After using YNAB for about ten years, I finally grew tired of the increasing annual price and the endless features that made it feel like it was targeting a completely different audience. I understand the company has to cater to new, less technical users, but I found it frustrating as an experienced user.
In January I started building Budget, a minimal and focused envelope-based budgeting application in Ruby on Rails. I started with the mobile version because that’s the most common entry point for adding a transaction. By May it had enough feature parity with YNAB that I could use both in parallel and look for any remaining gaps. In June I started on the desktop version, which is where I typically assign money and reconcile transactions. Finally, in July, I switched to using Budget exclusively.
I’ve continued adding features as I’ve needed them. And while it supports multiple budgets and users, it’s built around how I use it. I have a number of ideas for improvements, including reports, category management, user management, two-factor authentication, and more.