Commerce · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator
Hey everyone! After another year of building as a solo dev on nights and weekends, I'm back with an update on this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31083093. TL;DR - ProjectionLab (https://projectionlab.com) is a privacy-friendly personal finance planning tool where you can create financial plans that go beyond the standard online retirement calculators. And by popular request, it now supports self-hosting for Lifetime users! Something I'm grateful for is that our community here on HN is the difference between PL existing and not. There was actually a time…
ProjectionLab is a privacy-focused personal finance planning tool that lets users create detailed financial projections beyond traditional retirement calculators. Built by a solo developer, it offers Monte Carlo… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. I spent 2 years building a personal finance simulator launched in 2023; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
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Ray▲293I've been using this daily for 4 months and figured others might find it useful. This is my first open source project so would love any feedback. Ray connects to your bank via Plaid, stores everything in an encrypted local SQLite database, and lets you ask questions about your finances in natural language. No cloud, no account, your data is stored on your machine. Before anything reaches the LLM, all PII is stripped — your name, companies, transaction details are redacted and replaced with tokens, then rehydrated locally in the response. The AI never sees who you are.
Apr 2026 · rayfinance.app · its alternatives →
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Simulate your financial future. Modern financial, retirement, and estate planning tools to plan for early retirement, financial independence, and more.
2021 · projectifi.io · its alternatives →
- 3
Thank you for your comments, just some context: - The app is a simple desktop application that works on macOS, Windows, and Ubuntu. - I developed this app for my own needs. Getting tired of SaaS app subscriptions and privacy concerns. - For now, the activities are logged manually or imported from a CSV file. No integration with Plaid or other platforms. - No monetization is planned for now (only a "buy me a coffee" if you use and appreciate the app).
2024 · wealthfolio.app · its alternatives →
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Everyone’s chasing AI hype. I built a Google Sheet and it quietly took off. In 2020, I made it to track my own finances for income, expenses, savings, yearly summaries etc. I shared it once on Reddit, forgot about it for a year… When I checked back, it had over 130k views and I was honestly stoked! No launch. No funding. No AI. Just a spreadsheet people actually stick with and find useful. I finally gave it a proper home: write-it-down.com Now, more than 2,300 people use it. It’s intentionally boring and that’s why it works. People don’t always need AI. They just need something that actually…
2025 · write-it-down.com · its alternatives →
- 5IQ
Quick background: I used to code. Studied it in school, wrote some projects, but eventually convinced myself I wasn't cut out for it. Too slow, too many bugs, imposter syndrome — the usual story. So I pivoted, ended up as an investment associate at an early-stage angel fund, and haven't written real code in years. Fast forward to now. I'm a Buffett nerd — big believer in compound interest as a mental model for life. I run compound interest calculations constantly. Not because I need to, but because watching numbers grow over 30-40 years keeps me patient when markets get wild. It's basically…
Jan 2026 · calquio.com · its alternatives →
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The Fastest Financial Modeling tool for SaaS startups
2022 · service.projection-ai.com · its alternatives →
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2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Intelligent portfolio management for self-directed investors
2022 · globalpredictions.com · its alternatives →
- 9MS
For years, I have struggled to understand my cash flow and save for the future. In addition to that, my wife has many credit cards and accounts that complicate matters. I am building a tool that connects all our accounts, helps us create a budget, and tracks and adjusts expenses on the fly. I am also sprinkling some AI magic on it for financial suggestions. I am looking for feedback on the implementation. More importantly, I am looking for more beta testers to improve the product.
2023 · financemadelovely.com · its alternatives →
- 10
May 2026 · stocks.sjer.red · its alternatives →
- 11YP
Care to share a screenshot and the 'killer feature' of any of your personal, self-built productivity tools? eg. I made my own calendar and money-tracker last year - there are no other users, it makes no money, I have no plans to make it public, but it holds my life together :) http://i.imgur.com/h2keJDg.png GREAT BECAUSE... it tells me how much I'm going to get paid this month. Absolutely no ulterior motive here (ie. I'm not canvassing opinions for a productivity app startup or anything), just interested.
2013 · i.imgur.com · its alternatives →
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Hi HN, I built Whisper Money because I was frustrated that every personal finance app wanted full access to my bank credentials, fed my transactions into AI systems, or sold my spending data to third parties. Whisper Money takes a different approach: - *No bank credential sharing* - Import your transactions via CSV/XLS exports from your bank. No Plaid, no OAuth to your bank, no third-party integrations that can get breached. - *No AI snooping* - Your transactions are never fed into AI systems you don't control. - *No third-party data sharing* - Your financial data is never shared with…
Nov 2025 · whisper.money · its alternatives →
- 13IB
A few years ago, I started managing my finances using Google Sheets. It worked fine for a while, but then I hit some limitations. As my financial planning needs grew more complex, I found myself struggling with tracking assets and forecasting future financial scenarios. Thus, I started to work in my spare time on building FinancialAha: https://www.financialaha.com - a financial planning app designed to do everything my spreadsheets couldn’t. It is completely free and I intend to add some paid features later on as listed on the pricing page, but I want to keep it free for people…
2024 · its alternatives →
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A turbotax for startup financial projections
2016 · projectionhub.com · its alternatives →
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Personal finance management for Node.js hackers and Google Docs users - kika/hackerwallet
2016 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Simple Financial Projection For The Average Person
Feb 2026 · myprojectioncalculator.com · its alternatives →
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Finzen▲3Over the years, I've tried pretty much every personal finance tool out there. Loved some, hated others, but in the end, I always came back to using my trusty google sheet. I needed something that combined YNAB's envelope budgeting with what a multi-asset portfolio tracker does. For me, your budget and your investments are linked. Obviously, never invest more than you can afford to lose - but how are you supposed to know how much that is for you without understanding your spending habits? So I built Finzen Finzen = budgeting + portfolio tracking + rich visual reports and stats Currently in…
Jun 2026 · finzen.org · its alternatives →
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Hi! I built PaperRight.xyz because I've tried everything: - AI-assisted budgeting tools that promise to "optimize" your spending - Spreadsheets with lots of formulas and color-coded cells - Apps that gamify saving and tell you your financial horoscope, or whatever None of them stuck. They were either too rigid, or too automated, or just too much. I don't need a terminally confused AI financial advisor (or a confused human financial advisor). I just needed something simple that showed me some metrics I couldn't find in any other budgeting app so I built paperright.xyz!
Nov 2025 · paperright.xyz · its alternatives →
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Snap a receipt. AI does the rest. Your money, your data.
Feb 2026 · budgetella.app · its alternatives →
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Hi HN, I’ve been working on a project called My Financial Pal, a free web app that generates personalized financial plans in just a few minutes. The way it works: You answer a short questionnaire about your income, expenses, debts, and goals The app uses AI to analyze your answers You immediately receive a custom PDF report with actionable advice tailored to your situation The advice focuses on practical decisions like: Should you prioritize paying off debt vs. investing? How can you budget more effectively? What’s the best strategy to save for a major purchase? My motivation: financial…
2025 · my-financial-pal-baf4b5e07c1c.herokuapp.com · its alternatives →
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Predict your personal & family financial future offline
Jun 2026 · play.google.com · its alternatives →
- 22IM
It's at http://finkin.com. The goal is to allow a developer to sign up in seconds, and within minutes begin querying data. It runs under https and stores no access information. From http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1431583, I realized that all those types of sites are not tailored to developers like the other simple APIs around the web are (i.e. flickr). I made mine as simple as I thought possible. From http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1676458, I realized that eventually it should be a scalable model where you pay pennies per the # of requests you make. Right now it supports many…
2010 · finkin.com. · its alternatives →
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I built this application to help solve difficulties in managing tracking of finances for a busy household. It's been really helpful, so I've turned it into a product in the hope that it can help others too. I can genuinely say it's given me a much clearer view of our family finances and even helped me spot a couple of subscriptions we'd forgotten about and duplicate charges. Would appreciate any feedback greatly.
Feb 2026 · numeromoney.com · its alternatives →
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →