5 ms·

This is one where I don't quite get the angle of hosting locally to preserve privacy. By nature of the economic system, you must interact with 3rd parties, unl

by Klonoar 11mo ago

This is one where I don't quite get the angle of hosting locally to preserve privacy. By nature of the economic system, you must interact with 3rd parties, unless you somehow live a life where you can manage to be all crypto or (increasingly harder) cash based. At that point, there is no real benefit to privacy outside of ensuring that whatever institution(s) you work with aren't doing anything odd. I'm open to missing something here.

a-fadil 11mo ago
It’s more about having the optionality to not be tied to a SaaS provider and trusting them with all your financial data and bank credentials. Having options to: 1– Install a piece of software and run it locally, no subscription, no cloud 2– Have to right to use a nicer app instead of a spreadsheet 3– not hand over your banking creds. Some banks will void your account insurance if you do 4– Reduce your exposure by not putting all your financial data on some startup’s servers.
- dmoy 11mo ago
  It's also maybe more useful in the US where we're behind the times w.r.t. better APIs for accessing banking & investment data
  - nirvdrum 11mo ago
    Actual Budget uses SimpleFIN [1] in the US. The integration is pretty good. The big alternative is Plaid and I don't trust them at all. It's a shame we don't have a standard for electronic banking yet. [1] -- https://beta-bridge.simplefin.org/ https://beta-bridge.simplefin.org/
    - mrbombastic 11mo ago
      There is also teller.io i tried them for a side project and were pretty good, but I didn’t go to far
cortesoft 11mo ago
Well, one of the benefits is that it won't go away. I used Mint for years, and I LOVED it. Hooked it up to all my accounts, it could track purchases and spending and kept everything up to date automatically. It would remember how I categorized things. Of course, then Intuit decided to get rid of it and force everyone to move to Credit Karma, which doesn't do the same things AT ALL. I don't care about tracking my credit scores, and I pay off all my credit cards every month, I don't need help finding a loan for anything. The only thing it does is try to offer me loans and credit cards. It doesn't have any transaction history, so it doesn't do the one thing I care about. The decade+ of transaction history I had in Mint was just GONE. It really sucked, and I have not found a replacement yet. I don't mind if it is hosted, or even if I have to pay for it, but I would like to be able to keep my historical data, and for it to automatically populate from my accounts, and not go away if a company decides it can't make money from it anymore.
- kcrwfrd_ 11mo ago
  I love the transaction history in YNAB. I refer to it all the time.
- workworkwork71 11mo ago
  Did you find a suitable replacement? What do you use now? I'm interested to hear how big of an sticking point this still is with this a verbose range of options now.
  - duskdozer 11mo ago
    different poster of course, but actualbudget (free selfhost) + simplefin (paid api for transactions) has been really good. faster and more features than the commercial options had. simplefin can also be used for your own local projects
  - cortesoft 11mo ago
    No I didn’t, I was kinda hoping I would get some suggestions in replies…
- Klonoar 11mo ago
danielheath 11mo ago
Trusting some random VC-backed SAAS not to sell my data is (to me) as mad as trusting that the tide won't come in - it would be astonishing if they _didn't_ sell my data. My bank has both commercial & cultural reasons not to sell my ID & transaction history. They might still do it anyways, but it's at least plausible that they wouldn't, if only due to the harm to their reputation if it ends up in the papers.
- bix6 11mo ago
  You mean your bank that shares your info with its marketing partners unless you explicitly opt out, that bank?
- delichon 11mo ago
  My threat model is one well placed technical employee who knows a buyer that will pay fuck you money. Judas can work at any organization and frequently does.
- workworkwork71 11mo ago
  I'm a founder in this space (Fulfilled - posted above). Here's the reality: You're right that incentives matter. But selling your data would be idiotic for us, same reason it would be for your bank in that trust is the entire business model. If we want to monetize insights from aggregated data, we'd do it in-house and offer you better products. Example: Why sell your mortgage readiness data to some broker when we could source competitive mortgage offers and present them directly to you? Keep you in our ecosystem, add value to your experience, and build a revenue stream that doesn't destroy the core product. The wealth space is crowded. Companies that burn user trust get exposed fast and die faster. The only sustainable path is treating your data like it belongs to you and not us. Any company here who doesn't get that is building on quicksand and I'd be very surprised to hear any of the larger players engaging in those practices but maybe I'm naive. Either way, it's why we're a Fiduciary and that blankets the entire product suite.
  - technofiend 11mo ago
    "...Selling your data would be idiotic...same reason it would be for your bank [to sell your data] in that trust is the entire business model." I'm afraid that ship has sailed and taken your data with it. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/14/jpmorgan-chase-fintech-fees.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/14/jpmorgan-chase-fintech-fees....
TacticalCoder 11mo ago
[dead]
duskdozer 11mo ago
It's just the mindset. The "oh well 'they' already have all my data anyway" mindset leads to more and more individual steps of giving up privacy even if you could do something about it. It might not protect any more data, but not attempting is a guarantee that it won't.
purple_turtle 11mo ago
Giving access to the same info to more people is reducing privacy. I prefer to not give to even more people.

by Klonoar 11mo ago

a-fadil 11mo ago

It’s more about having the optionality to not be tied to a SaaS provider and trusting them with all your financial data and bank credentials. Having options to: 1– Install a piece of software and run it locally, no subscription, no cloud 2– Have to right to use a nicer app instead of a spreadsheet 3– not hand over your banking creds. Some banks will void your account insurance if you do 4– Reduce your exposure by not putting all your financial data on some startup’s servers.

dmoy 11mo ago
It's also maybe more useful in the US where we're behind the times w.r.t. better APIs for accessing banking & investment data
- nirvdrum 11mo ago
  Actual Budget uses SimpleFIN [1] in the US. The integration is pretty good. The big alternative is Plaid and I don't trust them at all. It's a shame we don't have a standard for electronic banking yet. [1] -- https://beta-bridge.simplefin.org/ https://beta-bridge.simplefin.org/
  - mrbombastic 11mo ago
    There is also teller.io i tried them for a side project and were pretty good, but I didn’t go to far

cortesoft 11mo ago

Well, one of the benefits is that it won't go away. I used Mint for years, and I LOVED it. Hooked it up to all my accounts, it could track purchases and spending and kept everything up to date automatically. It would remember how I categorized things. Of course, then Intuit decided to get rid of it and force everyone to move to Credit Karma, which doesn't do the same things AT ALL. I don't care about tracking my credit scores, and I pay off all my credit cards every month, I don't need help finding a loan for anything. The only thing it does is try to offer me loans and credit cards. It doesn't have any transaction history, so it doesn't do the one thing I care about. The decade+ of transaction history I had in Mint was just GONE. It really sucked, and I have not found a replacement yet. I don't mind if it is hosted, or even if I have to pay for it, but I would like to be able to keep my historical data, and for it to automatically populate from my accounts, and not go away if a company decides it can't make money from it anymore.

kcrwfrd_ 11mo ago
I love the transaction history in YNAB. I refer to it all the time.
workworkwork71 11mo ago
Did you find a suitable replacement? What do you use now? I'm interested to hear how big of an sticking point this still is with this a verbose range of options now.
- duskdozer 11mo ago
  different poster of course, but actualbudget (free selfhost) + simplefin (paid api for transactions) has been really good. faster and more features than the commercial options had. simplefin can also be used for your own local projects
- cortesoft 11mo ago
  No I didn’t, I was kinda hoping I would get some suggestions in replies…
Klonoar 11mo ago

danielheath 11mo ago

Trusting some random VC-backed SAAS not to sell my data is (to me) as mad as trusting that the tide won't come in - it would be astonishing if they _didn't_ sell my data. My bank has both commercial & cultural reasons not to sell my ID & transaction history. They might still do it anyways, but it's at least plausible that they wouldn't, if only due to the harm to their reputation if it ends up in the papers.

bix6 11mo ago
You mean your bank that shares your info with its marketing partners unless you explicitly opt out, that bank?
delichon 11mo ago
My threat model is one well placed technical employee who knows a buyer that will pay fuck you money. Judas can work at any organization and frequently does.
workworkwork71 11mo ago
I'm a founder in this space (Fulfilled - posted above). Here's the reality: You're right that incentives matter. But selling your data would be idiotic for us, same reason it would be for your bank in that trust is the entire business model. If we want to monetize insights from aggregated data, we'd do it in-house and offer you better products. Example: Why sell your mortgage readiness data to some broker when we could source competitive mortgage offers and present them directly to you? Keep you in our ecosystem, add value to your experience, and build a revenue stream that doesn't destroy the core product. The wealth space is crowded. Companies that burn user trust get exposed fast and die faster. The only sustainable path is treating your data like it belongs to you and not us. Any company here who doesn't get that is building on quicksand and I'd be very surprised to hear any of the larger players engaging in those practices but maybe I'm naive. Either way, it's why we're a Fiduciary and that blankets the entire product suite.
- technofiend 11mo ago
  "...Selling your data would be idiotic...same reason it would be for your bank [to sell your data] in that trust is the entire business model." I'm afraid that ship has sailed and taken your data with it. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/14/jpmorgan-chase-fintech-fees.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/14/jpmorgan-chase-fintech-fees....

TacticalCoder 11mo ago

[dead]

duskdozer 11mo ago

It's just the mindset. The "oh well 'they' already have all my data anyway" mindset leads to more and more individual steps of giving up privacy even if you could do something about it. It might not protect any more data, but not attempting is a guarantee that it won't.

purple_turtle 11mo ago

Giving access to the same info to more people is reducing privacy. I prefer to not give to even more people.