SpendNotes - Budget Tracker

SpendNotes is a lightweight, 16 MB budget tracker from developer Suhaib Al-Absi that has been quietly maintained since April 2020, with its most recent update landing in June 2026. It keeps things local, meaning your transaction data never touches an external server. Arabic language support and a Hijri calendar option make it notably more inclusive than most Western-centric finance apps. At a 4.76 store rating across 391 reviews, user satisfaction is genuinely high for a free, solo-developer tool.

Privacy as a Feature

The explicit commitment to storing zero user data on external servers is not just a bullet point here, it shapes the whole product. For anyone wary of finance apps quietly harvesting spending patterns for ad targeting, that promise matters. There is no account sign-up, no cloud sync to a third-party backend. Your income and expense records live on your device, which is a real and concrete differentiator in a category full of data-hungry competitors.

Arabic and Hijri Calendar Support

Full Arabic language support paired with a Hijri calendar is the feature that genuinely sets SpendNotes apart from generic budget trackers. Most finance apps treat non-Gregorian calendars as an afterthought or ignore them entirely. For users who organize their financial lives around the Islamic calendar, having native Hijri date entry and display is practically useful, not cosmetic. It signals that the developer built this with a specific audience in mind rather than bolting on localization later.

Where It Shows Its Limits

Because all data is local-only, there is no cross-device sync and no backup safety net beyond whatever the user sets up through iCloud device backups. The app also supports multiple accounts and custom categories, which is solid for a free tool, but the feature set stops there. Users wanting bill reminders, recurring transactions, or budgeting targets by category will hit a ceiling fairly quickly. The in-app purchase structure is not clearly documented in available facts, so costs beyond the free tier are uncertain.