Pulse Local - Mac budgeting app with on-device AI
Show HN: Pulse Local, a Mac budgeting app whose AI models run on your machine
Pulse Local is a complete budgeting app for Mac that keeps your ledger and your questions on your machine. Unlike other apps that store your data on their servers or send your queries to a hosted model, Pulse Local runs AI models locally. It offers plans, targets, rules, rollover, splits, cash flow, and forecast, plus a private chat that answers from your own transactions. The app supports any currency and imports bank files from anywhere. The first launch downloads about 2.9 GB of AI models, and the largest model double-checks every money answer. You can use it for free or pay what you want. Bank sync via Plaid is available for US banks as an optional paid pass.
Your ledger, the models and every question stay on your machine.
- terwint
Very nice project. I think this is is in the step of the right direction for agent-driven assistance.
> How it works: you import a CSV from any bank, in any currency.
I think this is where you're going to lose people. If you're having to pull in data from multiple different sources, each with their own flow for exporting, I think this might be a non-starter for creating good financial habbit.
I recnetly had success integrating my local AI agent with Monarch money via an open source monarch MCP project. It took a bit of (AI) hacking the login stuff, but now I'm able to pull transactions, query patterns, have a daily report generated from hermes, etc. Much more technical that your target audience but possibly offers some inspiration.
- zyk_computer
I'm curious why you built a full budgeting app instead of adding a local AI chat to an existing open source app like Actual Budget.
- codebje
I gave it a go and imported a transaction CSV from my bank - National Australia Bank. 150 row CSV. The Description import column was assigned to the Merchant Name CSV column (the Merchant import column was also assigned to this CSV column) and as a result 25 rows were going to be ignored. Here's the CSV header row:
Date,Amount,Account Number,,Transaction Type,Transaction Details,Balance,Category,Merchant Name,Processed On
Hand-picking the Description column to be assigned to the details column sorted it out; not sure how you're auto-selecting column mappings but maybe 'details' should be recognised as closer to 'description' than 'merchant name' is.
- lathiat
I love the idea of local only apps woth no network comms. I do wish macOS had some way you could enforce that out of the box though. Rather than trust the claims of the developer.
Another app I love that does the same. Queryable which lets you natural language search your photos on device on iOS and predates most of the current AI craze (2022) and also apple adding this themselves to photos:
- haisin5555
You have a free budgeting app for Mac? Can you have as an app so I can download it in my iPhone? Can Pulse Local connect to my bank app and automatically records my spendings?
Also am curious about your reasoning behind usage of Qwen3.0 model as well!