Balancia is an open-source, self-hosted alternative to Splitwise and Tricount.
Add what each person paid, choose how to divide it, and Balancia calculates who
owes whom. Every feature is available without a paid tier, guests can
participate without creating an account, and a self-hosted instance keeps its
database and receipts on infrastructure you control.
Try it before you install anything
Three ways in, in order of how much they ask of you:
Open the live demo → — one click, no sign-up,
no email address. You get an account of your own, already holding a Lisbon trip
that converts several currencies into euros, a flat share that keeps them apart,
one expense per split method, a multi-payer bill, a repayment and a recurring
rent template. Add expenses, settle up, break it. Two visitors never see each
other's data, and yours is swept a couple of hours later. (demo / demo if
anything asks.)
Use the hosted app → — free, asks for no payment
card, and reserves no feature for a paid plan.
Self-host it — Docker and its Compose plugin, and nothing else on the host:
curl -fsSLO https://github.com/sebitr/balancia/releases/latest/download/bootstrap.sh
sh bootstrap.sh
Full instructions, and what you take on by running it, are in
Self-host with Docker below.
Screenshots
Every screen below is one you can reach in a click at
demo.balancia.app — they were captured from
it, banner and all, rather than drawn for the occasion.
The three above are the whole loop: see where you stand, split a bill, clear
it. These are the rest.
| Everything, in one figure | Adding a bill | What the group spent |
|---|
| | |
| Groups sorted into the ones that need you and the ones that owe you — with one total per currency, never a made-up combined one. | The category is suggested by a model on your own instance. Nothing about the expense leaves it. | Where the money actually went, with repayments listed beside expenses and every entry searchable. |
| Two currencies, kept apart | Coming from Splitwise | What it adds up to |
|---|
| | |
| A group can balance each currency on its own, or convert into one at a rate frozen when the expense was recorded. | A Splitwise CSV or JSON export, previewed before anything is written, and re-running the same file creates no duplicates. | Totals per person and per month, without a spreadsheet and without anything leaving the instance. |
Why people choose Balancia
| Fair by design | Your data stays yours | Easy for the whole group |
|---|
| Equal, exact, percentage and share-based splits always add up to the original total. | Self-host with Docker Compose. No third-party service is required at runtime. | Invite guests with a revocable link. They can participate without registering. |
| Record several payers on one bill and settle each currency precisely. | Leave anytime: export every group as JSON, CSV or Excel. Download receipts separately. | Import an existing Splitwise CSV export or JSON backup with a preview first. |
A good fit for
- Friends sharing travel costs in one or several currencies
- Flatmates splitting rent, utilities and groceries
- Couples using an uneven split such as 60/40
- Families, clubs, teams and bands with recurring costs or shared income
- People who want a transparent, inspectable and self-hosted expense tracker
Know before you choose it
- Balancia is young software maintained by a small open-source project.
- It is an installable web app (PWA), not an App Store or Play Store download.
- It shows a clear offline screen but does not accept financial entries offline.
- Self-hosters are responsible for HTTPS, updates, monitoring and backups.
See the full project status,
Balancia vs Splitwise and
Balancia vs tricount for candid decision guides.
Features
- Splits that always add up. Divide an expense equally, by exact amounts,
by percentage or by weighted shares. Money is stored as integer minor units,
so rounding never creates or loses value.
- Several payers on one expense. Record the bill once even when two or more
people paid it.
- Multi-currency groups. Balance currencies separately or convert into one
base currency using a rate frozen when the expense is recorded.
- Suggested repayments. See the deterministic set of repayments that clears
what the group owes.
- Recurring expenses and income. Schedule rent, subscriptions, utilities,
refunds, returned deposits or shared payouts in the group's timezone.
- Guest access without an account. A revocable invitation lets a guest view
the group, add expenses, settle up and upload receipts. A group's shared link
lets a newcomer in as a guest too, and a first group can be started with just
a name — the account comes later, when there is something to keep.
- Private receipt storage. Attach images and PDFs to expenses. Files remain
in the instance's local or S3-compatible storage behind authorization checks.
- Splitwise migration. Preview and import a Splitwise CSV export or JSON
backup. Re-running the same file does not create duplicates.
- Leave with your data anytime. Download every group as complete JSON, broad
compatibility CSV or an Excel workbook. Balancia does not depend on lock-in
to keep people using it; receipts can be downloaded separately.
- Passkeys and passwords. Authentication is implemented in this repository;
no third-party identity service is required.
- Ask your AI assistant. Add Balancia to Claude, ChatGPT or any assistant
that supports the Model Context Protocol (MCP) by its address and a sign-in
screen of Balancia's own — nothing to install and no key to copy. Ask who owes
whom, or have it record an expense. You choose read only or read and make
changes, every group or just one, and you can disconnect it at any time. See
AI assistants.
- Local categorization and receipt scanning. Optional models run on the
instance. Balancia sends no expense data to an external AI service; an
assistant you connect yourself sees only what you allow it to.
- English and French. Language, date format, number format and currency
preferences are independent. A language Balancia does not have yet is
a browser away.
Self-host with Docker
You need Docker with the Compose plugin. That is the whole list — no Git, no
Node, no checkout:
curl -fsSLO https://github.com/sebitr/balancia/releases/latest/download/bootstrap.sh
sh bootstrap.sh
Open http://localhost:3000 and create the first account.
bootstrap.sh is the installer and the setup wizard in one file. It asks where
to install, fetches the Compose files for its own release into that directory,
generates unique secrets into .env, asks which optional features to enable,
and offers to start the stack. It is safe to run again, and every answer —
including the no's — is written down, so it never asks twice.
What starts is PostgreSQL and the app, which runs its own background jobs:
two containers, one of them the database. Migrations are applied by the app
before it serves anything.
A standalone install pulls the application from Docker Hub, where releases are
published as sebitro/balancia
for amd64 and arm64, so the host never runs the Next.js build. To build from
source instead — which is what you want while changing the code — clone the
repository and run ./scripts/bootstrap.sh from inside it; it then asks which
of the two you want. Either answer is a single COMPOSE_FILE line in .env.
For a public domain, upgrades, reverse proxies and production responsibilities,
read the self-hosting guide. Back up .env, the
database and receipt storage together: backup.sh, installed beside
compose.yaml, takes all three at once, and the
backup guide covers restoring them.
Want to offer the same try-before-you-sign-up demo from your own instance?
compose.demo.yaml runs one, with no database and nothing persisted — see
running a demo.
Privacy and trust
Balancia has no advertising and requires no third-party runtime service.
Telemetry is off by default for self-hosted instances. If an administrator opts
in, the instance sends one anonymous, inspectable report each week; it never
contains amounts, names, receipts, group data, identifiers, IP addresses or the
instance address. Optional network integrations only run when an administrator
enables them. An AI assistant sees a group only when a signed-in person
connects it, and what it reads goes to whoever runs that assistant.
Financial correctness is treated as a product requirement:
- Monetary values use integer minor units, never floating-point numbers.
- Every allocation must sum exactly to the expense total.
- Every set of balances must sum to zero or it is refused.
- Exchange rates are decimal values frozen with the expense.
- Property-based tests exercise JPY, EUR, KWD and randomized edge cases.
Read the security model, telemetry design,
financial correctness notes and
dependency licence policy.
Documentation
Start with the documentation index, or go directly to:
Technology
Next.js 16 · React 19 · TypeScript · Tailwind CSS 4 · PostgreSQL 18 · Drizzle
ORM · pg-boss · Serwist · Vitest · fast-check · Playwright.
No Redis and no microservice fleet: one app container and PostgreSQL. Jobs are
queued in PostgreSQL through pg-boss and run inside the app; a larger instance
can move them into a worker container of their own with two lines in .env.
Community and support
Support the project
Balancia is free, has no paid tier and sells nothing. The hosted instance at
balancia.app, the demo, the translation platform and
the domains are paid for out of pocket.
A recurring donation pays the hosting; a one-off pays a year of a domain. Both
are welcome, and neither buys a feature — the roadmap stays in
todo/, in the open. If money is not what you have to give, a
star, a bug report or
a translation all help more than
they look like they do.
Licence
Balancia is licensed under
AGPL-3.0-or-later. You may use, inspect, modify and redistribute it.
If you run a modified version as a network service, you must offer its users the
corresponding source code. See the plain-language licence guide
for common scenarios.
Copyright © 2026 Balancia contributors.
