Best budget apps without bank linking (2026)

You can budget perfectly well without giving any app your bank login. This guide covers the real options in 2026: a spreadsheet, two open source tools, and a handful of mobile apps that work on manual entry, including the one we make. For each: how it works, where your data lives, and who it suits.

Disclosure up front: we build Ledgerly, one of the apps below, so weigh our take accordingly. We have tried to be as fair to the others as we would want them to be to us.

Why most budget apps want your bank login

Mainstream budget apps connect to your bank through an aggregator such as Plaid or Finicity. That is what makes automatic import work, and it comes with a trade: your credentials or an OAuth grant, plus your full transaction history, pass through a third party. Many people accept that trade with open eyes. If you are reading this, you probably do not, or your bank simply is not supported, which is the quiet reality outside the US.

When Mint shut down, a lot of people also learned a second lesson: when a connected app dies, your financial history was never really yours.

The options below all share one property: no bank connection, ever. They differ in everything else.

A spreadsheet

The honest baseline. Free, endlessly flexible, and private exactly to the degree your storage is: a file on your disk is yours, a sheet in a cloud drive is a copy on someone else's computer.

Who it suits: people who like building their own system and will actually maintain it. Who it does not: anyone who has already abandoned two spreadsheets. The friction of opening a laptop to log a coffee is the reason most spreadsheet budgets die by March.

GnuCash

Free, open source, and older than most fintech companies. Double-entry accounting on your desktop (Windows, macOS, Linux), with your data in a local file. It can do far more than budgeting: invoices, investments, proper accounting.

Who it suits: people comfortable with accounting concepts who want power and permanence. Who it does not: anyone who wants to log an expense in the supermarket queue. The desktop is its home; mobile is an afterthought.

Actual Budget

Open source envelope budgeting with a local-first design: the app works offline, and syncing between devices happens through a server you can host yourself. It is the closest open source relative of the YNAB method, and it is excellent.

Who it suits: people who want envelope budgeting and either enjoy self-hosting or do not mind the setup. Who it does not: anyone for whom "run a server" is not a relaxing phrase.

Ivy Wallet and the open source mobile trackers

There is a family of open source, manual-entry mobile trackers, Ivy Wallet (Android) being the best known. Free, on-device, community-built. The honest caveat: community projects live and die by their maintainers, so check that the project is still active before you build a habit on one.

Who they suit: Android users who want free and open source above all. Who they do not: iPhone users, mostly, and anyone who wants supported software.

Cashew

A free manual-entry tracker for iOS and Android with a generous feature set and a friendly design. Data stays on the device with optional cloud sync.

Who it suits: people who want a capable free tracker and are fine with the trade-offs free software eventually makes to stay alive. Who it does not: anyone allergic to eventual monetisation questions; free apps answer them sooner or later, one way or another.

Ledgerly

Ours, so the short version. A budget and expense tracker for iOS and Android that you fill in yourself. No account, no bank connection, and nothing leaves the phone unless you switch on backup, which goes to your own Google Drive or iCloud, or a local file. The app's one headline number is what is safe to spend today, computed in plain sight. Five languages, 165 currencies.

The honest downsides: manual entry is work, and that work is the design. It is phone-only. And it will never import your bank statement, which for some people is simply the wrong trade. If a trial or subscription ends, reading, searching, exporting to CSV and backup keep working; paying is what adds new transactions.

Who it suits: people who want budgeting on their phone, want it private by architecture rather than by policy, and have made peace with typing their expenses. Who it does not: high-volume card users who need import. Try why manual entry works for the reasoning.

The comparison

Option	Platform	Cost shape	Data lives	Best for
Spreadsheet	Anywhere	Free	Wherever you put it	System builders
GnuCash	Desktop	Free, open source	Local file	Accounting-minded users
Actual Budget	Web, self-hosted	Free, open source	Your server or device	Envelope method, self-hosters
Ivy Wallet	Android	Free, open source	On device	FOSS-first Android users
Cashew	iOS, Android	Free	On device, opt. sync	Capable free tracker
Ledgerly	iOS, Android	Trial, then paid	On device, opt. backup	Private mobile budgeting

How to choose

Three questions settle it. Do you want mobile-first or desktop-first? Mobile rules out GnuCash and mostly the spreadsheet. Do you want open source above all? That points to Actual, GnuCash or Ivy. Are you willing to pay for supported, maintained software? Free tools cost you either effort, setup, or an eventual monetisation surprise; paid tools cost you money and should be honest about it.

Whichever you pick, choose one where you can leave with your data. Every tool above exports to open formats. That is not a coincidence: tools that do not need your bank login tend to be tools that do not need to trap you either.