I have not used Quicken; I've used GnuCash exclusively. It feels a bit rough with the UI:
- Double-entry book keeping is a bit awkward; you wind up entering values twice, but the point of that is to reduce errors
- Budgeting is a relatively new feature, and I haven't looked into it yet
- You have to think of transfers among accounts, not categories or other fuzzy organization
- It's been around a long time, and the UI isn't flashy, but functionality is what really matters
- I suspect an Accounting 101 text would help me use GnuCash more effectively.
Balancing that, the data is stored in a gzip-compressed xml file. The compression is also optional, so you can save it as a plain xml file. This means that you have some hope of recovery if you wind up with a corrupted file. (And for programmer-types, you could keep it in source control for additional peace of mind.)
My wife and I have been using it for several years now, and has worked well for us.
LWN.net had a pair of Grumpy Editor reviews on personal finance software here and here which would be worth reading.
Answer from retracile on Stack ExchangeAssuming I already own the disc version of quicken is there an advantage of switching to GNU?
GNUCash is a bit more like formal accounting than Quicken. Quicken's investment tracking tools are easier to use. Features did not drive me to GNUCash. Intuit did it. I find them and their constant nagging to buy new stuff very irritating, especially given that I was paying them update fees every three years as it was.
As an accountant and business owner, GNUcash really helps you understand your business because you do bonafide old school accounting.
I have not used Quicken; I've used GnuCash exclusively. It feels a bit rough with the UI:
- Double-entry book keeping is a bit awkward; you wind up entering values twice, but the point of that is to reduce errors
- Budgeting is a relatively new feature, and I haven't looked into it yet
- You have to think of transfers among accounts, not categories or other fuzzy organization
- It's been around a long time, and the UI isn't flashy, but functionality is what really matters
- I suspect an Accounting 101 text would help me use GnuCash more effectively.
Balancing that, the data is stored in a gzip-compressed xml file. The compression is also optional, so you can save it as a plain xml file. This means that you have some hope of recovery if you wind up with a corrupted file. (And for programmer-types, you could keep it in source control for additional peace of mind.)
My wife and I have been using it for several years now, and has worked well for us.
LWN.net had a pair of Grumpy Editor reviews on personal finance software here and here which would be worth reading.
The best way to answer this question is to try. GnuCash is free, so setting it up and giving it a go shouldn't be too hard. After all, what really matters is how helpful the program is for your purposes.
One aspect of personal finance that stops me from jumping to GnuCash/KMyMoney/MoneyDance is the ability to download transactions from my financial institutions. Last time I checked, the process was somewhat involved and support was limited for a handful of banks. Because of that, I decided to stick with MS Money (and once Microsoft dropped the ball, with Quicken). I am sure things are better these days, but I am still not comfortable with trusting my finances to something new and unproven. I still remember how painful it was several years ago, when some bug in MS Money caused occasional mess-up of the reconciliation state for the American Express credit cards.