Comparison

Keep Afloat vs Budget Brief

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Keep Afloat

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Use Keep Afloat in three simple steps: 1 - Create portfolios to logically group your money and all of your investments and financial obligations. 2 - Create accounts within each portfolio. 3 - Add transactions to each account. Main features and functionality ・Unlimited portfolios, accounts, and transactions. ・Take advantage of the streamlined user interface that focusses on just the fundamentals of recording your financial situation. ・Set up automatically repeating transactions. ・Pin important transactions to pull them out of the traditional chronological order and move them to the top. ・Indicate transactions as planned so that you have everything covered and decide if you wish to include them in the account balance or not. ・Use your preferred text size (supports the full range of text sizes including all of the accessibility larger text sizes available in your device’s Settings app). ・Use in your preferred device orientation–portrait or landscape ・See your finances shine in Dark Mode. Keep Afloat uses the default currency from your device’s Language & Region setting in the Settings app.

About

Budget Brief

Log all your financial transactions to gain insights into your spending habits. The app provides various helpful breakdowns of your financial data.

Highlights
  • Transaction logging
  • Financial breakdowns
  • Spending insights
  • Cross-device support
Read full description

Get a variety of helpful breakdowns of your finances by logging all your transactions

Screenshots

Keep Afloat4 screens
Budget Brief2 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Budget Brief at none against Keep Afloat's 1. Budget Brief also leads on iOS requirement (18.6 vs 26.0). On price, update cadence, ads and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Keep Afloat sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Budget Brief asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Keep Afloat ships an update fortnightly, Budget Brief weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Keep Afloat versus Budget Brief: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterKeep AfloatBudget Brief
PriceFreeFree
Rating—3.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—0.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—2 — better
Update frequencyFortnightlyWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
Monetization—Free
DevicesiPhone, iPad, MaciPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS26.018.6 — better
Further details — not scored
Size4 MB13 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperDavid CantyYannik Bloscheck

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Keep Afloat

One-time1
  • Keep Afloat Premium$2.99
None

Budget Brief

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Keep Afloat free?
Keep Afloat is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Budget Brief free?
Budget Brief is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Keep Afloat or Budget Brief have ads?
Neither Keep Afloat nor Budget Brief shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Keep Afloat or Budget Brief?
Keep Afloat ships an update fortnightly, and Budget Brief weekly. Most recently, Keep Afloat was updated on October 26, 2026 and Budget Brief on October 24, 2026.

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