Status
- Beancount
- Actively developed open source since 2008
- Mint (before shutdown)
- Discontinued March 23, 2024; brand retired
Beancount vs Mint
Mint is gone. Your data doesn't have to be.
Mint shut down in March 2024, and Credit Karma has no budgeting tools. Beancount can't resurrect Mint's effortless dashboard — but it's a free, open-source ledger of plain-text files you own, so no announcement can ever take your records away again.
- Free & open source
- No ads, no data selling
- Your ledger outlives any vendor
100%
Open-source core
$0
To self-host Beancount + Fava
Plain text
A ledger you can still read in 30 years
Git
Every change versioned and auditable
Beancount vs Mint, side by side
Mint made budgeting effortless — right up until it disappeared. Here's what replacing it with a ledger you own actually means.
Beancount
Mint (before shutdown)
Beancount
A permanent, all-in-one record
One plain-text ledger covers checking, credit cards, investments, loans, and even a small business — complete double-entry books with reports across all of it. A Beancount file from 2010 still parses today.
Mint (before shutdown)
A spending dashboard, discontinued
Mint pulled in your accounts, categorized transactions, and showed budgets and net worth — until Intuit shut it down on March 23, 2024. The product and its hosted history are gone.
Beancount
Import your full Mint history
Mint's CSV export maps cleanly onto Beancount accounts and balanced transactions — every year you exported, not a capped slice. Smart Import helps categorize as you bring it in.
Mint (before shutdown)
A capped migration
Users moved to Credit Karma brought roughly three years of transactions; budgets, goals, and custom categories didn't transfer. Anything never exported was deleted.
Beancount
Real investment accounting
Track lots, cost basis, prices, and capital gains across every brokerage, in the same ledger as your day-to-day spending.
Mint (before shutdown)
Balances only
Mint showed account balances and basic value tracking — never holdings, lots, or capital gains.
Beancount
Native multi-currency
Currencies, stocks, funds, and crypto are first-class commodities, with conversions and valuations built into the file format itself.
Mint (before shutdown)
Single-currency focus
Mint was built around US and Canadian institutions and one currency at a time.
Beancount
You own the ledger
Your books are plain-text files you can read, diff, back up, and version with Git. No export window, no migration deadline, no shutdown announcement can strand them.
Mint (before shutdown)
Hosted — then shut down
Your history lived on Intuit's servers under Intuit's priorities. When the economics stopped working, users got an export deadline.
Beancount
Free as in yours
Beancount and Fava are free and open source — no ads, no referral engine, no business model pointed at your data. Optional beancount.io plans add bank sync, mobile apps, and AI.
Mint (before shutdown)
Free, paid for with your data
Mint was free because advertising and credit-card referrals funded it. When that stopped making sense for Intuit, "free" ended.
Where hosted apps still win
Mint's strengths were real, and pretending otherwise wastes your time. Beancount asks for more involvement — here's where it honestly trails.
Zero setup
Mint's signup-to-insight time was minutes. Beancount asks you to learn a file format and basic double-entry concepts before it pays off — a genuine barrier.
Silent categorization
Mint categorized most transactions well enough for casual use. Beancount importers and Smart Import get close, but you'll review and tune, especially early on.
Effortless mobile capture
Mint's app was always there. beancount.io's iOS and Android apps narrow the gap, but a plain-text workflow never feels as frictionless as a consumer app.
Passive awareness
Mint was built for glancing at a dashboard, not maintaining a system. If you want zero involvement, a hosted alternative like Monarch, YNAB, or Copilot will serve you better.
The full comparison
Feature by feature, no marketing spin.
Primary purpose
- Beancount
- Complete, programmable double-entry accounting
- Mint (before shutdown)
- Automatic spending dashboard with lightweight budgets
Data ownership
- Beancount
- Plain-text files you own, version, and back up
- Mint (before shutdown)
- Hosted on Intuit's servers; CSV export only
Shutdown risk
- Beancount
- None — readable text with or without any vendor
- Mint (before shutdown)
- Total — the product and its hosted history are gone
Budgeting
- Beancount
- Custom budgets, queries, and Fava views you design
- Mint (before shutdown)
- Guided monthly category budgets with alerts
Investments
- Beancount
- Lots, cost basis, prices, and capital gains
- Mint (before shutdown)
- Account balances and basic value tracking
Multi-currency
- Beancount
- Structured commodities and conversions
- Mint (before shutdown)
- Primarily US/Canada, single-currency focus
Cost
- Beancount
- Free open-source core; optional hosting
- Mint (before shutdown)
- Free, funded by ads and referrals
| Area | Beancount | Mint (before shutdown) |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Actively developed open source since 2008 | Discontinued March 23, 2024; brand retired |
| Primary purpose | Complete, programmable double-entry accounting | Automatic spending dashboard with lightweight budgets |
| Data ownership | Plain-text files you own, version, and back up | Hosted on Intuit's servers; CSV export only |
| Shutdown risk | None — readable text with or without any vendor | Total — the product and its hosted history are gone |
| Budgeting | Custom budgets, queries, and Fava views you design | Guided monthly category budgets with alerts |
| Investments | Lots, cost basis, prices, and capital gains | Account balances and basic value tracking |
| Multi-currency | Structured commodities and conversions | Primarily US/Canada, single-currency focus |
| Cost | Free open-source core; optional hosting | Free, funded by ads and referrals |
See your whole financial picture
Web dashboards, BQL queries, and native mobile apps — one plain-text ledger behind all of it.
The real meaning of free
Mint was free the way ad-supported products are free. Beancount is free the way open source is free — and the difference turned out to matter.
Beancount
Free
open source, forever
- Beancount + Fava: $0, self-hosted
- Optional beancount.io plans for bank sync, mobile, and AI
- No ads, no referrals — your ledger never sits behind a paywall
Mint → Credit Karma
"Free"
ad-funded — then shut down
- Free because your attention and referrals paid for it
- Credit Karma has no budgeting tools — budgets and goals didn't transfer
- Unexported history was deleted at the shutdown
Migrating from Mint in five steps
If you exported your Mint CSVs before the shutdown, they're your raw material — and they import into Beancount cleanly.
- 1
Secure your Mint exports
Gather every Mint CSV you saved and store untouched copies somewhere safe — they're the only remaining copy of that history.
- 2
Set balances from statements
Pick a cutover date and note each account's balance from your bank statements — not from Mint, whose figures can no longer be checked.
- 3
Map accounts and categories
Turn each Mint Account Name into a Beancount asset or liability account, and Mint categories into income and expense accounts. Keep Labels and Notes as tags if you want them.
- 4
Import in small batches
Convert rows into balanced transactions with Smart Import, a month at a time, reconciling against statements as you go. Handle transfers between your own accounts with care.
- 5
Assert and move on
Add balance assertions at statement dates so the ledger proves itself from now on — and accept that history older than your exports is gone.
Which should you choose?
Choose Beancount if…
…the Mint shutdown changed what you want from a money tool: records no announcement can take away, accounting provable against statements, real investment and multi-currency support, and files still readable in thirty years.
Choose a hosted alternative if…
…you want Mint's experience back — automatic sync, guided budgets, polished apps, minimal involvement. Monarch, YNAB, or Copilot will serve you better, as long as you accept the vendor's timeline.
If you exported your Mint CSVs in time, you can start today: import a month, reconcile it, add a balance assertion, and see whether a ledger you own feels like the upgrade the shutdown forced you to find.
Ready to switch?
The 6 best Mint alternatives, ranked
Where Mint's users actually went — Monarch, YNAB, Actual Budget and more, with real prices and honest trade-offs.
Read comparisonConvert your Mint export to Beancount
Still holding the CSV you downloaded before Mint shut down? The mapping is already set, including the column that says which rows are money out — paste it and get a ledger you own.
Open the converterFrequently Asked Questions
Is Beancount a good Mint replacement?
It depends on what you used Mint for. If you want a permanent, auditable record of your money that no company can shut down, Beancount is arguably the strongest answer: plain-text files you own, double-entry accuracy, investments, and multi-currency support. If you want Mint's zero-effort, automatically categorized dashboard for casual spending awareness, Beancount is not a like-for-like replacement — it asks for more setup and more involvement.
Can I still get my Mint data, and can Beancount import it?
Only if you acted before the shutdown. Mint offered CSV exports until March 23, 2024, and users who migrated to Credit Karma brought roughly three years of transactions with them; data that was neither exported nor migrated is gone. If you have a Mint CSV export, Beancount can import it: Mint's columns (Date, Description, Amount, Transaction Type, Category, Account Name, Labels, Notes) map cleanly onto Beancount accounts and balanced transactions.
Does Beancount have bank sync and mobile apps?
Core Beancount is a file format and command-line tools, so it does not bundle bank connections or official mobile apps. beancount.io adds that hosted layer: Bank Sync for supported institutions, Smart Import for categorization, and iOS and Android apps. The difference from Mint is architectural — the sync conveniences sit on top of a plain-text ledger you can download and keep forever.
What happened to Mint?
Intuit announced in late 2023 that it would discontinue Mint, and the service shut down on March 23, 2024. Users were directed to Credit Karma, which Intuit also owns. Credit Karma tracks accounts, spending, and net worth, but it launched without Mint's budgeting features — no monthly category budgets, no savings goals — and the migration carried only a limited slice of transaction history, reported as roughly three years.
Is Beancount really free?
Yes. Beancount and the Fava web interface are free and open source, and your ledger is a text file you can keep without paying anyone. Optional beancount.io plans charge for hosted conveniences such as bank sync, smart import, and mobile workflows — but the ledger itself never sits behind a paywall, which is precisely the lesson of the Mint shutdown.
Ready for books that can't be shut down?
Start free in minutes — no credit card, no lock-in, and your plain-text ledger is always yours to keep.