When comparing YNAB vs Wally, the Slant community recommends Wally for most people. In the question“What are the best personal finance tracker apps for iPhone?” Wally is ranked 3rd while YNAB is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose Wally is:
The overall design of the app is clean and simple, almost minimal. It makes the app pleasing to use due to how easily one can tell what parts of the app do what due to the clean and simple design. the use of solid colors to differentiate section of the app makes it easy to keep track of what buttons do what.
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Pros
Pro Provides a method for budgeting
Provides a 4 step method for budgeting money, that really makes budgeting simple and powerful.
Pro Free trials available
YNAB lets you try it's software free for just over a month. This gives you a bit of flexibility when doing a monthly budget - 4 extra days to review your budget and determine whether YNAB helped out enough to justify the $5 price.
If you're a student, you can get an additional 12 months for free (for a total of 13 months) and after that you can get 10% off yearly subscriptions.
Pro Online web app
Pro Mobile apps for easy expense tracking
Pro Free online workshops.
YNAB regularly offers live workshops on a variety of different topics. These workshops include time for Q&A which is very helpful.
Pro Frequent updates.
The YNAB team does a great job of offering rapid response times to support requests, listening to user feedback and implementing commonly requested features into the app via frequent updates as well providing live financial workshops on a daily basis at no additional charge. All of these features make the subscription model well worth the cost to me.
Pro Easy to manage and flex budgets
I've tried several including Quicken desktop app and I just like the way YNAB works. It is easy to learn and actually works as advertised.
Pro Understands human beings and reality
It allows you to move around budget allocations. Sometimes you just need to spend that extra money in one category and take it out of another budget without losing control of the overall budget. It's flexible, clever and understands life.
Pro Clean pleasing interface
The overall design of the app is clean and simple, almost minimal. It makes the app pleasing to use due to how easily one can tell what parts of the app do what due to the clean and simple design. the use of solid colors to differentiate section of the app makes it easy to keep track of what buttons do what.
Pro Convenient local data with no need to link an account online
Many people don't like connecting their accounts to an app, especially bank accounts, luckily Wally does not require one to link their bank to the app in order to track funds. All one has to do is input their starting total and then add expenditures as they purchase them. This is an easy way to track spending while not having to give up ones data.
Cons
Con Subscription based
Instead of a one-time purchase, you will need a subscription to use YNAB after the free trial. Subscriptions can be bought annually for $83.99, which is about $6.99 per month.
Con Data is stored in the Cloud
All budget data is stored in the cloud on AWS servers which are most likely based in the United States. HOWEVER, there is an option to save budget data locally as well.
Con Learning curve
There is a learning curve to the YNAB method.
Con Difficult to navigate
The interface can be confusing and expected functions of buttons are not always the case. While it can be gotten used to, it takes much time and really shouldn't in the first place.
Con Limited use while offline
Whether it is due to a DRM scheme or just bad design in the app only has limited functionality when not connected to the internet. This inhibits normal use as no one has a 24/7 internet connection on a mobile device.
Con Somewhat buggy
Things like connecting to foursquare are glitchy and troublesome, there is also issue with showing locations and just overall slowness to load.