Actual Budget
Jenkins
| Feature | Actual Budget | Jenkins |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free / from $0/mo | Free only |
| Free Plan | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.5 / 5 | 4.2 / 5 |
| Best For | budget-conscious-individuals, self-hosters, ynab-migrants, privacy-focused-budgeters | enterprise-teams, on-premise-deployments, complex-pipelines, legacy-systems |
| Founded | 2019 | 2011 |
| Envelope Budgeting | ✓ | ✗ |
| Bank Sync | ✓ | ✗ |
| Reports | ✓ | ✗ |
| Goal Tracking | ✓ | ✗ |
| Rules | ✓ | ✗ |
| Scheduled Transactions | ✓ | ✗ |
| Self Hostable | ✓ | ✗ |
| Pipeline As Code | ✗ | ✓ |
| Plugins | ✗ | ✓ |
| Distributed Builds | ✗ | ✓ |
| Pipeline Visualization | ✗ | ✓ |
| Scm Integration | ✗ | ✓ |
| Artifact Management | ✗ | ✓ |
| Notifications | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Actual Budget Pros
- Open-source with no subscription fees
- Local-first with optional sync
- Beautiful and fast interface
- Bank sync via SimpleFIN/GoCardless
✗ Actual Budget Cons
- Self-hosting required for sync features
- Smaller community than YNAB
- Mobile experience less polished than native apps
✓ Jenkins Pros
- Completely free and open source
- Extremely extensible with 1,800+ plugins
- Mature and battle-tested over many years
- Supports any programming language and platform
✗ Jenkins Cons
- Dated UI feels old compared to modern CI tools
- Requires significant maintenance and administration
- Groovy-based Jenkinsfiles have steep learning curve
The Verdict
Actual Budget is built for budget conscious individuals and self hosters, with a focus on envelope-budgeting and bank-sync. Jenkins targets enterprise teams and on premise deployments and leads with pipeline-as-code and plugins.
Jenkins uses custom enterprise pricing, while Actual Budget starts at $0/mo — a tangible advantage for teams with a fixed budget.
Both offer free plans, so you can test each with your real workflow before committing to a subscription.
Bottom line: Actual Budget has a slight overall edge — but if completely free and open source matters most to you, Jenkins may still be the right call.