Should I Build It Should I Build It
02 Jul 2025
Fintech

a low cost , open source, minimal Personal finance and budget app

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Swamp

The market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves. Unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money.

Should You Build It?

Don't build it.

Your are here

You're entering a crowded space with your low-cost, open-source personal finance app. The "Swamp" category isn't encouraging; it suggests many have tried and failed to create a truly loved personal finance solution. Our analysis found 3 similar products, which gives us medium confidence in our assessment, but this also indicates existing competition. The average comment count on these similar products is 3, which suggests low engagement. There's no strong signal that people are actively seeking this type of product, so standing out will be difficult. Don't take this personally, but you need to think differently to break through.

Recommendations

  1. First, deep dive into why existing low-cost, open-source personal finance apps haven't resonated with users. Don't just assume you can build a better one. Understand the specific pain points users experience with current solutions. Leverage the user feedback from similar products, such as the need for flexible locale settings. Are they too complex? Not secure enough? Lacking essential features? Knowing the 'why' is crucial before you invest further.
  2. If you're still convinced your idea has merit, narrow your focus to a specific, underserved niche. For example, you could target students, freelancers, or a particular demographic with unique financial needs. General-purpose apps often fail because they try to be everything to everyone. Carving out a niche will allow you to tailor the app's features and marketing efforts to a specific audience, increasing your chances of success.
  3. Consider building tools that integrate with existing personal finance platforms instead of creating a standalone app. Many popular services lack specific features or integrations that users crave. By offering a complementary tool, you can tap into an established user base and avoid the uphill battle of building an audience from scratch. This could be a more strategic and less resource-intensive approach.
  4. Instead of a full personal finance app, explore adjacent problems in the financial space. For example, could you create a tool that helps users automatically categorize transactions? Or a service that provides personalized financial insights based on spending patterns? These more focused solutions might be easier to develop and market than a comprehensive app. Also make sure you get the data import process right, since that's crucial for adoption.
  5. Given the challenges in this space, it might be wise to save your energy and resources for a more promising opportunity. The "Swamp" category suggests a high risk of failure. Carefully evaluate the potential return on investment before committing further time and effort to this idea. You might have other ideas with a higher chance of success.

Questions

  1. What specific unmet needs or pain points of users can your low-cost, open-source personal finance app uniquely address better than existing solutions?
  2. What is the specific go-to-market strategy for your app, and how will you effectively reach and acquire your target niche audience?
  3. How will you ensure the long-term sustainability of your open-source project, including ongoing development, maintenance, and community support?

Your are here

You're entering a crowded space with your low-cost, open-source personal finance app. The "Swamp" category isn't encouraging; it suggests many have tried and failed to create a truly loved personal finance solution. Our analysis found 3 similar products, which gives us medium confidence in our assessment, but this also indicates existing competition. The average comment count on these similar products is 3, which suggests low engagement. There's no strong signal that people are actively seeking this type of product, so standing out will be difficult. Don't take this personally, but you need to think differently to break through.

Recommendations

  1. First, deep dive into why existing low-cost, open-source personal finance apps haven't resonated with users. Don't just assume you can build a better one. Understand the specific pain points users experience with current solutions. Leverage the user feedback from similar products, such as the need for flexible locale settings. Are they too complex? Not secure enough? Lacking essential features? Knowing the 'why' is crucial before you invest further.
  2. If you're still convinced your idea has merit, narrow your focus to a specific, underserved niche. For example, you could target students, freelancers, or a particular demographic with unique financial needs. General-purpose apps often fail because they try to be everything to everyone. Carving out a niche will allow you to tailor the app's features and marketing efforts to a specific audience, increasing your chances of success.
  3. Consider building tools that integrate with existing personal finance platforms instead of creating a standalone app. Many popular services lack specific features or integrations that users crave. By offering a complementary tool, you can tap into an established user base and avoid the uphill battle of building an audience from scratch. This could be a more strategic and less resource-intensive approach.
  4. Instead of a full personal finance app, explore adjacent problems in the financial space. For example, could you create a tool that helps users automatically categorize transactions? Or a service that provides personalized financial insights based on spending patterns? These more focused solutions might be easier to develop and market than a comprehensive app. Also make sure you get the data import process right, since that's crucial for adoption.
  5. Given the challenges in this space, it might be wise to save your energy and resources for a more promising opportunity. The "Swamp" category suggests a high risk of failure. Carefully evaluate the potential return on investment before committing further time and effort to this idea. You might have other ideas with a higher chance of success.

Questions

  1. What specific unmet needs or pain points of users can your low-cost, open-source personal finance app uniquely address better than existing solutions?
  2. What is the specific go-to-market strategy for your app, and how will you effectively reach and acquire your target niche audience?
  3. How will you ensure the long-term sustainability of your open-source project, including ongoing development, maintenance, and community support?

  • Confidence: Medium
    • Number of similar products: 3
  • Engagement: Low
    • Average number of comments: 3
  • Net use signal: 11.2%
    • Positive use signal: 11.2%
    • Negative use signal: 0.0%
  • Net buy signal: 0.0%
    • Positive buy signal: 0.0%
    • Negative buy signal: 0.0%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

Similar products

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Hi HN, I wanted to share an app I've created recently since it might be useful for you:guitos is a free open-source budgeting app that helps you figure out where your money went and plan your budget ahead of time.It was initially created to replace a spreadsheet I created based on the budgeting advice given on the r/personalfinance subreddits and as an opportunity to learn React.The app stores data in your browser's local storage (IndexedDB). Your private financial data doesn't leave your browser.(If you're wondering what the app's name means: "guitos" is portuguese slang for money/cash. )source code available @ https://github.com/rare-magma/guitos

Users appreciate the AI hint feature for guessing words, and Guitos' ability to handle multiple budgets. The availability of screenshots in the about section and the option to export data as JSON, with potential for CSV, are noted. Users are interested in the currency update feature and request more flexible locale settings in browsers.

Users have criticized the product for its inflexible locale settings in browsers.

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Financial literacy is a big problem, and I've been building and using apps to help people manage their manage personal finances in a simple and easy way, while respecting their privacy. So I built Budget Zen, a tool that allows you to take back control of your budgets and expenses in a simple way, achieving piece of mind, and maintaining control of your data.This is "3.0". It's the evolution of a product I started building many years ago, when I was looking for a simple-to-use budget and expenses manager (everything I found was about managing income + expenses and connecting to your banks and showing you a bunch of charts). It is open source, end-to-end encrypted, and can be self-hosted. It has a 30-day free trial, and costs €2 / month or €18 / year after that.

Users appreciate Budget Zen for its simple and private financial management features. The idea of a self-hosted budget tracker is particularly well-received.

The video skips the data import part, which is crucial for understanding the process.

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