Quicken went subscription-only, and the desktop app many people bought once now bills every year. Six alternatives for personal finance — ranked, priced, and clear about who still keeps your data on your own machine.
Ranked by how well each one replaces decades of Quicken habits — long history, investment tracking, and files that stay yours.
Free core · optional hosting
Plain-text double-entry accounting: decades of history in files you own, with proper investment lots and optional hosted sync.
Best for: Long-time Quicken users who care most about keeping a complete, readable financial history that no vendor can switch off.
$99.99/yr or $14.99/mo
The most polished modern replacement: aggregator-backed sync, household sharing, budgets and a strong net-worth dashboard.
Best for: Households that want Quicken's overview without Quicken's desktop baggage, and don't mind a subscription.
About $65 one-time
A desktop personal-finance app in the Quicken mould — one-time purchase, local file, cross-platform.
Best for: People who want exactly what Quicken used to be: buy it once, run it locally, keep the file.
Free · self-host or ~$3/mo managed
Free, open-source, local-first envelope budgeting you can self-host.
Best for: People who mostly used Quicken to budget and want that free, with the file on their own machine.
About $48/yr
Quicken's own modern successor: a clean web and mobile spending tracker, subscription only.
Best for: Quicken users who want to stay with the same company but move off the desktop app.
About $109/yr or $14.99/mo
Zero-based envelope budgeting built around a method rather than a ledger.
Best for: People whose real goal is changing how they spend, not archiving what they spent.
What people actually weigh when they leave Quicken. Prices checked August 2026.
| What matters | Beancount.io | Monarch Money | Moneydance | Actual Budget | Quicken Simplifi | YNAB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free open-source core; pay only for optional hosting | $99.99/yr or $14.99/mo | About $65 once, no subscription | Free self-hosted; ~$3/mo managed | About $48/yr | About $109/yr or $14.99/mo |
| Who owns the data | You do — plain-text files on your own disk | Monarch's cloud; CSV export in chunks | You do — a local file | You do — a local budget file you sync yourself | Quicken's cloud; CSV export | YNAB's cloud; CSV export per budget |
| Investments | Full lots, cost basis and capital gains | Holdings and balances; deeper analytics when paid | Solid, in the Quicken tradition | Basic tracking accounts | Balances and simple performance | Tracking accounts only |
| Runs offline | Yes — the ledger is a local file | No, cloud only | Yes, desktop app | Yes, local-first | No, cloud only | No, cloud only |
| Long history | Unlimited, and readable in any editor | Kept while you subscribe | Unlimited, in its own file format | Unlimited, in a local file | Kept while you subscribe | Kept while you subscribe |
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. 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.
Start free with a plain-text ledger you keep forever — bank sync, mobile apps and imports are there when you want them.
