Your Finances — made simple | Actual Budget
Depends
Confidence: Medium
Buy it if you can self-host and patch fast . you get private, fast envelope budgeting with no subscription.
Comparison
Your Finances — made simple | Actual Budget vs Google Sheets: Sign-in
Your Finances — made simple | Actual Budget lands on Depends, and Google Sheets: Sign-in lands on Worth it.
Google Sheets: Sign-in
Worth it
Confidence: Low
Buy if you already have a Google account and need a free shared spreadsheet for simple tracking; skip it for heavy data modeling or complex pipelines.
| Compare | Your Finances — made simple | Actual Budget | Google Sheets: Sign-in |
|---|---|---|
| Verdict | Depends | Worth it |
| Best for | Self-hosters and privacy buffs | Small teams tracking simple data |
| Who it's not for | Non-technical users wanting set-and-forget apps | Large datasets or heavy financial modeling |
| Privacy | One critical auth bypass (CVE-2026-27584) let unauthenticated attackers read financial data; fixed in v26.2.1.³ | No known public vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.12 |
| Support quality | No support evidence found | No support evidence in sources |
| Public sentiment | Enthusiasts praise its speed and automatic transaction imports, but the critical 2026 auth bypass spooked less technical self-hosters.⁶ | The sources reviewed contained no user reviews . only Google sign-in pages.10 |
| Biggest gotcha | Run an exposed server unpatched and anyone can read your transactions³ | Guess: data lives in Google's ecosystem; exporting to Excel can lose formatting and formulas11 |
Pick Your Finances — made simple | Actual Budget when
- Self-hosters and privacy buffs
- Envelope budgeting fans
- Hands-on tinkerers
- Households tracking every dollar
When Your Finances — made simple | Actual Budget is not a fit
- Non-technical users wanting set-and-forget apps
- Anyone unwilling to patch a server promptly
- People needing zero-maintenance bank sync
- Casual spenders . a spreadsheet is enough
Pick Google Sheets: Sign-in when
- Small teams tracking simple data
- Personal budgets and lists
- Quick shared docs and calculators
- Lightweight collaboration
When Google Sheets: Sign-in is not a fit
- Large datasets or heavy financial modeling
- Teams needing CRM pipelines or automation depth
- Anyone unwilling to use a Google account
- Orgs with strict compliance or audit requirements
Sources
- Actual Budget official siteactualbudget.orgofficial
- CVE-2026-27584: ActualBudget Information Disclosure Flawsentinelone.comsecurity
security
security
security
- Anyone using Actual Budget? (Bogleheads)bogleheads.orgreview
- Creating a household budget using Actual (Home Assistant community)community.home-assistant.ioreview
- Actualbudget CVEs and Security Vulnerabilitiesapp.opencve.iosecurity
security
- Google Sheets: Sign-inaccounts.google.comofficial
- Google Sheets: Sign-in (create spreadsheet)docs.google.comofficial
- Product security pagesheets.google.comsecurity
- Google Sheets template previewdocs.google.comofficial