Bilance vs Buddy

Buddy is a friendly Swedish budgeting app for Apple devices; Bilance works on both iOS and Android, publishes its full bank list, and automates categorisation and subscription tracking. Buddy’s custom budgets and shared-budget workflow are genuinely well designed, but it publishes very little: no bank list, no free-tier limits, no current trial duration. We make Bilance; every fact here comes from an official page, checked on the date above.

What Buddy does well

• Budget flexibility. Custom categories, multiple budget plans, a custom month start day, and bi-weekly budgeting. Reviewers consistently praise how pleasant it is to use.
• Sharing with settlement. Shared budgets sync between partners or roommates, and its Split feature calculates who paid what and how to settle up. Bilance’s Shared Finances shares chosen bank accounts between two people, but it does not do settlement maths; if splitting costs with roommates is your main need, Buddy does that better.
• Deep Apple integration. iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch from one listing, plus compatibility with Apple-silicon Macs and Apple Vision.

Where Bilance is stronger

• You can check coverage before installing. Bilance publishes its bank list: 2,300+ banks across the EU/EEA, browsable by country. Buddy names its connection providers (Plaid and Salt Edge) in its terms but publishes no bank count and no country list, so the only way to know if your bank works is to install and try.
• Published terms. Buddy’s terms say a trial may be offered, but they do not publish a current duration, and its free-tier limits are not published. Bilance is plain: a paid subscription, no permanent free tier, and most new users start with a full-featured trial; the exact terms are shown in the app before you pay.
• Automation. Bilance categorises most transactions automatically, improves with your corrections, and detects subscriptions and recurring bills from your real transactions. Buddy’s terms describe automatic categorisation through Open Banking, but whether it learns from corrections is not documented.
• A built-in AI assistant. Bilance’s AI Chat answers questions from your own numbers: spending by category or place, what your subscriptions cost in total, “can I afford this?”. It is the closest thing to having someone to talk to about your money, any evening. We could not verify any AI feature on Buddy’s site or App Store listing.
• Both major phone platforms. Bilance runs on iOS and Android. We could not verify an Android app or web version for Buddy, so a household with both iPhone and Android should check with Buddy before relying on it.
• Net worth. Both track accounts and debts; Bilance adds manual assets like your home or investments to a full net-worth picture in 24 languages.

How we tested

We compared Bilance and Buddy across bank sync, automation, recurring payments, net worth, sharing, platforms, and pricing model. Every non-Bilance fact in the table comes from the vendor’s own website, help centre, legal documents, or app store listing, opened on the date shown with that cell’s source link. Where we could not verify a point, the table shows a dash instead of a guess. Bilance behaviour was checked in the current product. We did not run hands-on device tests of the other app for this article. The verdict is our editorial judgment, not a scored ranking, and we recheck the facts every two months.

Side by side

Both apps’ bank sync depends on each bank’s own interface quality, so sync reliability varies by bank for both.

Switching from Buddy

We could not find a documented export feature on Buddy’s official site or in its terms; its privacy policy gives you the legal right to request a copy of your personal data, which is not the same as a transaction export. Check inside the app before you cancel. Bilance has no file import either way: you connect your banks and recent transactions sync in directly; most are categorised automatically and improve with your corrections. How far back the history reaches depends on each bank.

Which one is for you?

Choose Buddy if everyone involved uses Apple devices and your main job is a shared budget with roommate-style settlement, or you want a hand-crafted budget with maximum flexibility and do not mind testing your bank connection after installing.

Choose Bilance if you want to verify your banks are covered before you start, want categorisation and subscription detection done for you, or your household mixes iPhone and Android. Each completed month also gets a Monthly report, so you see where the money went without building the overview yourself. Doing the work for you across European banks is the whole point of Bilance.

Frequently asked questions

Does Buddy work on Android?

We could not verify an Android app or web version for Buddy; its listing covers iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, with Apple-silicon Mac and Apple Vision compatibility. Bilance runs on iOS and Android.

Can I check if my bank works before installing?

With Bilance, yes: the full bank list is published and browsable by country. Buddy publishes no bank list, so check inside the app or ask its support team before relying on it.

Which app is better for roommates splitting costs?

Buddy. Its shared budgets include settlement calculations for who owes whom. Bilance Shared Finances is built for two people sharing chosen bank accounts, without settlement maths.

Can I export my data from Buddy?

We could not find a documented export feature on Buddy official pages; its privacy policy covers requesting a copy of personal data. Bilance exports all transactions as CSV from Settings.

For the wider field, see the best budgeting apps in Europe.