When comparing YNAB vs HomeBank, the Slant community recommends HomeBank for most people. In the question“What are the best cross-platform budgeting apps?” HomeBank is ranked 8th while YNAB is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose HomeBank is:
HomeBank uses an easier input interface as well as offers a bunch of different transaction filters and reporting tools.
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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 Easy to learn how to use with user friendly features
HomeBank uses an easier input interface as well as offers a bunch of different transaction filters and reporting tools.
Pro Easy to install on Linux, no matter the distro
HomeBank offers prebuilt packages for many of the major Linux distributions meaning users do not have to wait for their distros repo to add or update the app and can just install or update when they like.
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 Does not have full import compatability
HomeBank does not fully support importing exports from other banking software.
Con Setup time takes a while
Setup, especially when there are multiple accounts takes a while to get done.