Subgrove vs Wallos: The Honest Comparison for 2026
App Comparisons · The Subgrove Team · · 4 min read
If you're comparing Subgrove vs Wallos, you've already worked out the thing most people never do: you want a subscription tracker that doesn't wire itself into your bank. Both of these agree on that completely. Neither uses Plaid, neither pulls your transactions, neither sells your data. So this isn't a privacy debate. It's a much more practical question — do you want to run the server, or do you want someone else to?
Let's be fair up front, because it matters: Wallos is excellent, genuinely free, and if you're the kind of person who already runs a home server, it might be the better answer. Here's the honest breakdown of where each one wins.
Subgrove vs Wallos at a glance
| Wallos | Subgrove | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Self-hosted, open-source (GPLv3) | Hosted PWA — nothing to run |
| Setup | Docker or PHP 8.3 + web server | Sign up, done |
| Platforms | Web (whatever you host it on) | iPhone, Android, desktop (PWA) |
| Bank linking | No | No |
| Price | Free software; you pay hosting | Free up to 5; $1.99/mo, $10/yr, or $15 lifetime |
| Multi-currency | Yes (Fixer API) | Yes, normalized into one total |
| Multi-user / household | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile app | Browser only | Installs on every device |
| Maintenance | Yours (updates, backups, uptime) | Ours |
Details as of this writing and subject to change. Wallos was at v5.4.2, July 2026.
Where Wallos wins
Let's not bury it. Wallos is free, open-source, and you own the whole thing. It's actively maintained — over 200 releases, 8k-plus GitHub stars, a v5.4.2 that shipped in July 2026 — with multi-currency conversion, budgets, categories, and household members. For a self-hosted project it's remarkably complete, and there's no company that can raise a price on you or shut it down.
If you already run a homelab or a small VPS, the marginal cost of adding Wallos is basically zero, and you get something no hosted app can offer: the data lives on hardware you control, under a licence nobody can revoke. For a certain kind of person, that's the whole game, and we're not going to talk you out of it.
If that's you — comfortable with Docker, happy maintaining your own updates and backups, already paying for a server — Wallos might simply be the right answer, and you can stop reading here. We'd rather say that than pretend self-hosting is a flaw. It isn't; it's a preference.
Where Subgrove wins
The catch with "free and self-hosted" is that someone has to be the sysadmin, and for most people that someone doesn't exist. That's the gap Subgrove fills:
- No server to run. Wallos needs Docker or PHP 8.3 with a web server, plus a place to host it. Subgrove is a hosted PWA — you sign up and start typing subscriptions in. There's nothing to install, patch, or back up.
- It's on your phone properly. Wallos is a web app you point a browser at. Subgrove installs to the home screen on iPhone, Android, and desktop and works offline, so checking your renewals is a tap, not a URL you have to remember.
- Push reminders that just arrive. Self-hosted reminders depend on your server staying up and your notification plumbing being configured. Subgrove sends push renewal reminders with per-subscription timing, and it's our job to make sure they fire.
- No hosting bill, no upkeep. "Free" software still costs a VPS and your weekend when an update breaks. A $15 lifetime plan is often cheaper than a year of the smallest server — and it's zero maintenance.
Both of us give you multi-currency totals and household sharing, so you're not giving those up either way.
The honest trade-off
Here's the plain version. Wallos is the better choice if you want to own the stack and you enjoy — or at least don't mind — running it. It's free, it's private, and it's yours. Subgrove is the better choice if you want the same private, no-bank, multi-currency tracking without becoming the person responsible for keeping it online.
The thing neither of us asks for is your bank login. Whichever you pick, you're avoiding the bank-linking trade-off the automated apps push on you. The only question is whether "private" for you means self-hosted or just doesn't touch my bank — and both are legitimate answers.
So which should you choose?
- Choose Wallos if you already run a server, want open-source software you fully control, and see setup and maintenance as a feature, not a chore.
- Choose Subgrove if you want the private, cross-platform, multi-currency version of that idea with nothing to host — on every device, with reminders that just work.
Not sure it's worth switching at all yet? Start with the free subscription cost calculator — add everything up in two minutes — then decide whether you'd rather host the tracker yourself or let us do it for a one-time $15.