Instead YouTube gives me literally nothing but AI spam. :/
I scrolled down a bit more and got this: https://i.postimg.cc/fJcPhG45/Screenshot-20251118-150802.png
Scrolled down some more and this: https://i.postimg.cc/v1khnhRp/Screenshot-20251118-151325.png
I kept scrolling until I ran out of relevant results. Not a single video was legit. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much AI slop in one search term and by the gods there is a lot of crap on YouTube.
Anyone have a good comparison video? I’m just wanting a decent comparison of Actual, Firefly III and possibly HomeBank. Feel free to also give me your 2 cents on whatever you use :)
Well your first mistake was going to YouTube for information
Before all the slop-deluge, you had some chance that some niche channel had an actual human behind it who knew their shit.
Some handyman on youtube helped me learn how to install kitchen counters, cupboards, sink etc. a few years ago.
I tried Actual Budget for a while, but didn’t stick with it long term. I also looked at Firefly III, never tried it though.
Eventually I figured out I just want an expense tracker instead of full budgeting and settled for ExpenseOwl
I don’t have a video for you but I’ve been using Actual for over a year and really like it. I recommend it. Caveat, I very actively interact with my budget (inputting things manually) and cannot speak for it’s account linking features.
I use actual as well.
The docker compose works really well, basically set it up once and then it works, even with running updates by pulling new container versions.
I used the account importing to start but now input everything manually and don’t do live sync.
Never heard of the other options so didn’t know about them to compare before setting up actual. I do like the methodology of actual, where it has you only budget money that actually exists in your account, that feels very sane to me.
I just installed Firefly yesterday, and I can say that the docker compose setup was easy. I’ve got no real opinions yet, just wanted to mention this for OP in case he reads your experience as it being easier. I imagine they’re both easy.
I’m curious, when you say you stopped importing, does that mean you were getting info from your banks, and stopped doing that? Why did you stop? My next step was to set up the automated importer for Firefly.
You tube as research platform ?🤔
Why do you think it’s AI?
This shit pre-dates “AI”. AI just lets them do it faster and cheaper.
Another recmendation for Actual. I spend very little time having to interact with it, because after the initial setup, all transactions are now synched from my bank accounts, and 90% are automatically classified into my categories (not by “AI” or something, you just set rules like “payments to Rewe are always groceries”).
I got so many AI slop videos regarding tech lately… it’s turning everything into shit :(
At least on YouTube you can tell at a glance that it’s AI.
I have been self hosting fireflyIII for almost 2 months now, I like it, my wife is an accountant and she likes it. I didn’t want to have to pay for an accounting service, and my credit union doesn’t have an api that I am aware of to connect to the paid services anyway.
Would recommend 👍
Ufff. Yeah, I also hit a slop mountain of videos when searching for Seafile comparisons…




