—— Comparison
Both tools share a similar base: double-entry bookkeeping and full control over your data. The differences show up once your financial reality is Latin American — multi-currency, credit-card installments, loans with amortization. An honest comparison, no marketing.
Actual Budget is at actualbudget.org; we used that information (April 2026 version) as reference.
| Feature | Monarka | Actual Budget |
|---|---|---|
| True multi-currency | Yes — 6 currencies (PYG, USD, ARS, BRL, EUR, CLP) with exchange rate captured per movement | Accounts in different currencies, but the budget is computed in a single one |
| Credit cards with installments | Native model: an N-installment purchase creates one parent charge + N monthly view rows without duplicating the debt | You have to model each installment manually as a separate transaction |
| Loans with amortization | Full French / German / simple amortization table materialized at disbursement, with optional auto-payment | Does not exist. Same goes for YNAB and Monarch |
| Recurring rules | Yes, with automatic materialization via cron. Auto-post or pending confirmation | Scheduled transactions with manual confirmation |
| Vaults / contexts | Multiple vaults (personal, business, shared) each with its own accounts and reference currency | Single budget per file; multiple files possible but they do not cross |
| Conceptual model This is a philosophical difference, not a technical one. If you love envelope budgeting, Actual does it really well. | Double-entry with postings, no envelope budgeting (simpler for non-accountants) | Strict envelope budgeting in the YNAB tradition (assign every dollar to a category) |
| Bank sync | No (manual entry or statement import) | Via SimpleFIN or GoCardless; LatAm coverage is very limited |
| Where it runs | Web, hosted by us. Access from any device | Self-hosted (Docker on your VPS) or paid cloud |
| Open source | No (yet) | Yes (MIT) |
| Price | Free during the beta. If a paid plan ships, beta users will get advance notice | Free self-hosted, USD 4-6 per month on cloud |
If you live in a single currency, love strict envelope budgeting (assign every dollar to a category before spending it), prefer to host everything yourself and read commits in an open-source repo — Actual is the best option on the market. Solid product, active community, clear philosophy.
If you earn in one currency and spend in another (or several), buy on installments regularly, have a bank loan you want to track installment by installment, or want separate vaults per context (personal, business, shared) — all of this is native to Monarka and does not exist in Actual.
And if you do not want to run anything yourself, Monarka is hosted web and free during the beta.
The conceptual core is the same: double-entry bookkeeping as the source of truth, all data exportable, no trackers, no ads, no data sales. If choosing between the two is hard, you probably use them for different contexts — they are not mutually exclusive.
Missing something on this table, or see an outdated data point? Email us at hola@monarka.lat and we will fix it.