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Add to SafariWhen comparing Mint vs GnuCash, the Slant community recommends GnuCash for most people. In the question“What are the best cross-platform budgeting apps?” GnuCash is ranked 1st while Mint is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose GnuCash is:
GnuCash supports Linux, OSX and Windows and is also free on those platforms.
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro All accounts in one place
Mint can handle banking accounts, saving accounts, credit cards, etc. It consolidates all your accounts together so you do not need to put work into following multiple accounts.
Pro Organizes budget into categories
Mint splits your spending into different categories, such as gas or fast food, so you can see where you're spending too much money or how much you need to budget for.
Pro Alerts
Mint can be set to alert you to various events such as upcoming bills, or low balances on any accounts. It can be set to alert you from the app, through email or by text message. In addition you can sign up to recieve monthly emails about your money and ways to improve your budget.
Pro Multi-platform and free
GnuCash supports Linux, OSX and Windows and is also free on those platforms.
Pro Double entry accounting
By fully using the double entry accounting features in GnuCash, you can know (for example) not only that you spent $25 at Hugemart but that you spent $13 on groceries, $2 on disinfecting wipes, and $5 on motor oil. Later on, you can use data from that transaction and others to find out how much you're spending each month on food, home supplies, and car maintenance, along with other expense categories.
Pro Investment support
Pro Small business accounting
Pro Auto backup
GnuCash has auto backup settings so users can set it and forget it.
Pro Easily set up
GnuCash walks the user through setting up their accounts making setup extremely easy for new users.
Cons
Con Not international
Only works for US & Canada banks, and even then there are banks (like EQ Bank) that have actively blocked access to Mint.
Con Online only
It does not work offline.
Con Unsafe
With very few exceptions, Mint isn't just syncing your data over, but is using your username and password to log directly into the bank website. Banks will not reimburse for any fraud or stolen funds that may result from this, or may use Mint as an excuse to not reimburse for charges or stolen funds that occur from other causes.
Con Categories organization not flexible
Con The budgeting part has too many bugs
Con Very complicated tool
Of course, it's powerful but also very complicated. Some would prefer tools which are less robust, has less features but are a lot easier.
Con Report customization is complex and difficult
Setting the options for existing reports requires use of a multi-tab interface with poor usability. Creating new reports requires programming that will be beyond the abilities (or desire to spend time and effort) of many users.
Con Double entry accounting may be confusing or difficult for non business owners
For those that are unfamiliar with double entry bookkeeping it may be difficult to understand making using GnuCash a bit confusing on how it works.
