I Built a Free, Open-Source Wealth Freedom Tracker (Electron + Vue 3)

I spent the last month building a personal finance desktop app — not another SaaS that slurps your banking data, but something that runs entirely on your machine, with your data staying yours.

It's called Wealth Freedom, and it's free and open-source.

Why Yet Another Finance App?

Most finance apps fall into two camps:

• Cloud-dependent SaaS (YNAB, Mint) — your data lives on someone else's server, and they'll eventually enshittify or shut down
• Spreadsheet-based — powerful but painful to maintain, no visualization, no goal tracking

I wanted something different: local-first, privacy-respecting, but with the polish of a commercial app.

The 3-Stage Framework

Instead of just tracking expenses, the app guides you through three concrete financial stages:

1. Financial Security (财务保障) — Build 6-12 months of emergency fund
2. Financial Independence (财务安全) — Investment income covers living expenses
3. Financial Freedom (财务自由) — Passive income funds your dream life

Each stage has a clear target number calculated from your actual data. The dashboard shows your progress and estimated time to reach each stage.

Tech Stack

Electron 28 + electron-vite 2
Vue 3.4 + TypeScript 5.3
Element Plus + ECharts
better-sqlite3 (local database)

Why Electron? As an indie developer, cross-platform with web tech is the pragmatic choice. Three platforms, one codebase.

Key Features

• Transaction tracking with automatic categorization
• Budget management with real-time progress
• Investment portfolio tracking with asset allocation charts
• AI financial advisor (local LLM integration)
• Financial health score (5-dimension assessment)
• Multi-currency support with real-time conversion
• Data visualization dashboard (big screen mode)
• PDF report generation
• Automatic backup every 6 hours
• Dark mode (of course)
• i18n — Chinese and English, more languages welcome
• Demo mode — try it without entering any real data

The app has 29 views and works offline. Your financial data never leaves your machine.

Monetization (Transparent)

The core is free and open-source. A Pro tier ($3/month or $60 lifetime) unlocks:

• AI advisor (unlimited queries)
• Advanced financial insights
• Data encryption
• Priority support

This isn't a VC-funded growth play. It's sustainable indie software.

Try It

Download for your platform from GitHub Releases:

• macOS (DMG, arm64 + x64)
• Windows (Portable, x64)
• Linux (AppImage + deb, x64)

Or build from source:

git clone https://github.com/petterobam/wealth-freedom.git
cd wealth-freedom
pnpm install
pnpm dev

What's Next

• Mobile companion app
• Cloud sync (optional, end-to-end encrypted)
• Community features (anonymous benchmarking)
• More language support

If you're into personal finance, Electron development, or just want a privacy-respecting money tracker — give it a star ⭐. PRs welcome.

This is my first open-source project. Feedback and suggestions are genuinely appreciated.

用 ❤️ 和 AI 构建