Comparison

Visual Budget vs Best Budget

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

Head to head
About

Visual Budget

Manage personal and business finances with advanced analysis and consolidation. Track income and expenses across multiple accounts, set budgets, and visualize financial data with charts and graphs. Import transactions or input them manually for comprehensive financial oversight.

Highlights
  • Multi-account management
  • Customizable expense/income categories
  • Budget assignment and monitoring
  • Manual and automatic transaction import (CSV, OFX)
  • Recurring transaction setup
  • Financial overview and visualization tools
  • Graphical breakdown of transactions
Features
Read full description

With Visual Budget, easily manage your personal and business accounts using powerful, advanced analysis and consolidation features. Visual Budget can be used to handle several accounts simultaneously and sort them into different groups. Expense/income categories are automatically created based on a standard model that fits most needs. You can of course modify this category list to suit more particular requirements for each of your accounts. Two levels of categories/sub-categories allow you to define your budget plan in an easy but precise way. Assign a budget to every category, and accurately monitor the evolution of your income and expenses. You can input your financial transactions manually, or automatically by importing CSV (spreadsheet) or OFX (bank standard) files with iTunes file sharing. Check off your transactions to ensure that they match your bank statements. Define recurring transactions, such as a monthly Internet subscription, once and for all. Visual Budget also features Overview tools, allowing you to visualize the breakdown of your transactions and the changes in your balances in the blink of an eye, and to monitor your budgets efficiently Several graphs (bar or pie charts) provided by the application give you a clear and synthetic view of your transactions and their breakdown into expense, income, category and budgetary changes. The application comes with an example account featuring a dozen transactions which will allow you to quickly become familiar with it. Freemium version, limited to 50 transactions per account. Integrated purchase unlocks unlimited transaction creation. Universal application for iPhone/iPad, iOS 7.1 and above. Mac Version available on the Mac App Store.

About

Best Budget

This personal finance app helps you manage your money by creating unlimited income and expense budgets. Track transactions, monitor spending against your budgets, and gain insights into your financial habits. It offers robust reporting and data management features to help you become your own financial expert.

Highlights
  • Create unlimited budgets
  • Track income and expenses
  • Set budget details (name, amount, category)
  • Rollover budget amounts
  • Transfer funds between budgets
  • View transaction history
  • Generate income/expense reports
  • Export budgets (HTML, CSV, PDF)
Features
Read full description

Best Budget is an easy to use app to help you keep to a budget, as a personal finance application, you can create unlimited income and expense budgets with or without recurring, and track the transitions of each budget. With Best Budget, you can check your income and expense at a glance, and monitor which transactions are going on a budget. Best Budget will help you to become your own financial expert. Features: ⁃ Create unlimited expense or income budgets. ⁃ Set budget name, amount, type, category, date range and if no cycle or cycle by a specific date range etc. ⁃ Set if budget available amount is rollover or not. ⁃ Transfer available amount from one budget to another. ⁃ Add transactions to each budget. ⁃ View history of past circular budget. ⁃ Time marker to show the status of current date at each budget. ⁃ Custom a reminder to help you manage budgets. ⁃ Report to show your income and expense proportion of a date range. ⁃ Report to show percentage of each budget of a date range. ⁃ Export your budgets in form of HTML, CSV or PDF. ⁃ Custom date range of budgets to be exported. ⁃ Search transactions by name, amount and note. ⁃ Clean and tidy user interface. ⁃ Supports AirPrint. ⁃ Supports WiFi backup & restore. ⁃ Supports Dropbox backup and restore. ⁃ Support migrating data to pro version. ⁃ Supports Apple Watch version. If you have any question or suggestion, please email to userfeed@vip.tom.com.

Screenshots

Visual Budget4 screens
Best Budget4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Visual Budget at 4.7 against Best Budget's 3.9. Visual Budget also leads on ads (none vs shown) and update cadence (every 2 months vs every 6 months). Best Budget's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and device support (4 vs 2). On price, ratings volume and monetization model 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. Visual Budget sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Best Budget asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Visual Budget holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 3.9. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 164 and 68 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 88% of Visual Budget's written reviews are positive against 76% of Best Budget's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Visual Budget ships an update every 2 months, Best Budget every 6 months. The most recent releases landed on November 8, 2026 and November 1, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Visual Budget versus Best Budget: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterVisual BudgetBest Budget
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (164 ratings) — better3.9 (68 ratings)
Positive reviews88.0% of reviews — better76.2% of reviews
Number of ratings164 — better68
Update frequencyEvery 2 months — betterEvery 6 months
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemiumFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — better
Requires iOS26.016 — better
Further details — not scored
Size8 MB52 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperPascal Meziat倩 赵

Customer experience

Visual Budget

All ratings164 ratings
Positive92.1%
Neutral4.3%
Negative3.7%
Written reviews996 reviews
Positive88.0%
Neutral4.9%
Negative7.1%

Best Budget

All ratings68 ratings
Positive69.1%
Neutral13.2%
Negative17.6%
Written reviews227 reviews
Positive76.2%
Neutral6.2%
Negative17.6%

User reviews

Visual Budget

From 164 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 💻 Easy to use
  • 📊 Helpful budgeting and forecasting features
  • 🗓️ Customizable categories and recurring transactions
  • 📄 Useful reporting and PDF export
  • 🔍 Detailed transaction history and search

Room to improve

  • 🗓️ Limited future view (3 months)
  • 🔁 Difficulty managing recurring transactions
  • 🔄 Syncing issues between devices
  • 🔢 Lack of multi-currency support
  • 🤖 Unresponsive customer support

Best Budget

From 68 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Simple and easy to use
  • 🚀 Efficient budgeting features
  • 💡 Helpful for tracking expenses
  • 🔒 Secure and private
  • 👍 Great for managing multiple budgets

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional bugs and glitches
  • 💸 Aggressive advertising in free version
  • 🔍 Limited customization options
  • 🤔 Confusing interface for some users

Bugs and requests

Visual Budget

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Transactions shifting dates unexpectedly
  • Keyboard covering input fields
  • Inconsistent app performance over time

Requested features

5 requests
  • Extend future view to 6-12 months
  • Improve recurring transaction management
  • Seamless cross-device syncing
  • Add multi-currency support
  • Enhance reporting and analytics

Best Budget

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Transactions not saving properly
  • Budgets disappearing without explanation
  • Incorrect calculations and balance display

Requested features

4 requests
  • Ability to link accounts and sync data
  • More detailed reporting and analytics
  • Recurring income and expense options
  • Improved user guide and tutorials

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Visual Budget

One-time1
  • Unlimited Version$7.99
None

Best Budget

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Visual Budget free?
Visual Budget is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Best Budget free?
Best Budget is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Visual Budget or Best Budget?
Visual Budget is rated higher. Visual Budget averages 4.7 out of 5 from 164 ratings, while Best Budget averages 3.9 from 68 ratings.
Do Visual Budget or Best Budget have ads?
Best Budget shows ads; Visual Budget does not.
Which is updated more often, Visual Budget or Best Budget?
Visual Budget ships an update every 2 months, and Best Budget every 6 months. Most recently, Visual Budget was updated on November 8, 2026 and Best Budget on November 1, 2026.

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