Wealthwise

A self-hosted personal finance app to help you track and hopefully reduce your spending, build buffer for unexpected needs with emergency fund, and accumulate wealth through diversified investments. Import bank & brokerage statement PDFs and/or connect accounts via Plaid; Claude classifies each transaction into a category/subcategory. Track spending, account coverage, and investment allocation over time. AI also assists to set rules to classify your expenses. All data stays on your own machine in a local SQLite file — nothing is sent to a third party except the transaction text you ask Claude to classify, (optionally) Plaid, and (optionally) RentCast, which receives a property's address if you opt it in to automated valuation.

Single-tenant and local-first: one household shares one database and one login — there are no separate per-user accounts. Locally it runs with no login by default; for any deployment reachable over the internet it ships a built-in shared-login gate that fails closed until you set a password (see Sharing across devices).

Screenshots

Transactions & categories	Accounts	Sign in

_{All screenshots use fake demo data. To refresh them after a UI change, run npm run screenshots from app/ — it rebuilds the demo dataset and recaptures the dashboard shots. It never reads or writes your real database.}

Stack

• Next.js 15 (App Router) + React 19 + TypeScript
• Tailwind CSS 4
• SQLite via better-sqlite3 + Drizzle ORM
• @anthropic-ai/sdk (Claude) for transaction classification
• plaid + react-plaid-link for optional bank sync
• pdfjs-dist for client-side PDF text extraction
• Chart.js for visualizations

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+ and npm
• An Anthropic API key for classification — the only thing you actually need. Get one at https://console.anthropic.com/settings/keys (classifying a statement costs pennies), or paste it into the in-app Settings dialog at runtime instead of using a file.
• (Optional) Your own Plaid account + credentials, only if you want automatic bank sync. Everything works without it — see API keys.

Bring your own keys. These are personal credentials tied to your own accounts and billing — use your own, never someone else's. Sharing Plaid production secrets in particular means other people's bank connections would land under (and be billed to) your Plaid account.

Quick start

git clone <your-fork-url> wealth-radar
cd wealth-radar/app
npm install
cp .env.example .env.local     # then edit .env.local (see Configuration)
npm run db:migrate             # create the SQLite database
npm run dev                    # http://localhost:3000

That's enough to import statement PDFs. To classify transactions, provide an Anthropic key either in .env.local (ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=) or via Settings in the top-right of the UI (stored in your browser's localStorage, sent per-request). The UI key wins when both are set.

API keys — bring your own

Anthropic (required, easy). Sign up at the Anthropic Console, create a key, and either set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in .env.local or paste it into the app's Settings. Pay-as-you-go; classifying a statement is a few cents.

Plaid (optional, more involved). Bank sync needs your own Plaid account, and the two environments differ a lot in effort:

	Sandbox	Production
Access	Free, instant — no approval	Requires a Plaidproduction access request (a review), and can carry cost
Banks	Fake test institutions	Your real banks
Use for	Trying auto-sync, development	Actual daily use

Getting Plaid credentials:

1. Create a free account at the Plaid Dashboard.
2. Copy your client_id and Sandbox secret from Developers → Keys, and set PLAID_CLIENT_ID, PLAID_SECRET_SANDBOX, and PLAID_ENV=sandbox. In Plaid Link's sandbox you sign in to a test bank with user_good / pass_good.
3. For real banks, request Production access from the dashboard (Plaid reviews it), then set PLAID_SECRET_PRODUCTION and PLAID_ENV=production. Plaid's Quickstart walks through the whole flow.

For most people the PDF-import path (Anthropic key only) is the simplest way to run the app — Plaid is an optional power-up. Getting Plaid production access approved for personal use is the one real hurdle, so don't let it block you: start with PDFs. And again, each person needs their own Plaid credentials — you can't reuse someone else's.

Configuration

All configuration is via app/.env.local (copy from .env.example). Everything except the Anthropic key is optional.

Variable	Purpose
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	Server-side key for classification. Optional if you paste one in the UI.
DATABASE_URL	SQLite file location. Defaults tofile:./data/app.db.
NEXT_PUBLIC_ACCOUNT_OWNERS	Comma-separated names for the account-owner dropdowns, e.g.Alex,Sam. A "Joint" option is always added. Defaults to Person 1,Person 2.
PLAID_CLIENT_ID	Plaid client id (only for bank sync).
PLAID_ENV	sandbox (default) or production.
PLAID_SECRET_SANDBOX / PLAID_SECRET_PRODUCTION	Per-environment Plaid secret (PLAID_SECRET is a single-secret fallback).
PLAID_COUNTRY_CODES	Defaults toUS.
APP_ENCRYPTION_KEY	Required if Plaid is used. Base64 32-byte key that encrypts stored Plaid access tokens. Generate with the command below.
RENTCAST_API_KEY	Optional. Enables automated property value estimates via RentCast (free tier: 50 requests/month). Leaving it unset disables the feature entirely — properties stay manually valued.
AUTH_USERNAME / AUTH_PASSWORD	Shared login gate. SettingAUTH_PASSWORD turns it on; in a production build it fails closed (refuses to serve) until you do. AUTH_USERNAME is optional.
AUTH_SECRET	Signs the session cookie; falls back toAUTH_PASSWORD if unset.

Generate an encryption key:

node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('base64'))"

If no Plaid variables are set, the app runs in PDF-only mode.

Usage

1. Upload a bank-statement PDF via the drop zone (text is extracted in your browser).
2. Claude extracts and classifies each transaction; review and adjust categories inline.
3. Save All — saved transactions live in the SQLite DB. Re-categorizing a merchant is learned and biases future classifications.
4. Filter by date range; view monthly/category charts and investment allocation.
5. (Optional) Connect a bank via Plaid to sync recent transactions automatically. Note Plaid only returns roughly the last 90 days — older history must come from statement PDFs.

Duplicate detection runs on save (same date|description|amount|bank|account is skipped), plus a cross-source pass that reconciles the same charge arriving from both a statement and Plaid.

Where your data lives

Everything is under app/data/ (gitignored except taxonomy.json):

File	Purpose
app.db	The live SQLite database — all accounts, transactions, and connections
taxonomy.json	Category/subcategory definitions used by the classifier and UI (tracked in git)

Back it up by copying app.db. To move your data to another machine, copy app.db directly — and if you use Plaid, copy the same APP_ENCRYPTION_KEY, or the stored bank tokens won't decrypt.

Sharing across devices

Because the DB is a single file, two people who want to share the same data should run one instance both can reach — copying the file to a second laptop just creates two databases that diverge. Turn on the built-in login gate (set AUTH_PASSWORD) before exposing it anywhere. Practical options:

• One always-on machine (home server, spare laptop, small VM) running npm run build && npm start, reachable from your devices over a private network like Tailscale.
• A managed host. Fly.io is a good fit — this repo ships a Dockerfile and fly.toml, and DEPLOY.md is a full walkthrough: a persistent volume for the SQLite file, the login gate, moving an existing database up, and optional GitHub Actions auto-deploy. Any host with a persistent disk works; serverless platforms with ephemeral filesystems don't, unless you move off file-based SQLite.

Production build

npm run build
npm start            # serves the production build on :3000

Troubleshooting

• Port 3000 in use: lsof -ti:3000 | xargs kill -9
• "No Anthropic API key configured": open Settings and paste a key, or set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in .env.local.
• "Could not extract text from PDF": the PDF is scanned/image-based. Run it through OCR first.
• Plaid connection fails to save: ensure APP_ENCRYPTION_KEY is set to a valid base64 32-byte value.

Feedback & contributing

• Bugs & feature requests → open a GitHub issue (there are templates).
• Questions & ideas → use Discussions.
• Security issues → please report privately — see SECURITY.md, not a public issue.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for dev setup and PR guidelines. This is a small self-hosted project maintained in spare time — friendly feedback is very welcome.

License

MIT.