Most people still assume expense tracking means paying another monthly SaaS bill forever. That is getting less true every year.
Today there are open-source options across the whole stack: personal budgeting, expense tracking, accounting, billing, group expense sharing, and even full ERP.
That does not mean every tool is a perfect 1:1 replacement. Some are personal finance apps. Some are double-entry accounting tools. Some are business platforms. Some are much heavier than a simple consumer app.
Tool list:
- maybe: https://github.com/maybe-finance/maybe
- ERPNext: https://github.com/frappe/erpnext
- Actual: https://github.com/actualbudget/actual
- Firefly III: https://github.com/firefly-iii/firefly-iii
- Frappe: https://github.com/frappe/frappe
- Beancount: https://github.com/beancount/beancount
- Kill Bill: https://github.com/killbill/killbill
- GnuCash: https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash
- Spliit: https://github.com/spliit-app/spliit
- Money Manager Ex: https://github.com/moneymanagerex/moneymanagerex
Bottom line: the paid-SaaS monopoly is weaker than people think. Not every open-source tool is a clean 1:1 swap, but the days of pay forever or do without are fading fast.