🩺 Vitals
- 🟢 Last active: 2026-10-08
- 📦 Latest release: v0.7.5-hotfix.2 (2026-10-06)
- 🐞 Open issues: 723
- 🌟 Stars: 10.4k
What do these metrics mean?
- Last active: when code was last pushed, as of our last check. The dot is green when that was recent, grey otherwise. A long gap can mean a tool is finished and stable, not only unmaintained.
- Latest release: the most recent tagged, packaged version the maintainers published. Not every healthy project tags releases.
- Open issues: unresolved reports and requests. A high number is normal for a popular project and is not a warning on its own.
- Stars: how many people bookmarked the project on its forge. A rough popularity signal, not a measure of quality.
🏗️ Profile
- Official: sure.am
- Source: github.com/we-promise/sure
- License: AGPL-3.0 (strong network copyleft)
- Deployment: Docker
- Data Model: PostgreSQL with a Redis-backed Sidekiq queue; NDJSON and CSV export
- Jurisdiction: USA 🇺🇸 (Sure Finances, LLC, Delaware)
- Compliance (SaaS): N/A
- Compliance (Self-Hosted): Self-Hosted (User Managed)
- Complexity: Moderate (3/5) - Docker Compose stack: Rails web app, a Sidekiq worker, PostgreSQL, and Redis
- Maintenance: Moderate (3/5) - Active Rails app with routine database migrations on version upgrades and a Redis-backed Sidekiq job queue to keep running, on top of image updates and backups
- User Management: Low (2/5) - Account-based auth with family sharing for multiple users; no SSO, RBAC depth, or audit logging
1. The Executive Summary
What is it? Sure is an all-in-one personal finance platform: budgeting, account and transaction tracking, and net-worth monitoring in one self-hosted application. It is the community fork of Maybe Finance, whose venture-backed company shut down and open-sourced the code; the community adopted it, and it is now stewarded by Sure Finances, LLC under AGPL-3.0. Every capability, including multi-currency support, is in the open build, with no paywalled features or premium cloud tier. It self-hosts as a Docker Compose stack (a Rails web application, a Sidekiq background worker, PostgreSQL, and Redis), and the full ledger exports as NDJSON and CSV for a lossless exit.
The Strategic Verdict:
- 🟢 For individuals or households that want a private, self-hosted alternative to bank-linked budgeting SaaS: Strong Buy. All-in-one personal finance under AGPL, fully free, and maintained by a community rather than a single vendor that can switch it off.
- 🔴 For anyone needing a vendor-backed managed service, an SLA, or formal compliance: Caution. Sure is self-hosted only, publishes no security or compliance documentation, and offers only basic family-level access control. The operational and data-protection burden is entirely yours.
2. The "Hidden" Costs (TCO Analysis)
| Cost Component | Monarch Money (SaaS) | Sure (Self-Hosted) |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Per-user annual or monthly fee | $0 (AGPL, all features) |
| Data Privacy | Vendor cloud with linked accounts | 100% self-owned (your DB) |
| Feature Gating | Tiered features and account limits | Everything in the open build |
| Data Exit | Export where offered | Native NDJSON and CSV (lossless) |
3. The "Day 2" Reality Check
🚀 Deployment & Operations
- Installation: A Docker Compose stack: a Rails web application, a Sidekiq background worker, PostgreSQL, and Redis. One-click deployments on hosts such as PikaPods and Railway wrap the same stack for non-technical users.
- Data & Exit: The full ledger and transaction state export as NDJSON (
all.ndjson) and CSV for lossless extraction, backed by standard PostgreSQL dumps. There is no vendor to migrate away from, because there is no vendor cloud. - Bank sync is an opt-in external dependency: Automatic transaction import runs through third-party financial-data aggregators that you configure. It is convenient, but it reintroduces an external data intermediary into an otherwise fully self-owned setup, so it is a deliberate trade rather than a default.
🛡️ Security & Governance (Risk Assessment)
- Jurisdiction & Governance (USA 🇺🇸, Delaware): Sure Finances, LLC is a US entity, so the legal entity sits under US CLOUD Act reach. For self-hosted use this is moot, because the software is self-hosted only under AGPL and no data ever reaches the entity. The governance story is the point: Sure exists because a venture-backed predecessor shut down and the community revived the open code, so continuity now rests on a broad contributor base rather than one company's balance sheet. AGPL keeps the project permanently forkable.
- The Compliance Shift: With no managed offering and no published security or compliance documentation, the entire burden of infrastructure security, data-at-rest encryption, monitoring, and backups is on the self-hoster. Access control is limited to basic family sharing, and there are no formal compliance frameworks or audit tooling to lean on. Any compliance posture is a property of your deployment alone.
- License Risk (AGPL-3.0): AGPL-3.0 is a strong network copyleft. If you modify Sure and offer the modified version to third parties as a network service, you are obliged to release your changes under the same licence. For personal or internal household use this never triggers, and there is no open-core tier layered on top, so nothing is held back from the free build.
4. Market Landscape
🏢 Proprietary Incumbents
- Monarch Money: The subscription SaaS many users moved to after Mint shut down, aggregating linked bank accounts in the vendor's cloud. Teams weigh Sure to keep the same all-in-one view without a subscription or handing account data to a third party.
- YNAB: The dominant paid budgeting app, strong on method but cloud-only and per-seat. Evaluated against Sure when the goal is self-owned budgeting data rather than a hosted subscription.
🤝 Open Source Ecosystem
- Ghostfolio: The peer a sovereignty-minded user cross-shops when choosing a self-hosted finance dashboard. Sure leads on budgeting and day-to-day accounts; Ghostfolio focuses on portfolio and net-worth performance for investors.
- Firefly III: A long-established self-hosted personal finance manager built around manual, double-entry budgeting; the more austere, deliberately non-automated alternative to Sure's all-in-one approach.