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Envelope Budget vs Buddy: categories you spend against, or envelopes you fund
Both are manual-entry budgeting apps, so the honest difference is the model rather than the polish. Buddy's core object is a budget with categories you spend against; ours is a set of envelopes you fund from a specific paycheck, which makes the funding step and the unallocated pool visible. If Buddy is already working for you, switching is not obviously worth it, and we would rather say that than pretend otherwise.
The comparison you expected, and the one that matters
Most comparisons of two manual budget apps turn into an argument about which one looks nicer, which is a matter of taste and not worth a page. We make Envelope Budget, so take this as an interested party's read, and here is the distinction we think is real. Buddy is a manual-entry budgeting app: you log expenses yourself and they land in categories inside a budget, with shared budgets as a well-known part of what it does. Envelope Budget is a manual-entry envelope app: money is assigned into named envelopes from income you have actually received, and spending draws those envelopes down. Feature lists on both sides change, so check the App Store rather than trusting any comparison page including this one. The model difference is the durable part.
What funding buys that budgeting does not
In a category budget, an untouched category reads the same whether the money exists or not. Groceries at zero spent looks identical in the first week of the month and in a month where your second paycheck has not landed. In an envelope model, you fill envelopes from income you have, so a half-funded envelope is information: that money has not arrived yet, and the rest of the plan is a hope rather than a balance. The second thing it buys is a visible unallocated pool. Money that has not been given a job shows up as exactly that, which makes it hard to spend twice. If you get paid twice a month, or irregularly, that distinction stops being philosophical and starts being the whole point.
When you should stay where you are
If you are logging every purchase in Buddy and your money is behaving, do not switch. The rate-limiting step in any manual system is whether you keep entering things, and the app you have already built the habit in has an enormous head start over any app you have not. Switching costs you a rebuild of your structure and a couple of weeks of half-attention while the new layout stops feeling foreign, and the most likely outcome of a switch made for no particular reason is that you stop logging in both. That is not modesty, it is the arithmetic. Change tools when something specific is missing, not because a comparison page exists.
When we are the better fit
Come to us for something specific. If you are trying to reproduce cash stuffing without going to the bank, the fill step is the whole model rather than a setting. If you want envelope balances on the iPhone home screen and lock screen, that is a WidgetKit widget with a Live Activity, and it is what makes checking a balance a three-second act instead of an app launch. If you want the app to look like something you will open, there are six themes. If you are saving toward something specific, there are goals and a vision board attached to them. And if renting a budgeting app forever bothers you, there is a one-time purchase option. Those are the reasons to move. Nothing else on our side is worth a migration.
How to switch without retyping a year
Do not backfill. There is no import path between two manual apps that is faster than starting clean, and importing history into an envelope app produces a tidy archive that changes nothing about next week. The honest method takes twenty minutes. Open your current app and read off the categories you actually used in the last two months, ignore the ones with no activity, and create six to ten envelopes from what is left. Take your current account balance, subtract what is already committed to bills before your next payday, and fund those envelopes with what remains. Leave anything you cannot assign in the unallocated pool rather than inventing a home for it. Then start logging from today forward and let the old app hold the history.
The envelope change to make
Whichever app you end up in, make one change this week: stop budgeting a month at a time and start funding from the paycheck in front of you. Take your next deposit, name the envelopes it has to cover before the deposit after it, and put the money in only those. Everything further out stays unfunded on purpose. This is the single change that turns a plan into a balance, and it works in any tool that lets you record income and assign it. If your current app cannot express the difference between not funded and not spent, you now know exactly what you are shopping for.
Common questions
Is Buddy or Envelope Budget better?
Better at what. Both are manual-entry apps with no bank connection, so both require you to log purchases and both stop working the moment you stop. If you want a budget organized as categories you spend against, and shared budgeting matters to you, that points at Buddy. If you want money assigned into envelopes from income you have actually received, home-screen and lock-screen widgets showing those balances, and a one-time purchase option, that points at us. We make one of these, and the honest answer is that the model fit matters more than either app's polish.
Can I share a budget with my partner in Envelope Budget?
Not as a live shared budget. The app keeps your data on the device and does not require an account at all, which is good for privacy and bad for two people editing the same envelopes from two phones. What exists is a share card you can generate and send, so a partner can see where things stand without installing anything. If a genuinely shared, both-of-you-editing budget is a hard requirement, we are the wrong choice and you should pick a tool built around that, and be aware that it will require accounts on both sides.
Do either of these connect to my bank?
Neither is a bank-syncing product, which is the reason people end up comparing them in the first place. We never ask for banking credentials because the app has no bank connection to authorize. That means nothing is imported and nothing is categorized for you: every purchase in the app is one you entered. The trade is awareness for effort. If you would rather have accurate history with no typing, you want a bank-syncing app instead, and you should read our comparison of the three approaches at /compare before you install anything.
Run this budget on your phone
Envelope Budget puts these envelopes in your pocket. Assign every amount, log spending as it happens, and see what is actually left.
Get Envelope BudgetiPhone · manual entry, no bank connection · 7-day free trial