Installing Actual
Unlike most web apps, you’ll need to install Actual on a computer to get the full benefit out of it. While you could use Actual without running a server, we strongly recommend a server to ensure that your budget is saved and can be synced across multiple browsers and devices.
While running a server can be a complicated endeavour, we’ve tried to make it fairly easy to set up and hands-off to maintain. Choose one of the following options to get started:
- If you’re not comfortable with the command line and are willing to pay a small amount of money to have your version of Actual hosted on the cloud for you, we recommend PikaPods.
- If you’re willing to run a few commands in the terminal:
- Fly.io offers free cloud hosting.
- You could directly install Actual locally on macOS, Windows, or Linux if you don’t want to use a tool like Docker. (This method is the best option if you want to contribute to Actual!)
- If you want to use Docker, we have instructions for using our provided Docker containers.
Once you’ve set up your server, you can configure it to change a few of the ways it works.
If you're coming from the original, managed Actual subscription service, you may want to migrate your data.
Additional Installation Options
In addition to our officially supported options listed above, some community members have written guides for using other platforms or tools:
Content contained on external links is not managed or maintained by the Actual Budget team, if you run into issues with instructions on a third party site, please contact the author in the first instance or ask in discord where a member of the community may be able to help.