budget |
|---|---|---|
| Data model | Double-entry accounting | Envelope method (zero-sum) |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Database | PostgreSQL / MariaDB / MySQL | SQLite (embedded) |
| Minimum RAM | 512 MB (recommended: 1 GB+) | ~80-120 MB (community) |
| Docker containers | 3 (app + db + importer) | 1 (all-in-one) |
| GoCardless | Supported (existing accounts only) | Supported (existing accounts only) |
| SimpleFin (US/CA) | Yes (Data Importer) | Yes, stable (v24.10.0+) |
| Enable Banking (EU) | Yes (Data Importer, active bugs) | Yes, experimental (v26.6.0) |
| Multi-currency | Yes, native | Not native |
| Mobile interface | Responsive (web) | Native iOS/Android apps |
| ServOrbit catalog | Installation guide | VPS template available |
Technical requirements compared
The architectural differences between the two applications translate directly into hosting requirements — not a minor detail when choosing a VPS plan.
Firefly III deploys three containers: the application itself (PHP 8.5+, with about fifteen extensions), a relational database (PostgreSQL 12+, MariaDB 10.6+, or MySQL 8.0+), and the Data Importer, which handles CSV imports and connections to banking services. The official documentation recommends a minimum of 512 MB RAM, but 1 GB is a reasonable floor in production to absorb peaks during imports. PHP 8.5 minimum has been required since v6.5.0 (February 2025).
Actual Budget deploys a single Alpine container, with no separate database: all data is stored in a SQLite file embedded in the Docker volume. Memory consumption at rest is around 80 to 120 MB according to community reports — the official docs do not publish a figure. The actualbudget/actual-server image is available on Docker Hub and GHCR (ghcr.io/actualbudget/actual). Node.js 22+ is required for builds from source.
Bank sync after GoCardless: SimpleFin and Enable Banking
Both applications have the same alternatives, but with different maturity levels depending on the platform.
SimpleFin Bridge covers the United States and Canada. The service is paid: approximately $1.50/month or $15/year, for up to 25 institutions. Synchronization is not real-time — it is triggered manually or via a cron job. Available history is limited to 90 days. Actual Budget has supported SimpleFin in a stable way since v24.10.0; Firefly III supports it via the SIMPLEFIN_TOKEN environment variable in the Data Importer.
Enable Banking covers more than 2,700 banks in 30 European countries (Revolut, N26, Monzo, ING, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas…). Personal access is free. In Actual Budget, the integration is marked experimental since v26.6.0 (June 2026) with an explicit warning in the documentation: it may be removed. In Firefly III, Enable Banking is supported via the Data Importer, with known active bugs in 2026 (issues #12151 and #11925 on GitHub).
For users outside North America and the European coverage of Enable Banking, manual CSV import remains the only reliable option in both applications.
Check coverage before choosing
Before installing either application, verify whether your bank is covered by Enable Banking (list at enablebanking.com) or SimpleFin (beta-bridge.simplefin.org). A well-chosen application with manual sync is better than an unstable automatic sync.
Licenses: what AGPL-3.0 and MIT change in practice
Firefly III is distributed under the AGPL-3.0 (GNU Affero General Public License). This license requires that any service derived from Firefly III that is accessible over a network also be distributed under AGPL-3.0 with its source code. For personal use on a private VPS, this has no practical consequence — you have nothing to redistribute. However, if you intend to offer Firefly III as a service to other users or clients, this constraint becomes decisive.
Actual Budget is distributed under the MIT license, the most permissive in the open source ecosystem. No code redistribution obligations, whether you use it for yourself, your family, or in a professional context. This is one reason Actual Budget is available as a VPS template in the ServOrbit catalog: the MIT license creates no distribution obligations for the platform that hosts it as a template.
How to choose: the right tool for your profile
The question is not "which one is better" but "which one matches your way of thinking about money."
Choose Firefly III if…
- You want to audit your finances with accounting precision: every cent has a source and a destination
- You manage multiple accounts, currencies, or entities (checking, savings, investments, business account)
- You import transactions from many different sources and want to automate categorization rules
- You need reports close to balance sheets: net worth, asset evolution, flow by category over multiple years
- You are comfortable with Docker Compose and accept configuring a multi-container environment
- Your bank exports CSV and you do not need automatic synchronization
Choose Actual Budget if…
- You want to change your spending habits, not just observe them after the fact
- The envelope method resonates with you: assign every euro to a category before spending it
- You are coming from YNAB and are looking for an open source alternative with the same logic
- Your server is modest: a single lightweight container, no external database to manage
- You want to be up and running in under an hour: minimal deployment, intuitive interface
- You use SimpleFin (US/Canada) and want a stable integration without advanced configuration
Migrating from an existing application
If you already use Firefly III and want to evaluate Actual Budget (or vice versa), both applications offer exports, but migration is not straightforward — the data models are incompatible by design.
Firefly III exports to CSV or via its REST API. Actual Budget imports CSV OFX/QIF or its own format. A full migration requires manual re-entry of categories and budgets, or a custom transformation script. In most cases, it is simpler to start a new Actual Budget instance with partial history (last 90 days from SimpleFin or Enable Banking) and archive the old Firefly III instance in read-only mode rather than attempting a full import.
If you are migrating from YNAB to Actual Budget, the path is more direct: Actual Budget has a native YNAB import tool that preserves categories, envelopes, and transaction history. This is one of the use cases for which Actual Budget was explicitly designed.
Deploying Actual Budget on a ServOrbit VPS
Actual Budget is available as a VPS template in the ServOrbit catalog. A single container, a persistent volume, minimal configuration. The complete guide is available in the dedicated article on installing Actual Budget on VPS — this comparison does not duplicate those steps. For Firefly III, the VPS installation guide covers the complete Docker Compose configuration, environment variables, and Nginx setup with TLS.
For backups on both applications, the Restic article details how to automate encrypted backups of Docker volumes to remote storage.
