What happened to Mint (and what you'll miss)
Mint is gone, so you can't actually choose it anymore. But it did a few things well, and any replacement should be judged against them. Here's what Mint got right:
- It was free and completely hands-off. Mint was free because it was ad- and affiliate-supported: Intuit made money recommending credit cards and loans and using your financial data to target them. If being the product in exchange for zero cost and zero setup worked for you, that was the whole appeal.
- Automatic bank sync across almost everything. Intuit's aggregation covered a huge range of US banks and cards with near-zero configuration. Finlynq supports direct bank connections (auto-sync) plus file / CSV / OFX import, but with narrower institution coverage than Intuit had.
- Bill reminders and a familiar auto-categorization flow. Mint's categorization and due-date nudges were simple and familiar to millions of people. Finlynq has auto-categorize rules and recurring / subscription detection, but the muscle memory is different.
- You never had to think about hosting. Mint was a hosted service with a team behind it. Finlynq has a hosted option at
finlynq.com/cloud, but its center of gravity is self-hosting, which means Docker, PostgreSQL, and owning your own password recovery.
When to choose Finlynq
Finlynq is the one to pick if any of these matter to you:
- You want a Mint replacement that can't be shut down on you. Mint proved that a free, closed, ad-funded PFM exists at the mercy of its owner's roadmap. Finlynq is AGPL v3 on GitHub and donation-funded, so you can always run it yourself and there's no acquirer to pull the plug.
- You're done being the product. Mint's business model was selling you financial products and using your data to do it. Finlynq has no ads, no affiliate cross-sell, and per-user envelope encryption (AES-256-GCM with a scrypt-derived key) so that if you self-host, even the operator can't read your payees, notes, tags, or account names.
- You want your data on your own hardware. Finlynq runs via Docker + PostgreSQL with the same feature set as the managed cloud. Mint could never be self-hosted, and when it closed, the product simply disappeared.
- You still have your old Mint export and want to keep the history. If you exported a Mint CSV before the shutdown (or have one from Credit Karma), Finlynq's staging-review import pipeline handles it, with dedup, transfer-pair detection, and multi-currency support.
- You want investments and multi-currency done properly. Mint's investment tracking was thin and US-centric. Finlynq ships lot-tracked cost basis, dividends, FX-aware aggregation, and RRSP / TFSA / RESP contribution-room tracking for Canadian accounts.
- You want a first-party MCP server with 75 HTTP / 93 stdio tools. Mint had no AI story at all. Finlynq ships MCP as a core feature (OAuth 2.1 + DCR, Bearer API keys, stdio), so Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client can read and manage your finances, plus an in-app AI chat with no client setup required.
Side-by-side
| | Finlynq | Mint |
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| Status | Actively developed | Discontinued (shut down March 23, 2024) |
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| Successor | n/a | Credit Karma (balances + credit score, not a PFM) |
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| License | AGPL v3 (open source) | Closed source (Intuit) |
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| Cost | Donation-based; no ads, no data sold | Free, funded by ads + affiliate cross-sell |
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| Business model | Donations | Advertising + selling financial products |
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| Hosting | Self-host (Docker + PostgreSQL) or managed cloud | Hosted SaaS (now gone) |
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| Data ownership | Your database; per-user envelope encryption excludes the operator (self-host) | Intuit-owned; used for ad targeting and cross-sell |
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| Encryption at rest | Per-user envelope encryption: AES-256-GCM with scrypt-derived KEK | Infrastructure-level only; Intuit held the keys |
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| First-party MCP | Yes, 75 HTTP / 93 stdio tools, v4.0.0 | None |
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| In-app AI chat | Yes, built into the UI | None |
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| Bank sync | Direct bank connections (auto-sync) plus file / CSV / OFX import | Intuit aggregation (broad US coverage, now gone) |
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| Import your old data | Yes, staging-review CSV / OFX pipeline with dedup | CSV export was available before shutdown |
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| Investments / portfolio | Lot-tracked cost basis, dividends, FX-aware aggregation, contribution-room tracking | Basic, US-centric |
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| Multi-currency | Native, with per-currency cost basis and historical FX | Weak; US-only in practice |
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| Native mobile app | Yes, native iOS and Android (App Store, Google Play) | iOS + Android (discontinued) |
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| Ads | None | Yes, core to the product |
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Migrating from Mint
- Find your Mint export.If you saved a transactions CSV before Mint closed, or have one from Credit Karma, you already have what you need. If not, unfortunately Mint's export is no longer retrievable, and you can start fresh from your bank statements instead.
- Import into Finlynq. Upload the CSV at
/import. The staging-review pipeline handles multi-currency, transfer-pair detection, and duplicate flagging, and you approve once you've reviewed the mapping. - Re-create your categories. Mint's category names don't carry over cleanly. Map columns during import, then tidy up with Finlynq's categories and auto-categorize rules so future imports sort themselves.
- Set up your budgets. Use the budget UI (or the
set_budget MCP tool) to re-author your most-used categories. - Connect your AI client.Open Claude → Customize → Connectors → "+" → paste
https://finlynq.com/mcp. OAuth handles the rest. For self-host, point Claude at your own deployment's /mcp URL. This is the part Mint never had.
FAQ
Is Mint still available?▾
No. Intuit discontinued Mint on March 23, 2024 and directed users to Credit Karma (also owned by Intuit). Credit Karma shows account balances and a credit score, but it doesn't do budgeting, net-worth tracking, or portfolio tracking the way Mint did, so most former Mint users are still looking for a real replacement.
What's the best free alternative to Mint?▾
If "free" means self-hosted, Finlynq is free forever under AGPL v3: run it on your own hardware with Docker and PostgreSQL and you pay nothing. If you'd rather not manage a server, the hosted cloud is donation-based with the same features. Unlike Mint, there are no ads and no financial products being sold to you, because that isn't how Finlynq is funded.
Is Credit Karma a good Mint replacement?▾
Not for budgeting. Credit Karma is built around credit scores and product recommendations, not budgets, net worth, or investment tracking. If you liked Mint for seeing all your accounts, categorizing spending, and tracking net worth over time, Credit Karma won't feel like a replacement. A dedicated PFM like Finlynq will.
Can I import my old Mint data into Finlynq?▾
Yes, if you have a CSV. Finlynq's import pipeline at /import accepts CSV and OFX files with a staging-review step that maps columns, flags duplicates, and detects transfer pairs before anything is committed. If you never exported before Mint shut down, you can rebuild your history from bank statement downloads instead.
Is there a self-hosted Mint alternative?▾
Yes. Finlynq is designed to be self-hosted: one Docker Compose file, a PostgreSQL database, and you own the whole thing. Your transaction notes, payees, tags, and account names are encrypted per-user with a key derived from your password, so even you-as-the-operator can't read them without logging in. That's a stronger privacy posture than Mint ever offered.
Why did Mint shut down, and could that happen to Finlynq?▾
Intuit closed Mint to consolidate users into Credit Karma. That risk is inherent to any free, closed, ad-funded product: it exists only as long as the owner finds it strategically worth running. Finlynq is structurally different: it's AGPL v3, so the code and your data are always yours, and it's donation-funded with no investors to answer to. Even if the hosted cloud ever went away, you could keep running your own instance.
Sources
- Intuit Mint shutdown notice(Mint discontinued March 23, 2024)
- Credit Karma (Mint's successor)(credit + balances, not a budgeting tool)
- Finlynq on GitHub(AGPL v3 source)
- Finlynq MCP guide(current tool counts + connect-to-Claude instructions)
Try Finlynq
Free, open source, AGPL v3. Run it on our managed cloud, or self-host with one Docker Compose file. You get the same features either way.