this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2025
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I just wanted to compare FOSS Linux budgeting software (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Thorned_Rose@sh.itjust.works to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Instead YouTube gives me literally nothing but AI spam. :/

I scrolled down a bit more and got this: https://i.postimg.cc/fJcPhG45/Screenshot-20251118-150802.png

Scrolled down some more and this: https://i.postimg.cc/v1khnhRp/Screenshot-20251118-151325.png

I kept scrolling until I ran out of relevant results. Not a single video was legit. I don't think I've ever seen so much AI slop in one search term and by the gods there is a lot of crap on YouTube.

Anyone have a good comparison video? I'm just wanting a decent comparison of Actual, Firefly III and possibly HomeBank. Feel free to also give me your 2 cents on whatever you use :)

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[–] dx1@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

We need platforms where AI content is just banned. We're past the point we need to start systematically excluding all this crap.

[–] atmorous@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

We need more PeerTube devs to develop it further

Also to switch everybody to Vanillo (not open source but definitely a way better alternative)

Best if they make it so there is no AI Content allowed too or at very least segmented away from human content

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 77 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Well your first mistake was going to YouTube for information

[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 72 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Before all the slop-deluge, you had some chance that some niche channel had an actual human behind it who knew their shit.

Some handyman on youtube helped me learn how to install kitchen counters, cupboards, sink etc. a few years ago.

[–] RheumatoidArthritis@mander.xyz 25 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The difference is, thers's no stakes in teaching you how to install a counter, nobody has the incentive to generate fake AI videos of that. Product comparison is something where youtube always sucked, whether by paid actors or - now - AI

[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'd say it really depends on the channel. If it's some hobby project by some 'tistic nerd who really likes to compare dehumidifiers, it can be ok.

[–] Crewman@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Okay, not dehumidifiers, but what abut space heater -

https://youtu.be/ND2mrzPnBic

[–] RheumatoidArthritis@mander.xyz 7 points 1 week ago

There's also Matthias but try finding any of these videos with just search. Youtube is against authenticity now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_4o5ZlsRMk

[–] BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 31 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Articles are mostly AI slop. For a bit YouTube was actually the best way to have information written by an actual person.

Not anymore unfortunately, now I honestly don't know how to reliably find AI free information online.

[–] AppearanceBoring9229@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago

At least to compare software you can use alternativeto.net

It seems that the best way to avoid AI slop is to find a small community on the the topic.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Nowhere is safe from AI spam. At least these ones are obvious. Written spam is far easier to generate.

[–] strlcpy@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 1 week ago

Web search gives you pages of slop results too, now

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 37 points 1 week ago (1 children)

We're going to need another project like SponsorBlock and Dearrow for labeling AI spam...

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[–] iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 36 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I don't have a video for you but I've been using Actual for over a year and really like it. I recommend it. Caveat, I very actively interact with my budget (inputting things manually) and cannot speak for it's account linking features.

[–] Coolcoder360@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I use actual as well.

The docker compose works really well, basically set it up once and then it works, even with running updates by pulling new container versions.

I used the account importing to start but now input everything manually and don't do live sync.

Never heard of the other options so didn't know about them to compare before setting up actual. I do like the methodology of actual, where it has you only budget money that actually exists in your account, that feels very sane to me.

[–] chillpanzee@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I just installed Firefly yesterday, and I can say that the docker compose setup was easy. I've got no real opinions yet, just wanted to mention this for OP in case he reads your experience as it being easier. I imagine they're both easy.

I'm curious, when you say you stopped importing, does that mean you were getting info from your banks, and stopped doing that? Why did you stop? My next step was to set up the automated importer for Firefly.

[–] Coolcoder360@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I never set up the actual bank sync, I think what I did was basically a CSV export and then import, rather than the bank sync.

But it's been about a year so not remembering exactly how the import was.

[–] chillpanzee@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago

Got it. Thanks.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 3 points 1 week ago

I use it as well with automation and can confirm. Unfortunately with Simple fun you do have to manually sync accounts but it's a small price to pay. Just have to remember to hit the sync button when you open the dashboard.

[–] Tenderizer78@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 week ago

At least on YouTube you can tell at a glance that it's AI.

[–] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

Just FYI, take a look at how YNAB works — which is a paid app, but with a great approach: you track your spending for a while, and then basically always know how much you can spend on various categories of things. Idk what the workflow is in modern budgeting apps, but back in the day YNAB was rather different from the more typical accounting-type software like GNUCash. One of its tenets is that you don't spend money which you don't actually have, i.e. the credit card debt.

[–] sunbeam60@feddit.uk 7 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Actual Budget is a straight FOSS clone of YNAB. It’s very, very good IMHO, but their big selling feature was bank import with PSD2 APIs across the EU and they’ve backed away from that as you need to be a commercial provider to use APIs directly and their dependency on GoCardless is getting nerfed.

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[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Why do you think it's AI?

[–] Thorned_Rose@sh.itjust.works 26 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Multiple videos that have the same style of thumbnail (AI generated face excepted). Multiple videos with a very similar thumbnail and exact same wording. They're all within the past year, mostly within the past 6 months (this software has existed for many years, why all of a sudden do multiple channels want to do vs or review videos of them). They're all short videos and its just not possible to give a proper breakdown of feature or a review of budgeting software in that amount of time. The few videos I tested used AI voices and all had a similar start (I didn't waste my time watching the whole video). The faces on the videos look AI generated or modified....

[–] PartyPatella@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 week ago

Thanks for elaborating! I am in no way great at spotting such slop videos, but I did notice some of the stuff you mentioned.

In some of the videos, they have a little "self-cam" in the corner - is that artificial too?

Regarding artificial voicing, I did test a few videos - the phrasing, punctuation and sound effects were similar. Is that how you figure it is artificial?

And what gives away the faces are generated? Most videos even have comments - everything is fake?!

Thanks in advance. If I came across only one of the videos - and did not see all thumbnails in a search for instance - I must shamefully admit that I probably would not have spotted it.

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[–] Madrigal@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

This shit pre-dates “AI”. AI just lets them do it faster and cheaper.

[–] exu@feditown.com 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I tried Actual Budget for a while, but didn't stick with it long term. I also looked at Firefly III, never tried it though.

Eventually I figured out I just want an expense tracker instead of full budgeting and settled for ExpenseOwl

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[–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Another recmendation for Actual. I spend very little time having to interact with it, because after the initial setup, all transactions are now synched from my bank accounts, and 90% are automatically classified into my categories (not by "AI" or something, you just set rules like "payments to Rewe are always groceries").

[–] pix_wbmr@feddit.org 7 points 1 week ago

I got so many AI slop videos regarding tech lately... it's turning everything into shit :(

[–] jlow@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 week ago

Im reasonable happy with Actual Budget. I like that it has desktop apps that can sync woth a server that was easy to set up, I can import various things via .csv, rules to automatically categorise stuff are nice. I dont care about the envelope budgeting or whatever it's called they're on about but it's easy to ignore / turn off.

[–] HotChickenFeet@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think its budgeting features are lackluster, but I have highly enjoyed gnucash for tracking my expenses, incime & where everything goes.

It's all manual more or less, and you do double ledger accounting, so all the money is accounted for somewhere.

[–] moonshadow@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago

Seconding gnucash, there's modern stuff that's slicker but nothing that works better imo

[–] not_me@piefed.social 5 points 1 week ago (3 children)

You tube as research platform ?🤔

[–] Thorned_Rose@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Once upon a time yes. But then once upon a time the whole internet. I used to hate watching videos for learning but I have cognitive issues now that makes visual learning easier for me. Actually written is now extremely difficult for me. So I will use reviews of things to see how they work before I try them out myself. Just a shame that its so hard to find a real human being to learn from online anymore.

[–] anamethatisnt@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Start a no server demo here and you can try Actual out yourself:
https://demo.actualbudget.org/

That way you can try out the Starting fresh steps for real or go through their Tour interactively instead of just reading:
https://actualbudget.org/docs/getting-started/starting-fresh/
https://actualbudget.org/docs/tour/

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[–] Glaedr304@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I have been self hosting fireflyIII for almost 2 months now, I like it, my wife is an accountant and she likes it. I didn't want to have to pay for an accounting service, and my credit union doesn't have an api that I am aware of to connect to the paid services anyway.

Would recommend 👍

[–] Thorned_Rose@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Have you had to deal with refunds yet? I see that as a criticism and I would have to agree that the official doc's way of handling them is not ideal for our situation or the way refunds are handled in my country. Interested in knowing if anyone has come up with more creative solutions.

[–] AbsolutelyClawless@piefed.social 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Maybe something from this list could fit your requirements better. I've been using Firefly for a couple years now and in combination with 3rd party Android app(s) it's been okay for me. But refunds have always been hacky for sure.

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[–] Sunny@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Ive started seeing a lot of these sadly... Luckily they're still somewhat easy to spot.

[–] paequ2@lemmy.today 4 points 1 week ago

Ufff. Yeah, I also hit a slop mountain of videos when searching for Seafile comparisons....

[–] apprehensively_human@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 week ago

I've been using Actual for a while now, probably close to a year. Before that I was on YNAB, which isn't FOSS but does have a huge library of material for how to make your budget work for you instead of the other way around.

I got off YNAB after they kept raising their subscription fees for seemingly no reason. Actual is not nearly as feature-rich but you can't really argue with the price.

[–] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 week ago

This "culture" of stealing video titles, thumbnails and even entire ideas wholesale has been going for a while on Youtube, unfortunately.

[–] cdzero@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago

I've got a family member interested in switching to Linux but the finance software is an obstacle. I had a look and landed on gnucash which I thought I would trial myself and then see if if would work for them. I like it!

[–] ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Maybe not what you're looking for, but there's a program called "Money Wallet" on Android. It's on F-Droid and free software. Maybe my favourite because every time I spend cash I just open it up and I enter what I just spent.

For professional use, I'd recommend GNU Cash, though.

[–] aaronhooper@retrolemmy.com 3 points 1 week ago

I remember back in the day using gnucash but I'm sure there are better alternatives on awesome-selfhosted, if you want to go that route. I imagine a raspberry pi or some low power hardware can also run those. They're great because they're not platform dependent. Docker might be a hurdle though

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