I started this desktop and SPA web app in 2018 as a personal project. When YNAB doubled the price in 2021 without adding any value [1] and angered a lot of former YNAB4 users like myself, I renewed my resolve to finish it. In the mean time, Cory Doctorow coined his now-famous term that rhymes with "ensaasification", giving us a framework for understanding what happened to YNAB and how to avoid being treated like royal taxable subjects.
[1] Full story here: https://surebeans.net/blog/2026/02/why-another-budget-app/
To that end, Surebeans has a strong focus on privacy and data sovereignty: storage is completely local in plaintext hledger files, it has numerous import and bring-your-own-cloud sync options. It's a one-time payment with a generous time-unlimited trial. License validation is completely local so it will keep working even afer I bite the dust. The app never hits any server of mine, except the browser version when you check a box to work around CORS when syncing with with GitHub/Gitlab/Gitea/Forgejo.
Sync options include GitHub/GitLab/Gitea/Forgejo APIs, generic git over https, S3, WebDAV, SFTP (desktop-only), and Dropbox.
Import in all the expected ways: CSV, QFX/OFX, YNAB4 budget, nYNAB export, YNAB API, SimpleFIN.
The novel thing about Surebeans is the desktop version can import records from your bank by scraping its website or downloaded file. So you don't need to surrender your bank credentials to a third party like Plaid or to grant them access to your financial data. As far as I know know, no other budget app does scraping right now. To do the scraping, it launches a companion CLI tool called Beanscrape which automates Chromium with Playwright. Beanscrape is free (as in beer), and you can use it for any budgeting app that imports JSON or CSV. Setting it up can be tricky so I created a detailed guide and community forum.
Five years of YNAB costs $654+tax. Surebeans is a one-time $29 while in beta, $79 after that. Single-household license, unlimited devices, perpetual updates.
