# Ray vs Mint

Mint was the default personal finance app for over a decade. After it shut down in 2024, millions of users lost their go-to budgeting tool. Here's how Ray compares to what Mint used to offer.

### Ray

An open-source CLI that connects to your bank via Plaid and gives AI-powered financial advice. Runs locally on your machine. $0 self-hosted or $10/mo managed.

### Mint

Shut down in March 2024

Mint was a free, ad-supported personal finance dashboard owned by Intuit. It aggregated bank accounts, tracked spending by category, and showed your credit score. It shut down in March 2024 and migrated users to Credit Karma.

## Feature comparison

| Feature | Ray | Mint |
| --- | --- | --- |
| AI financial advice | Yes — conversational AI advisor | No |
| Bank sync | Yes (Plaid) | Yes (was Plaid/Yodlee) |
| Data storage | Local only (encrypted) | Cloud (Intuit servers) |
| Open source | Yes (MIT) | No |
| Pricing | $0 self-hosted / $10/mo managed | Free (ad-supported) — discontinued |
| Privacy | No cloud storage, PII-masked AI calls | Data stored on Intuit servers, ads based on financial data |
| Mobile app | No (CLI-based) | Yes (was polished iOS/Android) |
| Budgeting | AI-assisted budget tracking | Category-based budget limits |
| Investment tracking | Yes — holdings, gains, cost basis | Basic portfolio view |
| Debt payoff planning | Yes — avalanche/snowball simulations | Basic debt overview |

## Key differences

### Actually available

Mint shut down in 2024. Ray is actively maintained, open source, and not going anywhere — because you run it yourself.

### AI that gives advice, not just charts

Mint showed you pie charts of where your money went. Ray answers questions like "can I afford this trip?" and "should I pay off debt or invest?" using your real data.

### No ads, no data monetization

Mint was free because you were the product. Ray is open source with no ads, no tracking, and no cloud storage of your financial data.

### Local-first privacy

Your financial data stays on your machine in an encrypted database. Mint stored everything on Intuit's servers.

## Pricing comparison

### Ray

$0 self-hosted

$10/mo managed

Open source, MIT licensed. All features included.

### Mint

Free (ad-supported) — now discontinued

Shut down in March 2024

## The verdict

Mint was a great free option for people who wanted a simple dashboard to see where their money went. It had a polished mobile app and millions of users. But it's gone now — shut down in March 2024, with users pushed to Credit Karma.

Ray takes a fundamentally different approach. Instead of showing you dashboards, it gives you an AI advisor that actually answers financial questions using your real data. It runs locally, so your data never leaves your machine. The tradeoff is real: Ray is a CLI tool with no mobile app and no visual dashboards. If you want charts and graphs on your phone, Ray isn't that.

But if you want something that actually helps you make better financial decisions — and that you control completely — Ray is a strong successor to what Mint tried to be.