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Actual Budget Actual Budget

Stack

Productivity Pm

Actual - local-first envelope budgeting (the YNAB methodology, open source): budgets live on your devices, end-to-end encrypted, and this server syncs them. MIT, tiny, beloved - PikaPods features it on their homepage.

Image details

Architecture: amd64, arm64, arm/v7
Image size: 108 MB
User: actualbudget

Source details

Repo: actualbudget/actual
Stars: 29.1k
Forks: 3k
Language: TypeScript
License: MIT
Latest: v26.9.0 · 23 days ago
Updated: 11 minutes ago
Website: actualbudget.org/

Configuration

Type
Compose
Platform
linux
Image
ghcr.io/actualbudget/actual:26.6.0
Ports
5000:5000
Volumes
/data : actualdata
Env vars
ACTUAL_PORT=5000
Restart
unless-stopped
Source
Repo

Template by deployable-sh·Source

Report issue

Standalone Install

Select an install method, to see config/commands for deploying Actual Budget

Installation method

Install on Portainer

Import all app templates into your Portainer instance, for easy 1-click deploys

  1. Ensure both Docker and Portainer are installed, and up-to-date
  2. Log into your Portainer web UI
  3. Under Settings → App Templates, paste the below URL
  4. Head to Home → App Templates, and the list of apps will show up
  5. Select Actual Budget, fill in any config options, and hit Deploy

Template Import URL

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Lissy93/portainer-templates/main/templates.json
Show Me demo
Original stackfile

The compose file this template deploys, straight from its repo:

name: actual

services:
  actual:
    image: ghcr.io/actualbudget/actual:26.6.0
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      ACTUAL_PORT: "5000"
    ports:
      - "5000:5000"
    volumes:
      - actualdata:/data

volumes:
  actualdata:

Or deploy it directly from the source:

git clone https://github.com/deployable-sh/stacks
cd stacks
docker compose -f actual/compose.yaml up -d

More install options in our documentation, or see actualbudget/actual for app-specific guidance.

Actualbudget

Getting Started

Actual is a local-first personal finance tool. It is 100% free and open-source, written in NodeJS, it has a synchronization element so that all your changes can move between devices without any heavy lifting.
If you are interested in contributing, or want to know how development works, see our contributing document we would love to have you.
Want to say thanks? Click the ⭐ at the top of the page.

Key Links

Installation

There are four ways to deploy Actual:
  1. One-click deployment via PikaPods (~2.00 $/month) - recommended for non-technical users
  2. Managed hosting via Fly.io (~1.50 $/month)
  3. Self-hosted by using a Docker image
  4. Local-only apps - downloadable Windows, Mac and Linux apps you can run on your device

Learn more in the installation instructions docs.

Ready to Start Budgeting?

Read about Envelope budgeting to know more about the idea behind Actual Budget.

Are you new to budgeting or want to start fresh?

Check out the community's Starting Fresh guide so you can quickly get up and running!

Are you migrating from other budgeting apps?

Check out the community's Migration guide to start jumping on the Actual Budget train!

Documentation

We have a wide range of documentation on how to use Actual, this is all available in our Community Documentation, this includes topics on Budgeting, Account Management, Tips & Tricks and some documentation for developers.

Contributing

Actual is a community driven product. Learn more about contributing to Actual.

Code structure

The Actual app is split up into a few packages:
  • loot-core - The core application that runs on any platform
  • desktop-client - The desktop UI
  • desktop-electron - The desktop app

More information on the project structure is available in our community documentation.

Feature Requests

Current feature requests can be seen here. Vote for your favorite requests by reacting :+1: to the top comment of the request.
To add new feature requests, open a new Issue of the "Feature Request" type.

Translation

Make Actual Budget accessible to more people by helping with the Internationalization of Actual. We are using a crowd sourcing tool to manage the translations, see our Weblate Project. Weblate proudly supports open-source software projects through their Libre plan.
Translation status

Repo Activity

Alt

Sponsors

Thanks to our wonderful sponsors who make Actual Budget possible!
Deploys by Netlify Built with Depot Docker GitHub Anthropic

Serve Actual Budget on your own domain behind Caddy, Nginx or Traefik. Fill in your domain and copy the result. It's a starting point, some apps need their own base URL or extra headers set too.

Proxying actual-budget.example.com to http://actual:5000

Add this to your Caddyfile

actual-budget.example.com {
	reverse_proxy http://actual:5000
}

Check the logs first

Nine times out of ten the logs tell you exactly what went wrong.

  • In Portainer, go to Containers, click the container, then Logs. Or run docker logs <container>
  • Exit codes help too: 137 means killed, usually out of memory. 126 or 127 means the command inside the image is broken.

Port already in use

If deployment fails with "Bind for 0.0.0.0:5000 failed: port is already allocated", something else on your server is using that port.

  • Find what's using it: sudo ss -tlnp | grep :5000
  • Stop the other service, or pick a different host port. In 5000:5000 only the left number is yours to change, the right one belongs to the app.

Running but the page won't load

The container is up but nothing appears in your browser.

  • Use your server's real IP: http://your-server-ip:5000. The 0.0.0.0 link Portainer shows isn't a real address.
  • Give it a minute after first deploy, actual can take a while to initialise.
  • Make sure your firewall allows the port, e.g. sudo ufw allow 5000

Image won't pull

Test the pull directly on the host: docker pull ghcr.io/actualbudget/actual:26.6.0

  • "manifest unknown" means the tag no longer exists.
  • "toomanyrequests" is the Docker Hub rate limit. Log in with docker login to raise it.
  • "no space left on device" means a full disk. Reclaim space with docker system prune

"exec format error"

This means the image was built for a different CPU architecture than your server.

  • This image supports: amd64, arm64, arm/v7
  • Check yours with uname -m: x86_64 is amd64, aarch64 is arm64. Raspberry Pi and other ARM boards are the usual culprits.

Container keeps restarting

The unless-stopped restart policy relaunches the app after every crash, so the real error can scroll past.

  • Check the logs right after a restart, the last few lines before it died are the useful ones.
  • Get the exit code with docker inspect <container> --format '{{.State.ExitCode}}'
  • Still stuck? Redeploy once with the restart policy set to no so the failure stays visible.

Stack won't deploy

Compose stacks fail fast on small mistakes, and Portainer shows the reason just above the editor.

  • YAML only accepts spaces for indentation, a single tab breaks the whole file.

Raise an issue

Found something which isn't working as it should? Here's how to report it.

A Compose stack

Actual Budget is a Compose stack, a set of containers defined in one file and brought up together by Portainer, then started and stopped as a single app.

The app image

An image is the app packed up ready to go, everything Actual Budget needs bundled into one download. This template pulls ghcr.io/actualbudget/actual:26.6.0, which Docker fetches once (about 108 MB) and then starts your own copy from.

Where the image comes from

Docker pulls its images from registries, public libraries of ready-built apps. Actual Budget's comes from the GitHub Container Registry, published by actualbudget.

Version tags

The bit after the colon in the image name is the version tag. This one pins 26.6.0, so every redeploy gives you that exact build until you bump it yourself.

Which machines it runs on

Every image is built for particular CPU types. This one ships for amd64, arm64, arm/v7, so it runs on both regular x86 servers and ARM boards like a Raspberry Pi.

Ports

A port is the door the app answers on. A mapping like 5000:5000 means it's reachable on port 5000 of your server, where the left number is yours to change and the right one belongs to the app. It opens:

  • 5000:5000

Volumes

A volume is where Actual Budget keeps its files so they survive an update or a restart. Without one, anything it saves would sit inside the container and vanish the moment it's recreated. This template mounts:

  • /data kept in the actualdata volume Docker manages

Environment variables

Environment variables are the settings you hand over when you deploy, things like a password or a timezone. Actual Budget takes 1 of them, all with defaults you can leave alone or tweak:

  • ACTUAL_PORT, defaults to 5000

Restart policy

The restart policy here is unless-stopped, so Docker restarts Actual Budget after a crash or reboot, but leaves it off when you stop it on purpose. You can change this on the deploy screen. The choices are no (never restart), on-failure (only after a crash), unless-stopped (restart unless you stop it), and always (bring it back no matter what).

Networking

Nothing custom is set, so Actual Budget sits on Docker's default bridge network: its own private space that reaches the outside world only through the ports it publishes.

Container name

Once it's deployed, Portainer names the container actual. That's what you'll spot in the containers list and use in commands like docker logs actual.

Platform

The platform is linux, the kind of system the container is built to run on. Docker and Portainer handle this on a normal Linux server.

Open source license

Actual Budget is open source, released under the MIT license. In plain terms the code is out in the open, so you're free to run it and change it to fit what you need.

Portainer app templates

Zooming out, this whole page comes from a Portainer app template: a short recipe telling Portainer how to set Actual Budget up. Add the template list to Portainer once, then deploying Actual Budget is a click rather than a wall of config.