Local-first · Self-hosted · 100% free

Budget down
to zero.

Envelope budgeting that runs on your own machine. Your whole budget lives in one file: no account, no subscription, 100% free and open source.

Get Zero View on GitHub

Runs anywhere Node or Docker does · AGPL-3.0

Watch the tour

A walkthrough of a month in Zero — coming soon.

Zero's budget for October with every category funded and Ready to assign at $0 Zero's budget for October with every category funded and Ready to assign at $0 Zero's transfer plan listing the moves to make between accounts Zero's transfer plan listing the moves to make between accounts Zero's transactions ledger across all accounts Zero's transactions ledger across all accounts Zero's Insights page showing net worth over the past year Zero's Insights page showing net worth over the past year

A month in Zero. Know where every dollar goes, and what to move.

Fast to enter.
Hard to lose.

Quick add, at the register

A thumb-sized capture screen, installable on your phone. Expense, income or transfer in a few taps.

Zero's quick add screen on a phone Zero's quick add screen on a phone

Undo that actually works

Undo reverses exactly what you did.

Privacy mode

Hide every amount before you share your screen. Nothing flashes, even on reload.

One file. Yours.

Your entire history lives in a single SQLite file. Copy it to a thumb drive and you've backed up everything.

Fund the month in one click

Top up every underfunded category or copy last month's budget. You see a preview first.

Know exactly what to move

Most budgeting apps stop at the plan. Zero compares your budget with your real balances and gives you a checklist of transfers to make — recalculated every time, so it never drifts.

  • Send $5,170.52 to High Yield Savings
  • Pay $1,311.92 to the Visa card
  • Leave $3,242.81 in checking

CSV in, CSV out

Import from ten bank formats with auto-detection, or map columns yourself. Export anything you can filter.

See where it all went

Net worth across accounts and tracked assets, spending breakdowns, and a year at a glance.

Net worth $513,620.83 +$95,636.93 (+22.9%)
See every feature →

No bank sync. Just ask.
Your AI agent reconciles the statement.

Hand a statement to the AI agent you already use. Zero's import-txns skill does the matching.

  1. 1
    Drop in a statement. Screenshot, CSV or pasted text.
  2. 2
    It matches every line. No duplicates.
  3. 3
    It adds what's missing. Backed up first.

Runs in your agent, not in Zero. Zero has no AI built in.

How AI import works →
your agent · import-txns skill
visa-statement.png

Reconcile this against Visa Card

Matched 41 of 44 statement lines on Visa Card.

  • MissingQuikFill Gas−$48.20
  • MissingRoasters Coffee−$5.75
  • PostedTrattoria Bistro was −$54.00 pending−$62.40
✓ Backed up✓ Inserted 2✓ Promoted 1

Balance −$1,311.92 matches the statement.

Yours to run.
Set it up how you like.

Your computer

›

Docker on a Mac, Windows or Linux machine. A few commands and it's running.

zsh 
$ git clone https://github.com/jessespencer/zero-budget
$ cd zero-budget
$ docker compose up -d --build
✓ Running on localhost:4040

Raspberry Pi

›

Always on, tucked in a closet. Node and pm2 keep it running through reboots, with backups on a schedule.

Home server or NAS

›

Anything that runs Docker or Node 20. Your whole budget stays in one file on it.

Read the install guide →

No login, on purpose. Keep Zero on your own machine or a private network like Tailscale. Don't put it on the open internet without authentication in front. Read the security notes.

Start at zero.

100% free and open source. Your data never leaves your machine.

Get Zero View on GitHub