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Budgie

Offline-First Expense Tracker

Every transaction lives on your device. No cloud account, no sign-up — your finances stay in your pocket, even on a plane or in a tunnel.

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Why offline-first matters for an expense tracker

Most budgeting apps push every swipe and balance to a remote server. That makes them fragile when the internet drops, and risky when those servers leak. Budgie inverts the model: an encrypted SQLite database lives on your phone, and that's the whole story. There is no backend reading your statements.

You can log an expense at 30,000 feet, walk through a Tube tunnel, or work a week off-grid — Budgie just keeps working. When you are back online, optional bank sync fills in the gaps you missed; manual edits are never blocked.

What you get

Works in airplane mode, tunnels, and rural areas — every feature, every time

No sign-up, no email, no account — install and start logging

AES-256 encrypted SQLite database, key derived from your PIN

No backend means no breach surface — there is nothing to leak

Optional bank sync uses your own API tokens — never a third-party aggregator

How it works

On first launch, Budgie creates an encrypted SQLite database in your app sandbox. Every transaction, category, account, and tag becomes a row in that file. The optional bank sync fetches statements directly from your bank's API to your device — never via a third-party data aggregator. AI category suggestions run on a 1.7B-parameter model loaded into memory on your phone.

Cloud apps vs. Budgie

ConcernCloud appBudgie
Data locationVendor servers + PlaidYour device only
Works offlineRead-only at bestYes, fully
Account requiredYesNo
Subpoena riskVendor can be compelledNone — no servers

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Budgie work without internet?
Yes, fully. Every core feature — logging expenses, viewing analytics, managing categories — runs entirely on your device. Internet is only used when you opt in to bank sync, AI model downloads, or exchange-rate updates.
What happens if I lose my phone?
Without a backup file, your data is gone — that's the privacy trade-off. Budgie offers a one-tap encrypted database backup you can save to iCloud Drive, Google Drive, or anywhere else. Restore on a new device with one tap.
Is bank sync still offline?
Bank sync requires internet to fetch new transactions, but everything else continues working offline. Once synced, your bank data lives on-device alongside manual entries.
What's the catch with offline-first?
The trade-off is multi-device sync — there's no automatic sync via our servers because we don't have any. Use a backup file copied through your own cloud storage if you need to move between devices.

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Ready to take Budgie for a spin?

Join the waitlist — be first to try the offline-first expense tracker.

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