Your Money. Your Device. Your Privacy.

A local-first expense tracker that never sends your financial data to the cloud.
Bank-grade encryption. Zero tracking. Complete ownership.

Launching March 2026 • Mac, Windows, Linux

🔒
AES-256 Encrypted
📴
Works Offline
🚫
Zero Tracking
💾
Your Device Only

Privacy-First by Design

Not just a promise. It's in the architecture.

🏦

Local-First Storage

Your transactions live in an encrypted database on your device. Not in someone else's cloud. Not on our servers. Yours.

🔐

Master Password Protection

One password to unlock your vault. We never see it, never store it. 256,000 PBKDF2 iterations make brute-force attacks impractical.

✈️

Offline-First

Track expenses on a plane, in a cabin, or anywhere without cell service. No internet required. No "sync failed" errors.

🎯

Simple & Fast

Add a transaction in 3 seconds. See your balance at a glance. No cruft, no upsells, no "premium features."

📊

Smart Budgeting

Set category budgets. Track spending trends. Export to CSV. All the tools you need, none of the complexity.

🆓

Truly Free

No subscriptions. No hidden costs. No "freemium" tricks. Download once, use forever. Support via optional donations.

Why Another Expense Tracker?

🕵️

Popular apps track everything you do

Mint, YNAB, Copilot — they know your income, spending habits, bank accounts. That data is valuable. Some get breached. Some get acquired. All of them mine your habits.

💸

Subscriptions add up fast

$15/month for a budgeting app. Really? That's $180/year to track your own money. After 5 years, you've paid $900 for software that should cost $0.

☁️

Cloud-first means you don't own your data

When the company shuts down (or gets acquired), your data disappears. Export to CSV? Sure, but good luck importing it anywhere else.

Vault fixes this. Your data lives on your device. Encrypted. Private. Under your control. Forever.

Questions

Is this actually free?

Yes. Download, install, use. No trial period, no premium tier, no upsells. If you find it valuable, you can donate via GitHub Sponsors, but it's 100% optional.

How is this different from Actual Budget?

Vault is inspired by Actual Budget but focuses even harder on privacy. Local-first by default (no sync unless you choose), simpler UI, and designed for people who want zero cloud dependencies. Think of it as "Actual Budget meets offline-first philosophy."

Can I sync across devices?

Optional encrypted sync is coming in Week 2 (post-launch). You'll be able to sync via iCloud, Dropbox, or self-hosted storage. Your data is encrypted before it leaves your device, so even the cloud provider can't read it.

What platforms do you support?

Desktop: Mac, Windows, Linux (via Tauri, ~15MB download). Mobile: iOS and Android coming in Month 2 (same codebase, smaller bundle than Electron).

Is the code open source?

Not yet, but planned after initial launch. I want to ship a solid v1.0 first, then open-source the core. Security-critical encryption code will be auditable from day one.

Who's building this?

Jack, a fintech developer who got tired of paying $15/month for budgeting apps that mine his data. This is a side project, built in public, focused on doing one thing well: tracking your money without tracking you.