The 6 Best Quicken Alternatives in 2026

It depends which Quicken habit you are replacing. If you want a modern hosted dashboard with automatic sync, Monarch Money is the most polished at $99.99 a year (or $14.99 a month). If what you miss is buying software once and running it locally, Moneydance is the closest survivor at around $65 one-time. And if your real attachment is to decades of financial history you never want to lose access to, Beancount.io keeps that history as plain-text files you own, with proper investment lot and cost-basis tracking.

Yes, three. Moneydance is a one-time purchase desktop app in the Quicken mould, cross-platform, with a local data file. Actual Budget is free and open source, local-first, and can be self-hosted at no cost. Beancount is free open-source software whose ledger is a plain-text file; optional hosted conveniences like bank sync cost money, but the books themselves never do.

Moneydance, Actual Budget and Beancount all keep your data in a local file and work without an internet connection — you only need to be online to refresh bank data. Monarch, Simplifi and YNAB are cloud-only: no connection means no access, and no subscription means no access either. If offline access matters to you, that split is the most important line on this page.

Usually, with caveats. Moneydance imports Quicken data directly and is the smoothest path. Most other tools accept QIF or CSV exports, which carry transactions but tend to lose attachments, scheduled transactions and some investment detail. Whatever you choose, export before you cancel — Quicken's export lives behind the subscription, and people routinely discover this after it lapses.

Quicken's investment tracking was genuinely strong, and most modern budgeting apps do not match it — YNAB and Actual treat investments as simple tracking accounts. Moneydance carries the desktop tradition forward. Beancount goes further than either: it models individual lots, cost basis and capital gains as first-class accounting concepts, which is what you need for accurate reporting rather than a balance that merely looks right.

Export before you cancel — Quicken's export lives behind the subscription. Keep the original file plus statements and key reports. Test one account over a short period (opening balance, expense, transfer, split; for investments, share quantities and cost). CountAbout documents Quicken-file and QIF import for a web register (Basic $19.99/year, Premium $54.99/year, prices checked September 14, 2026). Moneydance is the smoothest full-file path among the ranked options. Most others accept QIF or CSV and lose attachments, schedules and some investment detail. Reconcile balances and transaction counts before importing the rest, and keep imports separate from overlapping bank feeds until you understand the destination's matching rules.

Three free paths sit beside the ranking. Actual Budget (ranked #4) is free and self-hosted. GnuCash is free open-source desktop double-entry with QIF/OFX/CSV import — strong if you want a traditional register without a subscription. Empower Personal Dashboard offers an ongoing free wealth and net-worth overview via linked accounts (advisory fees are separate). Tiller ($99/year after a 30-day trial, checked September 14, 2026) is the spreadsheet path when you want bank feeds in Google Sheets or Excel rather than another register app. None of these replace Quicken file-for-file; trial a small export first.