I was looking for something like this just a few days ago. Ended up going with Flow[1], an open source Android app, because I wanted something that I could enter data on from my phone and run completely locally there. I don't yet have Tailscale running, or some other solution to access my homelab on the go. But it's great to see more and more software designed to run on people's local networks. And from the screenshots ExpenseOwl is the next tool I'd try if Flow doesn't work out... Getting Tailscale or a similar solution up and running is also on the to-do list.
I know other people want direct integration with banking APIs, but for me it's actually a feature to have to enter everything manually. I'm deliberately working on better spending habits, and having a local set of data with me which is actually sometimes ahead of my bank in terms of cleared transactions is good. It means I build the habit of entering and categorizing each time I spend money, and it means I have to regularly reconcile accounts. It's only a hypothesis, but I suspect in the era of checkbooks the practical fact of having to keep up the books manually enforced better spending habits.
Flutter, nice. How well does the syncing work? I was playing around with making my own personal finance tracker and syncing via CRDTs.
Edit: ah, it's not available on web or desktop which is a shame (looks like you can build and run it but it's more so DIY and no UI optimizations for larger screens, they say on the README), I would do more serious personal finance work on a bigger screen rather than a phone. They could easily add these platforms as it's on Flutter, not sure why they haven't already.
thank you! totally with you on building the habit of manually tracking and being aware of where my money goes! hopefully you like it more when you give it a try, open source, simplicity, and self-hosting are at the core for this.
also, on a side note, for non streaming workloads, i prefer cloudflare tunnels over a vpn solution like tailscale, feel free to check that out too :)
How's the simplicy of setting up and accessing cloudflare tunnels over a VPN for the near-totally computer illiterate, in comparison to Tailscale?
Part of setting up a homelab and self-hosting more and more of my digital life has been working toward being able to offer family and very-close friends an off-ramp from the world of cloud-controlled data and computing. Especially among family, there are some folks who will not be able to easily grok things even you, I, and casual power uses would consider "basic."
yea, most certainly! from a setup perspective tunnels are much easier to configure, just need a domain and an agent container that routes to your services. To have family and friends access web services is easy too - there is support for email totp, certificates, passwords, etc. so you'll definitely find what suits you. Vpn is still required the monent you're looking into higher bandwidth requirements, but for services like expenseowl (one-off and quick operations), tunnels are free and easy
I have just written a comment about a related point, but I wrote my own expenses tracking web app and using it on the go wasn't possible because I didn't host it somewhere, so I ended up running it on my Android phone using Termux (I rewrote it from Node.js to Golang first though).
I was looking for something like this just a few days ago. Ended up going with Flow[1], an open source Android app, because I wanted something that I could enter data on from my phone and run completely locally there. I don't yet have Tailscale running, or some other solution to access my homelab on the go. But it's great to see more and more software designed to run on people's local networks. And from the screenshots ExpenseOwl is the next tool I'd try if Flow doesn't work out... Getting Tailscale or a similar solution up and running is also on the to-do list.
I know other people want direct integration with banking APIs, but for me it's actually a feature to have to enter everything manually. I'm deliberately working on better spending habits, and having a local set of data with me which is actually sometimes ahead of my bank in terms of cleared transactions is good. It means I build the habit of entering and categorizing each time I spend money, and it means I have to regularly reconcile accounts. It's only a hypothesis, but I suspect in the era of checkbooks the practical fact of having to keep up the books manually enforced better spending habits.
[1a]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mn.flow.flow
[1b]: Also, github: https://github.com/flow-mn/flow
N.B. There's another expense tracker on the Play store, also called "Flow", which AFAICT isn't open source.