actual-server/README.md

This is the main project to run Actual, a local-first personal finance tool. It comes with the latest version of Actual, and a server to persist changes and make data available across all devices.

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Non-technical users

We are working on simpler one-button click deployments of Actual. This will reduce the friction for people not as comfortable with the command line. Some non-official options are listed at the bottom.

Running

It's very easy to get started. Clone this repo, install deps, and start it:

git clone https://github.com/actualbudget/actual-server.git
cd actual-server
yarn install
yarn start

Go to https://localhost:5006 in your browser and you'll see Actual.

Running via Docker

To run using a Docker container you can use following commands;

git clone https://github.com/actualbudget/actual-server.git
cd actual-server
docker build -t actual-server .
docker run -p 5006:5006 actual-server

Deploying

You should deploy your server so it's always running. We recommend fly.io which makes it incredibly easy and provides a free plan.

fly.io allows running the application directly and provides a free tier. You should be comfortable with using the command line to set it up though.

Create an account. Although you are required to enter payment details, everything we do here will work on the free tier and you won't be charged.

Next, install the flyctl utility. Run flyctl auth login to sign into your account.

Copy fly.template.toml to fly.toml. Open fly.toml and customize the app name on the first line of the file.

Now, run flyctl launch from actual-server. You should have a running app now!

Whenever you want to update Actual, update the versions of @actual-app/api and @actual-app/web in package.json and run flyctl deploy.

Using a custom Docker setup

Actual is also available as a Docker image ready to be run in your own custom environment.

• Docker Hub: jlongster/actual-server
• Github Registry: ghcr.io/actualbudget/actual-server

Persisting server data

One problem with the above setup is every time you deploy, it will wipe away all the data on the server. You'll need to bootstrap the instance again and upload your files.

Let's move the data somewhere that persists. With fly.io we can create a volume. Run this command:

flyctl volumes create actual_data

Now we need to tell Actual to use this volume. Add this in fly.toml:

[mounts]
  source="actual_data"
  destination="/data"

That's it! Actual will automatically check if the /data directory exists and use it automatically.

You can also configure the data dir with the ACTUAL_USER_FILES environment variable.

One-click hosting solutions

These are non-official methods of one-click solutions for running Actual. If you provide a service like this, feel free to open a PR and add it to this list. These run Actual via a Docker image.

• PikaPods: Run on PikaPods

Configuring the server URL

The Actual app is totally separate from the server. In this project, they happen to both be served by the same server, but the app doesn't know where the server lives.

The server could live on a completely different domain. You might setup Actual so that the app and server are running in completely separate places.

Since Actual doesn't know what server to use, the first thing it does is asks you for the server URL. If you are running this project, simply click "Use this domain" and it will automatically fill it in with the current domain. This works because we are serving the app and server in the same place.