Est. 2025 · Proudly open source

Budget smarter.
Own your data.

Trout is an envelope-budgeting ledger for people who want to own their money — and their data. Host it yourself, or let us run it for five bucks.

✓ No card required✓ FSL-1.1-MIT
Trout
Monthly summary · April 2026
Rent$1850.00 / $1850
Groceries$538.77 / $600
Utilities$189.12 / $215
Dining out$247.18 / $200
Travel fund$0.00 / $150
Subscriptions$71.94 / $64
Ready to assign$0.00
Balanced
*** Thank you for your business ***
§ III — Honest pricing

Two plans. No asterisks.

Free
$0/ month

Forever, unlimited accounts

Start free
  • Envelope budgeting
  • Unlimited accounts
  • Reports & insights
  • Goals & schedules
  • Crypto tracking
  • Rules & automation
  • Multi-currency
Recommended
Pro
$5/ month

For the bank-sync & AI

Start free, upgrade later
  • Everything in Free
  • Bank sync · 2,500+ banks
  • AI assistant
  • Priority support

Want full control? Self-host for free with your own keys. Docker in one command →

§ IV — Side by side

How it stacks up.

FeatureTroutYNABActualFirefly III
Free tier
Open source
Envelope budgeting
AI assistant
Bank syncOpen BankingPlaidPlaid/SimpleFINLimited
Crypto tracking
Multi-currencyLimited
PriceFree / $5$99/yr$70/yrFree

YNAB has better mobile and offline support. Actual has end-to-end encryption. Firefly does double-entry. Read the full comparisons

§ V — Own the stack

One command.
Your hardware.

Docker image, Postgres, done. Bring your own GoCardless keys for bank sync and your own Anthropic key for AI. Nothing phones home.

~/betterbudgetzsh
$ git clone github.com/betterbudget/betterbudget
$ cd betterbudget
$ docker compose up -d
⠋ Pulling postgres:16 ... done
⠋ Starting api ............. done
⠋ Starting web ............. done
✓ Ready at http://localhost:3000
§ V — What you should know

Not for everyone.

Young project, growing community

Trout ships fast but is younger than YNAB or Actual. You may hit rough edges. Upside: features land quickly, and your feedback shapes the roadmap directly.

No offline mode (yet)

Trout needs an internet connection. Budgeting on the subway? Not today. Actual Budget nails offline-first — we'll get there, but we're not there yet.

Balance your books
before someone else does.