January, 2026 - Faz Business | فاز الأعمال

City Tales Medieval Era Free Download (Build 21683600) –

Posted on January 31, 2026 by faz_business

City Tales Medieval Era Pre-Installed Worldofpcgames

City Tales Medieval Era Direct Download:

Become the leader your people need, shaping their districts and providing them with the means to thrive and expand your grand kingdom. But don’t fret my Liege; you are not alone. Companions with invaluable skills will aid you in this endeavour as their fates become intertwined with your City Tales. Multiple maps to choose from: Start your new realm in one of the two beautiful locations available. Organic cities: Forsake rigid grids and shape large cities that evolve naturally with a unique district zoning tool. A relaxing pace with challenges: Enjoy rewarding play in a beautiful medieval world, where challenges emerge from the evolution of your city and it’s economy. A leader of the people: With your companions, who’s skills develop with your guidance, create a city to the peoples needs and desires. I Hate This Place

Each district has its own needs and desires, depending on the people who live there. Some citizens will love a tavern, whilst others prefer the peace of a church. But each area will evolve based on your choices. Guide the pulse of a bustling economy. Balance resources with swift, wise decisions and lay the groundwork for your city to rise like a beacon of medieval progress. With a variety of decorations, truly make this city your own by customizing your buildings and streets. Show off your prosperity! With 9 companions, bring strength and knowledge to your city’s economy and story alike. By placing them in charge of vital points of production, they train them to become autonomous and add bonuses. Help them in their own missions to bring even more depth to your city and it’s people.

Features and System Requirements:

Design living medieval settlements that grow naturally, with winding roads, bustling districts, and evolving neighborhoods shaped by your decisions.
Watch your settlement transform across eras, unlocking new buildings, technologies, and social challenges as your influence expands.
Manage resources, production chains, trade routes, and taxation while balancing prosperity, social classes, and long-term stability.
Designed for both thoughtful planners and casual builders, City Tales blends calm pacing with deep strategic layers.

Screenshots

System Requirements

Recommended
OS: Windows 10/11
Processor: Ryzen 5 1600X / Intel Core i5 8400
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 580 / Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: 16 GB available space
Support the game developers by purchasing the game on Steam

Installation Guide

Turn Off Your Antivirus Before Installing Any Game

1 :: Download Game
2 :: Extract Game
3 :: Launch The Game
4 :: Have Fun 🙂

Practical Automations That Actually Work (And How You Can Use Them)

Posted on January 31, 2026 by faz_business

AI agents aren’t magic. They’re not autonomous coworkers ready to run your accounts unsupervised. And they’re definitely not ready for you to unleash and forget about them. Continue reading “Practical Automations That Actually Work (And How You Can Use Them)”

Return to Silent Hill is a disaster, and further proof that Hollywood still hasn’t figured out how to adapt horror video games

Posted on January 30, 2026 by faz_business

Often, in Silent Hill 2, you need to find an item that’s inside a toilet. Typically, they’re keys, or fragments of puzzle pieces, things that you need to progress the story forward. In other words, Silent Hill 2 is a game that forces you into uncomfortable or grim situations; you have to press a button multiple times to make James Sunderland dig through the detritus, muck, and gross liquids to dig out the items you need.

The point of this isn’t just for the game to gross you out, but to force agency onto you. In order to move forward, you need to make unpleasant choices. This is often at the core of how horror works in video games: you, the player, actively respond to – and sometimes create – horrific situations. And this seems to be one of the major reasons that horror games seem to struggle when it comes to being adapted for the big screen.

Return to Silent Hill, a new film that attempts to adapt the classic horror game, is a bad adaptation. It is also, unfortunately, a bad film. It’s tempting to lay some of this at the feet of a script that seems to ignore any real fidelity to the source material – there are several character and plot choices that are baffling – but more than that, something that doesn’t seem to grasp the spirit of Silent Hill 2, and of horror games more generally: that the point of the horror comes from the active ways in which it happens. And yet, Return to Silent Hill presents a cast of characters who are enormously passive; even James himself seems to experience the events in the passive voice.

As a game, Silent Hill 2 is about forcing the player deep into not only an unsettling physical location, but a mental one as well, as the town distorts through James’s increasingly damaged psyche. And there are moments of this in the film: as it reaches the climax, everything around James becomes almost literally hellish. And the film’s monsters are interesting in their design and grotesque physicality; the first appearance of Pyramid Head can send a jolt through you. But these aren’t the things that make Silent Hill 2 so unique, or so beloved.

Missing the mark

Jeremy Irvine as James Sunderland, looking at himself in the mirror in Return to Silent Hill — (Image credit: Entertainment Film/Aleksandar Letic © 2025 Room 318 Productions, Inc)

Silent Hill 2 is about sharing a physical and psychological space with someone who’s deeply damaged and difficult to understand. But the film insists on cutting away from him, spelling it all out through phone calls with a therapist talking to James about grief and his inability to let go of the past.

Often, the game is just James, alone, wandering through the town of Silent Hill. And while this might not work on film – there needs to be dialogue, more characters, other ways to advance the plot beyond watching someone solve puzzles on screen for hours – the adaptation is always at risk of undermining what makes the game work so well.

Some of this is the problem of adaptation itself. The recent remake of Silent Hill 2 can take around sixteen hours to beat, a lot of material to condense into a film that’s under two hours. It’s no wonder then, that some of the film’s most iconic moments and important characters seem to appear in order to have a moment in the spotlight, only to disappear moments later.

A pivotal scene with Angela is recreated well enough visually, as she and James face off in a room where one wall is dominated by a large mirror, but the substance of it is lost in translation. Moments and ideas from the game are adapted onto the screen, but not in a way that seems to cohere around the ideas that animate the game itself – it’s uglier, more unpleasant than the incredibly clean sheen that Return to Silent Hill has.

The Friday Roundup – Nested Projects and Vlogging Cameras

Posted on January 30, 2026 by faz_business

Film in a nest instead of a nested project.

Nested Projects – PowerDirector Video Editing Basics

There is a particularly handy feature within PowerDirector and many other video editing programs that allows you to take an existing sequence and use it for other purposes.

So the problem here is trying to explain what it is and when you would use it!

The feature is actually called Nested Projects which of course communicates absolutely nothing!

So rather than have me stumble forward trying to explain… just watch the video cos’ it’s a really cool feature!

Best Vlogging Cameras in 2026!

As I have mentioned quite often in the past, the one category that remains missing from the D.I.Y Video Editor is a review section on cameras or video recording devices.

The reasons for that are pretty simple!

First up I have neither the time or the resources to keep up with that market especially given the rate at which it is developing.

Secondly, if you drill down the the very core of who I am, you will ultimately find a person who really doesn’t want to work that hard!

Sure I can bang out a weekly blog roundup and the occasional technical article… but that’s about peak output for me thank you very much!

So for me the best way to keep abreast of these things is to have reliable sources and in the video below you can see some camera reviews from a reliable resource.

Best Camera Apps for iPhone & Android

I think it was last week that I posted a link to an up to date review of current camera app for both iPhones and Android.

This is another one for this week from a different source so maybe they can offer a slightly different perspective.

I still think one of the best ways these days to get into shooting video is with a phone as the quality is really quite good.

Once you have done that I also think the next logical step is to get a good camera app on that same phone and take control of the footage you are using.

Maybe that will be good enough for you but if you then want to move to a more advanced camera you will already have a basic understanding of some of the settings.

How to use the GenAI Image Replacement feature in PowerDirector

This is just a straight up run through of how to use the A.I. driven Image Replacement tool in PowerDirector.

I have used this tool often myself and to be honest when it works it works great and when it doesn’t… it can be truly bizarre!

Anyway check it out for yourself in the video and you will see what I mean.

Text Behind Person Effect – Filmora 15

Ah, the old text behind the subject trick, always a reliable effect that looks pretty good!

Once you run through this tutorial once you will see just how simple it is to pull of this effect and even if you are not using Filmora, it is the same in other editing software.

The bottom line is that this effect always looks like a million bucks as long as you don’t overdo it!

Basic Training for Adobe Premiere Elements 2026, Part 8 of 8 – YouTube

Well this brings us to Part 8 of Steve Grisetti’s eight part series introducing the basics of Adobe Premiere Elements 2026.

In this final episode Steve covers the last stage of editing a project which is the final render and export covering all the options and choices available.

DaVinci Resolve 20 Quick Tip: Motion Graphics Made Easy in Resolve

Given the fact that the whole point of DaVinci Resolve is to allow professionals to create their own original effects, transitions, motion graphics etc., it is surprising just how many presets are actually inside the program!

When it comes to those presets what is also amazing is just how much control you can exercise over almost every part or characteristic of a given preset.

So if you are lazy like me and dread the thought of building motion graphics, even DaVinci Resolve has you covered!

Check out the video to see the full extent of what you can do.

Fusion Explained in PLAIN LANGUAGE – DaVinci Resolve Tutorial for Beginners

OK so let me repeat myself here for about the hundredth time.

The most powerful page or module in DaVinci Resolve is the Fusion Page.

If you are using Resolve as your editing solution and are not using the Fusion Page then you are missing out in a big way.

Having said that the Fusion Page is easily the most daunting part of Resolve and just looking at it can cause dizziness!

So, here is yet another attempt by the very nice Casey Faris to explain and demonstrate the Fusion Page in plain English!

Best Audio Tools For Creators in 2026

I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is a complete list of audio tools available at the moment but it does represent some tools I go to quite regularly.

I often have to deal with some rather rough audio that comes as part of videos that were recorded by creators “on the fly” so to speak.

Very often those creators are out and about, spot and event or something interesting so immediately hit record and away they go!

The results are usually pretty good from an image perspective but most of the time the audio is terrible because of noisy environments or onboard microphones.

So for me Adobe Podcast and Audacity are usually open and ready to go most of the time!

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In Screening for Antisemitic Content, Claude AI Takes Top Honors

Posted on January 30, 2026 by faz_business

As exciting as the possibilities for AI are, the Internet will always be, well, the Internet. For all the users putting AI to worthy use, there are plenty of malicious individuals using AI to undress people in photos, create deepfakes, and make discriminatory content. The Anti-Defamation League investigated the most well-known large language models and ranked them according to their ability to screen for antisemitic tropes. Claude and ChatGPT lead the way, while Grok struggled, landing well behind China’s DeepSeek AI.

The ADL’s investigation, conducted between August and October of 2025, assessed each LLM’s ability to detect user-submitted antisemitic content. It found that the type of communication made a difference: the AI models were proficient at identifying discriminatory or stereotype-heavy content when it appeared in survey questions. Document summaries, on the other hand, provided a bigger challenge.

Credit: ADL

The LLMs also had mixed results across different types of problematic material. According to the ADL, the AI models had trouble catching extremist content, but were better at spotting “anti-Jewish tropes.” They were worse at catching anti-Zionist material. In the end, though, the ADL found that all of the AI models have room for improvement.

Anthropic’s Claude LLM outperformed all five competitors, achieving an overall performance score of 80. OpenAI’s ChatGPT came in second place with a score of 57, followed by DeepSeek (50), Gemini (49), Llama (31), and Grok (21).

The result of this investigation is the ADL AI Index, which shows how the LLMs fared and how they compare. The ADL stressed that all six LLMs need improvement when it comes to recognizing antisemitic content.

“As people increasingly interact with LLMs, it is essential that these tools do not perpetuate hate and harm and have safeguards in place to effectively counter misuse,” the ADL wrote on its website.

Credit: ADL

It’s worth mentioning that the ADL’s investigation represents the state of these LLMs at a specific point in time—namely, the fall of 2025. The companies responsible for the AI models may have made improvements since then.

Over the summer, Grok 4 (developed by Elon Musk’s xAI) made headlines for both its high performance and its troubling loyalty to Elon Musk’s harmful views. The issue led xAI to make adjustments to mitigate the LLM’s behavior.

Uber will soon have you riding in style in a driverless Mercedes-Benz S-Class

Posted on January 30, 2026 by faz_business

Uber, Nvidia and Mercedes-Benz have joined hands to develop a fleet of luxurious robotaxis based on the German carmaker’s S-Class platform. The companies recently confirmed the collaboration as part of a broader effort to build a global robotaxi ecosystem that combines Mercedes’ luxury sedan with Nvidia’s autonomous driving technology and Uber’s ride-hailing network.

The partnership builds on Uber’s ongoing work with Nvidia announced in October last year, in which Nvidia’s DRIVE AV software and DRIVE Hyperion architecture are being used to make vehicles “level 4 ready.” This means the vehicles will be capable of operating without human intervention in predefined conditions.

Mercedes-Benz says it has selected the new S-Class as the core vehicle for its robotaxi plans, citing the sedan’s advanced engineering and software architecture. The luxury model will be integrated with Mercedes’ proprietary MB.OS operating system, which provides a foundation for partners to build autonomous applications on the vehicle’s computing platform.

There’s no clear launch timeline yet

Uber’s role in this partnership is to integrate these autonomous vehicles into its ride-hailing service, enabling users to summon robotaxi through the Uber app. While no firm launch timeline has been announced, the partnership is aimed at deploying autonomous robotaxi services in several major cities worldwide.

The collaboration comes as competition in the robotaxi space continues to intensify. Companies like Waymo and Tesla have already tested robotaxis on public roads, but the sector faces growing regulatory and safety scrutiny. Waymo, for example, is currently under investigation after multiple incidents of its robotaxis violating traffic laws were reported last year.

Mozilla says it’s building a ‘rebel alliance’ to challenge Big Tech and what it’s doing with AI, which is wild but I’m kind of here for it

Posted on January 30, 2026 by faz_business

Mozilla has been carving out a space for itself in this new and frightfully fast-growing world of AI. Last month, there was backlash when it announced that Firefox would “evolve into a modern AI browser.” Since then, it seems Mozilla has been clarifying what exactly this means, possibly in an attempt to reassure those who are worried the browser might become too AI-centric. And now, it’s even going as far as to characterise itself as helping build a “rebel alliance” against Big Tech.

The company has released an animation- and graphic-heavy roadmap and report, which in many ways reads like a very dramatic vision statement about how it can challenge the way that AI is developing at the hands of Big Tech. It’s kind of bonkers, but in a way that I can’t help but get on board with.

Top 27 Sites to Hire Freelance Furniture Shop Drawing Services & CAD Designers

Posted on January 30, 2026 by faz_business

In today’s post, we’re exploring the best sites to find freelance furniture shop drawing services and CAD designers. Hiring the designer to turn your furniture designs into reality is like flirting a bit. You toy around with trying to figure out who actually gets what is going on in your mind and secretly hope you don’t get someone who thinks that a surfboard-shaped coffee table is the end of humankind. The best part is that there are numerous websites on which you can obtain professional CAD designers and shop drawing experts to assist you in your project. Cad Crowd is one such website, and believe me, it is just a fantastic website where you can surely hire the best freelancers who are not only innovative but also accurate with their work.

1. Cad Crowd

Cad Crowd would suit best those who require outsourcing freelancers to do furniture shop drawings and CAD designing. Cad Crowd operates in the service of the clients and well-reviewed 3D design experts whose reputation has already been built. The other websites are nothing but a profile page, but Cad Crowd has a compassionate project-match-up policy and the best available CAD drawing designers. From accurate shop drawings to accurate 3D CAD or technical furniture drawings as needed by manufacturing, Cad Crowd makes it all easy for you. You can simply upload a project, have a design contest, or even just get a professional directly hired. Even confidentiality and secure working with projects are handled by the site, making it the most appropriate for confidential projects. With individual guidance and sponsorship by Cad Crowd community, it is the best choice.

Website: Cadcrowd.com

2. McLine Studios

McLine Studios is a design company that specializes in the creation of precise furniture shop drawings and bespoke CAD solutions. The individuals at McLine Studios are less concerned about the crossover of function and form. Their clients will be using this service the most often when they need technical documents that are a lot more complex than usual design work. Their projects may include product modeling or full-size furniture arrangements.

They have worked on projects with numerous different types of clients, such as manufacturers, architects, and interior designers who need particular shop drawings to inform their manufacturing. McLine Studios offers communication, where the client’s expectation is set before even commencing any project. It prevents expensive revisions and time waste. For those who detest having a professional studio around but love wandering in gigantic freelancer bazaars, McLine Studios is an experiment to take on.

Website: Mclinestudios.com

3. Lamon Luther

Lamon Luther is an industrial firm that provides something apart from technical shop drawings and CAD. The firm started with the dream of providing opportunities in craftsmanship for craftsmen and individuals renewing their lives. Even while Lamon Luther started crafting custom-order furniture, they also worked on activities such as technical shop drawings. Any person seeking career fulfillment as well as societal fulfillment might be inclined toward this company. They combine old craftsmanship with the accuracy of modern CAD. From custom furniture to architectural details, designs can turn correspondence sideways to suit manufacturing requirements. Though not an independent platform like Cad Crowd, Lamon Luther is unique because it has a human touch. Their service is more like a feeling of being good and doing well, and being proper shop drawing.

Website: Lamonluther.com

4. AGCADDesigns

AGCADDesigns is a CAD solutions provider that deals in providing accurate CAD solutions for furniture shop drawings and optimizing manufacturing. The company earned its trust by carefully coming up with high-detail documents aimed at guiding manufacturing teams. The company offers different classes of customers, ranging from furniture manufacturing firms to architecture firms, a chance to buy high-quality technical products. Customers have also been taken aback b

y the accuracy in design and work completion as agreed upon on a frequent basis. While there may not be a large number of freelancers to pick from, as in the best websites like AGCADDesigns, the beauty lies in personal touch and professionalism. If you require a service where technical focus is always laid on accuracy and even the smallest details are attended to, AGCADDesigns can be your solution. Attention to detail with their professional standards is extremely high, and everything is kept very accurate from the design stage through to the finish stage.

Website: Agcaddesigns.com

5. Qureos

Qureos is a fresh new portal on the web with the intention to link professionals and projects, and provide services from shop drawings for furniture to CAD design. Unlike all the other freelance websites, Qureos is a schoolhouse and open workspace. The website will pair tomorrow’s 2D and 3D drafting talent on a permanent basis with clients constructing portfolios in the guidance of seasoned industry professionals. For those stores that do need shop drawings, this is one method of receiving innovative ideas at affordable prices.

It should be noted, however, that there is an element of the fact that there is an opportunity that there would be no such positive relation of level of experience, because the site also foresees professional development. Qureos is best suited for co-authorship and prototyping low-scale projects. While not as sophisticated as Cad Crowd’s filtering system, Qureos is adequate for buyers who are willing to settle with amateur designers.

Website: Qureos.com

6. Archinect

Archinect is among the web forums that are hip in nature and are utilized as a platform by creatives, architects, and 3D designers. While the site itself is quite hip due to the job placement and career networking, they also employ working professionals who are proficient in furniture boutique design and CAD services. Archinect clients would also like to hire designers who will have the ability to finish the artistic and technical part of a job as well. Of course, Archinect is not as niche as Cad Crowd. It is more of a social networking platform, so customers will be spending more time finding the perfect professional to do some of the shop drawing activities.

Website: Archinect.com

7. Bark

Bark is a service website that is a services marketplace where customers and professionals intersect in numerous categories, from CAD draftsmen to drawing specialists in furniture stores. Clients may ad-blast and then be bid upon by professionals whose skill sets they need. Bark is easy to find near or far professionals in real time without the need to search profiles manually. Filtered is bundled free as part of the service, i.e., filter prospective candidates based on skill set and availability. Bark is too broad in application and is neither CAD nor shop drawing-specific. The skill and capability of CAD drafting freelancers can therefore be far too skewed. Clients in search of highly specialized skills will need to search high and low for a perfect fit. For convenience reasons only, Bark would still be worth its while to make technical project introductions.

Website: Bark.com

8. ShalinDesigns

ShalinDesigns is a design firm specializing in precise CAD solutions, particularly for manufacturing, such as furniture shop drawings. ShalinDesigns has earned the reputation of being diligent and of delivering deployable technical documentation to the production staff. ShalinDesigns typically works on behalf of customers in the furniture manufacturing, interior design, and architecture sectors and provides services ranging from read-to-assemble parts up to end component drawings.

Clients permit the team to deliver on time with an extremely high degree of precision. Even though the freelancer websites are not a neater destination, ShalinDesigns is a neater services company, so it would be appropriate for the individual who would prefer to hire an experienced set of employees instead of fly-by-night employees. Even though Cad Crowd is still better in terms of greater randomness of freelancers, ShalinDesigns can be employed on several occasions to obtain high-end professional CAD service.

Website: Shalindesigns.com

9. TaskRabbit

TaskRabbit is simply referred to as the website where local service, with fixings, errands, and home maintenance, is scheduled, but it also has areas where CAD technical drawing services can be provided. This adds up to the level where potential clients on the lookout for furniture store sketching service can sometimes be able to search for CAD designers offering their services on TaskRabbit. TaskRabbit succeeds because it is fast and convenient.

Jobs are posted, and customers are immediately matched up with any available experts who are online and geographically in their vicinity. It was never intended to be a CAD or specialty trade drawing site. It is therefore disadvantaged in capability, and current skill sets are not necessarily specialty trades. TaskRabbit is good enough for low-end and small-scale work, but not high-end technical reports. Professional-grade work, however, demands Cad Crowd to be the professional, higher-grade option.

Website: Taskrabbit.com

10. BluEnt

BluEnt is an international company offering architecture and design engineering services, such as furniture shop drawings and CAD reports. BluEnt operates by offering assistance for projects of gigantic magnitude involving accuracy and uniformity. BluEnt experts typically collaborate with architects, manufacturers, and contractors to produce drawings. Their services are not any higher than furniture, and they have a wonderful array of design and drafting services to select from.

BluEnt is an outsourcing service business function, and therefore more attractive to someone who wants professional mass-form service and not freelance deals. Communication, project management, and dependability are cherished in their configuration. BluEnt is not uniquely made for solo players such as Cad Crowd, but is a structured and secure way of processing large projects that need professional expertise.

Website: Bluent.com

11. Creativepool

Creativepool is an Internet website for creative professionals and also serves as a place to host portfolios and as a recruitment website. Yes, it is used in design, media, and advertising, but one also gets clients who can work with individuals who are CAD and furniture shop drawing experts. Another excellent aspect of Creativepool is that one can see everything visually on how the job is being carried out, thereby making it easy for a client to actually view a designer’s taste and competence immediately.

Once more, though, as more of an amateur designers’ site than a specialist CAD website, specialists available from shop drawings would be greatly limited. For buyers wishing to shortlist competent designers with both flair for design and technical skills, Creativepool would be perfect. Where specialist furniture drawings must be accomplished, Cad Crowd is a specialist forum of professionals to whom to promote the job.

Website: Creativepool.com

12.Outsourcely

Outsourcely is a platform where businesses are matched with freelance off-site professionals in the area of architectural design & drafting services and furniture store layouts. Short-term offices are different from Outsourcely because there are long-term working relationship clients who could possibly be helped with if continuity in working on such ongoing designs is needed. Its strength is price since the freelancers are sourced from all across the world, where labor is cheap.

Clients get to scroll through more than profiles, delve into skills, and even chat with the potential employees. Outsourcely lacks the screening level or industry expertise that Cad Crowd has. It therefore relies on the buyer to screen for capability. Although perhaps adequate for low-budget projects or stay-at-home replacements, one seeking the crème de la crème shop drawing service will instead direct their attention to Cad Crowd.

Website: Allremote.jobs

13. Superior Shop Drawings LLC

Superior Shop Drawings LLC is a skilled agency business involved in creating higher-order, best-in-class shop drawings of custom woodwork and furniture. They are better qualified in terms of millwork drafting services, furniture, and cabinet design, and therefore are in the highest demand by the manufacturers as well as the builders. They generally produce elevation drawings, section details, and construction level drawings, which can be drawn up on the spot.

Superior Shop Drawings LLC is not a single independent organization but a professional, detail-conscious organization pledged to industry standards. Customers who require experts who, apart from recognizing the delicacy of woodwork items, will maintain their work as an individual item can merely admire such an undertaking. Even though Cad Crowd is a big freelance community, Superior Shop Drawings LLC distinguishes itself with a technical precision approach and experience-based.

Website: Superiorshopdrawings.com

14. Enginerio

Enginerio is a design house, new product design, technical drawing, and furniture shop drawings CAD company. The organization is proud to provide services to meet clients’ needs, and it is best suited to both small and large projects. Enginerio desires to concentrate on detail, efficient process, and timely execution to make sure that what it provides is quality-based, based on manufacturing requirements. Its staff is also flexible enough to be utilized across industries, ranging from furniture design to general engineering sectors.

Smaller but more diverse than Cad Crowd’s industry, Enginerio possesses process-oriented and business-oriented thinking that will appeal to businesses with a high demand for quality project management. Precision finder with the urgency of a fast turnaround can use Enginerio as a reliable platform for CAD and shop drawing requirements. Enginerio is based on reliable technical reports.

Website: Enginerio.com

15. CAD Drawing Works

CAD Drawing Works is a firm that offers CAD drawing design, such as furniture shop drawings, to manufacturers and furniture design companies. The firm appears to be a committed business partner to companies that need high-precision technical drawings with industry-standard compliance. Consumers would adore the precision, accuracy, and convenience of drawings from CAD Drawing Works. They provide 2D drawing, 3D modeling, and tailored solutions that may be used in a sequence of furniture procedures.

CAD Drawing Works is less time-sensitive and more professional than the freelancer websites, which could be suitable for customers who would not complain about hiring a fixed set of individuals instead of looking for them one by one. While Cad Crowd provides quality professionals and skilled personnel, CAD Drawing Works could be a sure-shot method towards procuring professional CAD drawing solutions on a day-to-day basis.

Website: Caddrawingworks.co.uk

6. Ashlar Design Studio

Ashlar Design Studio is a design firm with shop drawing and CAD designing experience in furniture manufacturing. The firm has established itself in acquiring artistic design concepts as well as technical precision. They start from precise shop drawings to 3D furniture modeling services that could possibly drive reality to become the end product. Ashlar Design Studio clients typically say that the staff takes the extra mile to communicate and present details.

They work to produce documents directly ready for production, reducing production mistakes and ensuring workflow ease. Ashlar Design Studio is quieter and less low-level skill-oriented than freelance marketplace websites such as Cad Crowd, but it caters to customers who want intense interaction with a team that prides itself on innovation, accuracy, and timely completion on furniture and interior design models.

Website: Ashlardesignstudio.com

17. Outside The Box

Outside the Box is a product design company that offers a creative kind of CAD solution, e.g., furniture shop drawings with the appropriate amount of technical information and artistic flair. The company is also well-known for its out-of-the-box and accommodating approach to designing problems, which is perfect for the client who demands novelty and precision. Services encompass detailed technical reports, 3D model creation, and custom drawings for one-off furniture.

Outside The Box clients who have hired the firm typically comment on the firm’s high responsiveness and flexible approach until a proper project description is received. Specialist-oriented and more focused, the studio offers good value for quality to entrepreneurs and teams in need of innovative design and high-quality shop drawings. Outside the Box is also a viable alternative for the studio-style arrangement.

18. ArchiCGI

ArchiCGI is primarily famous for 3D architectural visualization services of the highest quality, with utmost care in developing photorealistic images and 3D photos. Although the website is best suited to represent marvelous visual ideas, it is less sensitive to the technical demands of furniture shop drawings and CAD reports. The customers requiring manufacturing scale drawings are not professional and accurate enough for the production quality documentation in ArchiCGI.

The site is better suited to cast artistic concepts of spaces and products, but not as well equipped to detail-centric precision required in shop drawings. ArchiCGI will thus not be suitable for high-end clients requiring furniture CAD services. The customers would be best served by being exposed to pages such as Cad Crowd, which guarantees exposure to technical, production-oriented CAD drafting services experts.

Website: Archigci.com

19. Toptal

Toptal takes pride in being a gateway to connecting clients with the most talented 3% of freelancers across most categories. It does offer access to experienced practitioners, but its first strength lies in coding software, finance, and project management, and not furniture shop drawings or CAD reports. Clients seeking technical drawing services will have to search a bit harder on Toptal for the set of skills than on specialty sites. The company’s quality filter screen ensures quality, but prevents access to seasoned building experts in categories like furniture store shop drawings. Toptal would thus not meet this particular requirement. Companies are better placed to get more technical and detailed results at Cad Crowd, where the company’s shop drawing service is the main category, ahead of ancillary services.

Website: Toptal.com

20. Truelancer

Truelancer is an international freelancing website that offers exposure to gigantic talent pools for all industries. It is utilized to start freelancing, but not furniture shop drawings or CAD design projects. The website sometimes specializes in cost-conscious shoppers, but it also suffers from erratic quality. It will be hard to acquire professional shop drawing experts on Truelancer, and clients will have to spend an enormous amount of time scouring profiles for a general match. No experience filter in this sector is low-ROI relative to specialist platforms for CAD professionals. According to the above, Truelancer won’t be appropriate for clients demanding quality, production-standard furniture shop drawings. Cad Crowd is the best option.

Website: Truelancer.com

21. Indeed

Indeed is a big job board globally where employers can hire professional staff for a wide range of diversified jobs. It can be used for full-time employment, but it is not a specialized website for freelance shop furniture drawings or CAD design job vacancies. Indeed is an open job website that invites applications from applicants of a common background and without specialized skills. It is not as high-speed an operation as a one-site, either, in that it has been worked on a more à la carte sort of basis.

Same-day turnaround store pulling solutions aren’t going to be something businesses seeking them are going to be able to post on Indeed. The clients will be forced to sort through a vast talent pool and most likely and often more than not, pay and invest more money and time than they have to. Cad Crowd still has the best chance of providing quick, accurate, and professional CAD work.

Website: Indeed.com

22. PeoplePerHour

PeoplePerHour is one of the online platforms where one can hire a professional to get a lot of work done, including CAD designing. The company is not well-established to hire professionals for the furniture shop. Most of the freelancers do general marketing, software services, or general designing, and hence it could be difficult to find professional 3D CAD design experts. The bidding is also not consistent because the freelancers bid based on price and not quality.

This tends to generate hybrid output that is not capable of achieving the level of precision that it requires in order to create production-worthy shop drawings. Even if the site contains some project management functions, the site lacks the narrow filtering that avoids technical report inconsistencies. Due to this reality, PeoplePerHour would not be used to its optimum for the shop drawing service. Cad Crowd excels at holding out the promise of employing top-level experienced CAD professionals.

Website: Peopleperhour.com

23. Freelancer

Freelancer is a behemoth global platform for freelancing with tens of millions of members providing services in almost every other area of service imaginable for human minds. While comprehensive, quality of service provided tends to be patchy, particularly for sophisticated applications, such as for furniture shop drawings. Clients are destined to see the experience of a bidding war where bidders bid low prices at any given time, at the expense of quality. That is okay in the case of ordinary work, but not technical reports of high technicality and precision. Without screening, production of high quality cannot be assured. All those, Freelancer is not for professional shop drawings stalkers. Cad Crowd is supported by its emphasis on connecting the customers with experienced, well-screened CAD drafting and design professionals.

Website: Freelancer.com

24. Behance

Behance is a highly popular site where professional designers showcase their portfolios. Artists, graphic designers, and illustrators use it most often, so it is an excellent source to view examples. Never utilize Behance in technical CAD staff hiring or purchasing furniture shop drawings. We can have all our CAD designs exposed to the public, but there are no project management pages and recruiting pages institutionalized on the website. Customers will need to call one by one and negotiate prices, resulting in redundant complexity due to being on multiple sites. Behance is better placed to browse and get inspiration and look at designs, but not to get production-quality technical drawings. Thus, it is not appropriate for customers needing shop drawing services. Cad Crowd provides the perfect balance of convenience, expert know-how, and experienced CAD expertise.

Website: Behance.net

25. Guru

A website that refers companies to independent product design specialists in an extensive range of industries. Although the talent pool is adaptable and specialized, it is not as well-suited to furniture shop drawings or CAD reports. The website is an open website, and it lacks the high-end filtering that will ensure clients are matched with specialists with technical manufacturing specs experience. Expert Guru experts typically work in other fields, and extra effort and time need to be spent to obtain an appropriate expert. Customers also get mixed results depending on the competitive bidding nature of the website. To provide quality output, proper drawings, and conduct a search, Guru is not appropriate. Cad crowd with shop drawing and CAD designing proficiency will provide more accurate and consistent output to corporations.

Website: Guru.com

26. Fiverr

Fiverr is one of the most popular freelancing websites where specialists offer services for a base minimum price. It has a thousand freelancers in a thousand niches, but it is not a location where one can come with the aim of purchasing furniture shop drawings or CAD reports. It is low-cost and fast work, and maybe some compromise on the detail and technical level. Fiverr shop drawings have to be very detailed and require professional trade skills that not every Fiverr freelancer can provide. Customers spend a lot of time going through reviews, profiles, and mini-projects before they reach the individual they need. Customers wait, and therefore, Fiverr cannot be the right option for technical drawings that will be needed on a project. Fiverr wouldn’t be suitable for accurate, exact, and production-quality shop drawings. Cad Crowd would be perfect with professional CAD specialists.

Website: Fiverr.com

27. Upwork

Upwork is the globe’s leading website for freelancing that contains almost all professionals and experts. The website includes communication, milestone, and payment tools that can be used in cooperative freelancing work. With regard to CAD reports and furniture store drawings, however, the website cannot be ranked among the best. The huge talent base becomes loaded, and even when quality furniture rendering designers are on the rolls, screening is discriminatory. The clients are put through delays, a lack of competence, or a discriminatory nature of work, particularly for the technology precision demands, such as specialty work. The bidding would also entail cost savings at the cost of quality. Upwork is therefore not appropriate for shop drawing services. Firms will value Cad Crowd more, with technical accuracy and professional CAD experts being the top.

Website: Upwork.com

How Cad Crowd can help

Your furniture items may look bare when you put them in your home, but all the effort that goes into designing is what makes the drawings and the CAD render so stunning to install. The professional freelancer will save you time, avoid errors, and provide your project with the same appearance as if it were created for an upscale catalog. If you are ready to let the experts turn furniture shop drawings into masterpieces, call Cad Crowd now and discover top Freelance Furniture Shop Drawing Services and CAD Designers who are ready to do it for you. Contact us for a free quote.

MacKenzie Brown is the founder and CEO of Cad Crowd. With over 18 years of experience in launching and scaling platforms specializing in CAD services, product design, manufacturing, hardware, and software development, MacKenzie is a recognized authority in the engineering industry. Under his leadership, Cad Crowd serves esteemed clients like NASA, JPL, the U.S. Navy, and Fortune 500 companies, empowering innovators with access to high-quality design and engineering talent.

Connect with me: LinkedIn ✦ X ✦ Cad Crowd

The best budgeting apps for 2026

Posted on January 30, 2026 by faz_business

Managing your finances doesn’t have to be a headache — especially with the right budgeting app at your fingertips. Whether you’re trying to track everyday spending, save for a big purchase or just keep a closer eye on your subscriptions, there’s an app that can help. With Mint shutting down, plenty of users have been looking for the best budget apps to replace it, and luckily there are plenty of solid alternatives.

From AI-powered spending trackers to apps that break down your expenses into easy-to-follow categories, the best budgeting tools help you take control of your money without the hassle of spreadsheets. Some focus on automating savings, while others give you a deep dive into your finances with powerful analytics and custom reporting. If you’re still searching for the right Mint alternative, check out our guide to the best budgeting apps to replace Mint to find the best fit for your needs.

If you’re not sure where to start, we’ve rounded up the top budgeting apps to help you track spending, save smarter, and stick to your financial goals.

Best budget apps of 2026

Quicken

No pun intended, but what I like about Quicken Simplifi is its simplicity. Whereas other budgeting apps try to distinguish themselves with dark themes and customizable emoji, Simplifi has a clean user interface, with a landing page that you just keep scrolling through to get a detailed overview of all your stats. These include your top-line balances; net worth; recent spending; upcoming recurring payments; a snapshot of your spending plan; top spending categories; achievements; and any watchlists you’ve set up. You can also set up savings goals elsewhere in the app.

Getting set up with Simplifi was mostly painless. I was particularly impressed at how easily it connected to Fidelity; not all budget trackers do, for whatever reason. This is also one of the only services I tested that gives you the option of inviting a spouse or financial advisor to co-manage your account. However, it doesn’t connect to Zillow, a feature I wish it had. Various competitors including Monarch Money and Copilot Money work with Zillow, so clearly there’s a Zillow API available for use. As it stands, Simplifi users must add real estate manually like any other asset.

In practice, Simplifi miscategorized some of my expenses, but nothing out of the ordinary compared to any of these budget trackers. As you’re reviewing transactions, you can also mark if you’re expecting a refund, which is a unique feature among the services I tested. Simplifi also estimated my regular income better than some other apps I tested. Most of all, I appreciated the option of being able to categorize some, but not all, purchases from a merchant as recurring. For instance, I can add my two Amazon subscribe-and-saves as recurring payments, without having to create a broad-strokes rule for every Amazon purchase.

The budgeting feature is also self-explanatory. Just check that your regular income is accurate and be sure to set up recurring payments, making note of which are bills and which are subscriptions. This is important because Simplifi shows you your total take-home income as well as an “income after bills” figure. That number includes, well, bills but not discretionary subscriptions. From there, you can add spending targets by category in the “planned spending” bucket. Planned spending can also include one-time expenditures, not just monthly budgets. When you create a budget, Simplifi will suggest a number based on a six-month average.

Pros

Easy-to-use app with a gentle learning curve
Does a good job detecting recurring income and bills
Less expensive than the competition
Lets you share app access with a spouse or financial advisor
Handy refund tracker

Cons

No free trial
You can’t create an account using your Apple or Google ID
No Zillow integration

Monarch Money

Monarch Money grew on me. My first impression of the budgeting app, which was founded by a former Mint product manager, was that it’s more difficult to use than others on this list, including Simplifi, NerdWallet and Copilot. And it is. Editing expense categories, adding recurring transactions and creating rules, for example, is a little more complicated than it needs to be, especially in the mobile app. (My advice: Use the web app for fine-tuning details.) Monarch also didn’t get my income right; I had to edit it.

But once you’re set up, Monarch offers an impressive level of granularity. In the budgets section, you can see a bona fide balance sheet showing budgets and actuals for each category. You’ll also find a forecast, by year or by month, and recurring expenses can be set not just by merchant, but other parameters as well. For instance, while most Amazon purchases might be marked as “shopping,” those for the amounts of $54.18 or $34.18 are definitely baby supplies, and can be automatically marked as such each time, not to mention programmed as recurring payments. Weirdly, though, there’s no way to mark certain recurring payments as bills, specifically.

Not long after I first tried out all these budgeting apps, Monarch introduced a detailed reporting section where you can create on-demand graphs based on things like accounts, categories and tags. That feature is available just on the web version of the app for now. As part of this same update, Monarch added support for an aggregator that makes it possible to automatically update the value of your car. This, combined with the existing Zillow integration for tracking your home value, makes it easy to quickly add a non-liquid asset like a vehicle or real estate, and have it show up in your net worth graph.

The mobile app is mostly self-explanatory. The main dashboard shows your net worth; your four most recent transactions; a month-over-month spending comparison; income month-to-date; upcoming bills; an investments snapshot; a list of any goals you’ve set; and, finally, a link to your month-in-review. That month-in-review is more detailed than most, delving into cash flow; top income and expense categories; cash flow trends; changes to your net worth, assets and liabilities; plus asset and liability breakdowns. A newer feature here expands on the net worth graph so that if you click on the Accounts tab you can see how your net worth changed over different periods of time, including one month, three months, six months, a year or all time.

On the main screen, you’ll also find tabs for accounts, transactions, cash flow, budget and recurring. Like many of the other apps featured here, Monarch can auto-detect recurring expenses and income, even if it gets the category wrong. (They all do to an extent.) Expense categories are marked by emoji, which you can customize if you’re so inclined.

Monarch Money uses a combination of networks to connect with banks, including Plaid, MX and Finicity, a competing network owned by Mastercard. (I have a quick explainer on Plaid, the industry standard in this space, toward the end of this guide.) Monarch has also made it easier to connect through those other two networks, if for some reason Plaid fails. Similar to NerdWallet, I found myself completing two-factor authentication every time I wanted to get past the Plaid screen to add another account. Notably, Monarch is the only other app I tested that allows you to grant access to someone else in your family — likely a spouse or financial advisor.

In the iOS 17.4 update a while back, Monarch added the ability to track Apple Card, Apple Cash, and Savings accounts. It’s not the only one either; currently, Copilot and YNAB have also added similar functionality that will be available to anyone with the latest versions of their respective iOS apps. Instead of manually uploading statements, the new functionality allows apps like Monarch’s to automatically pull in transactions and balance history. That should make it easier to account for spending on Apple cards and accounts throughout the month.

Pros

Lots of detail and opportunities for customization
Helpful “goals” feature
You can grant account access to other people
Chrome extension for importing from Mint
Month-in-review recap is more thorough than most
Car value syncing
Zillow integration

Cons

Steeper learning curve than some other budget trackers
The mobile app feels restricted and less intuitive than the web version
Doesn’t seem to distinguish between bills and other recurring expenses
Some bugginess on mobile around creating rules for expense categories

NerdWallet

You may know NerdWallet as a site that offers a mix of personal finance news, explainers and guides. I see it often when I google a financial term I don’t know and sure enough, it’s one of the sites I’m most likely to click on. As it happens, NerdWallet also has the distinction of offering one of the only free budgeting apps I tested. In fact, there is no paid version; nothing is locked behind a paywall. The main catch: There are ads everywhere.

Even with the inescapable credit card offers, NerdWallet has a clean, easy-to-understand interface on both its web and mobile apps. The key metrics that it highlights most prominently are your cash flow, net worth and credit score. I particularly enjoyed the weekly insights, which delve into things like where you spent the most money or how much you paid in fees — and how that compares to the previous month. Because this is NerdWallet, an encyclopedia of financial info, you get some particularly specific category options when setting up your accounts (think: a Roth or non-Roth IRA).

As a budgeting app, NerdWallet is more than serviceable, if a bit basic. Like other apps I tested, you can set up recurring bills. Importantly, it follows the popular 50/30/20 budgeting rule, which has you putting 50 percent of your budget toward things you need, 30 percent toward things you want, and the remaining 20 percent into savings or debt repayments.

If this works for you, great — just know that you can’t customize your budget to the same degree as some competing apps. You can’t currently create custom spending categories, though a note inside the dashboard section of the app says “you’ll be able to customize them in the future.” You also can’t move items from the wants column to “needs” or vice versa but “In the future, you’ll be able to move specific transactions to actively manage what falls into each group.” A NerdWallet spokesperson declined to provide an ETA, though.

Lastly, it’s worth noting that NerdWallet had one of the most onerous setup processes of any app I tested. I don’t think this is a dealbreaker, as you’ll only have to do it once and, hopefully, you aren’t setting up six or seven apps in tandem as I was. What made NerdWallet’s onboarding especially tedious is that every time I wanted to add an account, I had to go through a two-factor authentication process to even get past the Plaid splash screen — and that’s not including the 2FA I had set up at each of my banks. This is a security policy on NerdWallet’s end, not Plaid’s, a Plaid spokesperson says.

Precisely because NerdWallet is one of the only budget trackers to offer credit score monitoring, it also needs more of your personal info during setup, including your birthday, address, phone number and the last four digits of your social security number. It’s the same with Credit Karma, which also does credit score monitoring.

Pros

Free
Easy to use
Helpful weekly insights
NerdWallet has a deep well of helpful financial explainers and guides
One of the few options that offers credit score monitoring

Cons

Ads everywhere
No customization for spending categories
Less adept at detecting regular income
One of the more tedious setup processes

Copilot Money

Copilot Money might be the best-looking budgeting app I tested. It also has the distinction of being exclusive to iOS and Macs — at least for now. Andres Ugarte, the company’s CEO, has publicly promised that Android and web apps are coming soon. But until it follows through, I can’t recommend Copilot for most people with so many good competitors out there.

There are other features that Copilot is missing, which I’ll get into. But it is promising, and one to keep an eye on. It’s just a fast, efficient, well designed app, and Android users will be in for a treat when they’ll finally be able to download it. It makes good use of colors, emoji and graphs to help you understand at a glance how you’re doing on everything from your budgets to your investment performance to your credit card debt over time. In particular, Copilot does a better job than almost any other app of visualizing your recurring monthly expenses.

Behind those punchy colors and cutesy emoji, though, is some sophisticated performance. Copilot’s AI-powered “Intelligence” gets smarter as you go at categorizing your expenses. (You can also add your own categories, complete with your choice of emoji.) It’s not perfect. Copilot miscategorized some purchases (they all do), but it makes it easier to edit than most. On top of that, the internal search feature is very fast; it starts whittling down results in your transaction history as soon as you begin typing.

Copilot is also unique in offering Amazon and Venmo integrations, allowing you to see transaction details. With Amazon, this requires just signing into your Amazon account via an in-app browser. For Venmo, you have to set up fwd@copilot.money as a forwarding address and then create a filter, wherein emails from venmo@venmo.com are automatically forwarded to fwd@copilot.money. Like Monarch Money, you can also add any property you own and track its value through Zillow, which is integrated with the app.

While the app is heavily automated, I still appreciate that Copilot marks new transactions for review. It’s a good way to both weed out fraudulent charges, and also be somewhat intentional about your spending habits.

Like Monarch Money, Copilot updated its app to make it easier to connect to banks through networks other than Plaid. As part of the same update, Copilot said it has improved its connections to both American Express and Fidelity which, again, can be a bugbear for some budget tracking apps. Copilot also added a Mint import option, which other budgeting apps have begun to offer as well.

Because the app is relatively new (it launched in early 2020), the company is still catching up to the competition on some table-stakes features. Ugarte told me that his team is almost done building out a detailed cash flow section as well. On its website, Copilot also promises a raft of AI-powered features that build on its current “Intelligence” platform, the one that powers its smart expense categorization. These include “smart financial goals,” natural language search, a chat interface, forecasting and benchmarking. That benchmarking, Ugarte tells me, is meant to give people a sense of how they’re doing compared to other Copilot users, on both spending and investment performance.

Pros

Slick UI
Standalone Mac app
Lower monthly price than some competing apps
Does a good job visualizing recurring expenses
Optional Amazon, Venmo and Zillow integration
“To review” section is handy

Cons

No web or Android app yet
Miscategorized more expenses than our top pick
Lots of otherwise common features are still in development

YNAB

YNAB is, by its own admission, “different from anything you’ve tried before.” The app, whose name is short for You Need a Budget, is a so-called zero-based budgeting app, which forces you to assign a purpose for every dollar you earn. It’s akin to the envelope budgeting method in that you put each dollar in an envelope and you can always move money from one envelope to another in a pinch. These buckets can include rent and utilities, along with unforeseen expenses like holiday gifts and the inevitable car repair. The idea is that if you budget a certain amount for the unknowns each month, they won’t feel like they’re sneaking up on you.

Importantly, YNAB is only concerned with the money you have in your accounts now. The app does not ask you to provide your take-home income or set up recurring income payments (although there is a way to do this). The money you will make later in the month through your salaried job is not relevant, because YNAB does not engage in forecasting.

The app is harder to learn than any other here, and it requires more ongoing effort from the user. And YNAB knows that. Inside both the mobile and web apps are links to videos and other tutorials. Although I never quite got comfortable with the user interface, I did come to appreciate YNAB’s insistence on intentionality. Forcing users to draft a new budget each month and to review each transaction is not necessarily a bad thing. As YNAB says on its website, “Sure, you’ve got pie charts showing that you spent an obscene amount of money in restaurants — but you’ve still spent an obscene amount of money in restaurants.” I can see this approach being useful for people who don’t tend to have a lot of cash in reserve at a given time, or who have spending habits they want to correct (to riff off of YNAB’s own example, ordering Seamless four times a week).

My colleague Valentina Palladino, knowing I was working on this guide, penned a respectful rebuttal, explaining why she’s been using YNAB for years. Perhaps, like her, you have major savings goals you want to achieve, whether it’s paying for a wedding or buying a house. I suggest you give her column a read. For me, though, YNAB’s approach feels like overkill.

Pros

Particularly strong emphasis on budgeting
Unique “zero-dollar” approach to financial planning that some people swear by

Cons

Steep learning curve
Harder to use certain features on the mobile app than on the web

Other budgeting apps we tested

PocketGuard

PocketGuard used to be a solid free budget tracker, but the company has since limited its “free” version to just a free seven-day trial. Now, you’ll have to choose between two plans once the trial is over: a $13 monthly plan or a $75 annual plan. When I first tested it, I found it to be more restricted than NerdWallet, but still a decent option. The main overview screen shows you your net worth, total assets and debts; net income and total spending for the month; upcoming bills; a handy reminder of when your next paycheck lands; any debt payoff plan you have; and any goals. Like some other apps, including Quicken Simplifi, PocketGuard promotes an “after bills” approach, where you enter all of your recurring bills, and then PocketGuard shows you what’s left, and that’s what you’re supposed to be budgeting: your disposable income.

Although PocketGuard’s UI is easy enough to understand, it lacks polish. The “accounts” tab is a little busy, and doesn’t show totals for categories like cash or investments. Seemingly small details like weirdly phrased or punctuated copy occasionally make the app feel janky. More than once, it prompted me to update the app when no updates were available. The web version, meanwhile, feels like the mobile app blown up to a larger format and doesn’t take advantage of the extra screen real estate. Ultimately, now that the free tier is gone, it just doesn’t present the same value proposition as it once did.

How we test budgeting apps

Before I dove in and started testing out budgeting apps, I had to do some research. To find a list of apps to try out, I consulted trusty ol’ Google (and even trustier Reddit); read reviews of popular apps on the App Store; and also asked friends and colleagues what budget tracking apps (or other budgeting methods) they might be using for money management. Some of the apps I found were free and these, of course, show loads of ads (excuse me, “offers”) to stay in business. But most of the available apps require paid subscriptions, with prices typically topping out around $100 a year, or $15 a month. (Spoiler: My top pick is cheaper than that.)

All of the services I chose to test needed to do several things: import all of your account data into one place; offer budgeting tools; and track your spending, net worth and credit score. Except where noted, all of these apps are available for iOS, Android and on the web.

Once I had my shortlist of six apps, I got to work setting them up. For the sake of thoroughly testing these apps, I made a point of adding every account to every budgeting app, no matter how small or immaterial the balance. What ensued was a veritable Groundhog Day of two-factor authentication. Just hours of entering passwords and one-time passcodes, for the same banks half a dozen times over. Hopefully, you only have to do this once.

Budgeting app FAQs

What is Plaid and how does it work?

Each of the apps I tested uses the same underlying network, called Plaid, to pull in financial data, so it’s worth explaining what it is and how it works. Plaid was founded as a fintech startup in 2013 and is today the industry standard in connecting banks with third-party apps. Plaid works with over 12,000 financial institutions across the US, Canada and Europe. Additionally, more than 8,000 third-party apps and services rely on Plaid, the company claims.

To be clear, you don’t need a dedicated Plaid app to use it; the technology is baked into a wide array of apps, including all of the budgeting apps listed in this guide. Once you find the “add an account” option in whichever one you’re using, you’ll see a menu of commonly used banks. There’s also a search field you can use to look yours up directly. Once you find yours, you’ll be prompted to enter your login credentials. If you have two-factor authentication set up, you’ll need to enter a one-time passcode as well.

As the middleman, Plaid is a passthrough for information that may include your account balances, transaction history, account type and routing or account number. Plaid uses encryption, and says it has a policy of not selling or renting customer data to other companies. However, I would not be doing my job if I didn’t note that in 2022 Plaid was forced to pay $58 million to consumers in a class action suit for collecting “more financial data than was needed.” As part of the settlement, Plaid was compelled to change some of its business practices.

In a statement provided to Engadget, a Plaid spokesperson said the company continues to deny the allegations underpinning the lawsuit and that “the crux of the non-financial terms in the settlement are focused on us accelerating workstreams already underway related to giving people more transparency into Plaid’s role in connecting their accounts, and ensuring that our workstreams around data minimization remain on track.”

Why did Mint shut down?

When parent company Intuit announced in December 2023 that it would shut down Mint, it did not provide a reason why it made the decision to do so. It did say that Mint’s millions of users would be funneled over to its other finance app, Credit Karma. “Credit Karma is thrilled to invite all Minters to continue their financial journey on Credit Karma, where they will have access to Credit Karma’s suite of features, products, tools and services, including some of Mint’s most popular features,” Mint wrote on its product blog. In our testing, we found that Credit Karma isn’t an exact replacement for Mint — so if you’re still looking for a Mint alternative, you have some decent options.

What about Rocket Money?

Rocket Money is another free financial app that tracks spending and supports things like balance alerts and account linking. If you pay for the premium tier, the service can also help you cancel unwanted subscriptions. We did not test it for this guide, but we’ll consider it in future updates.

c++ – How to register an C# class for COM?

Posted on January 30, 2026 by faz_business

I’d like to create an C# WPF library exposing some class to COM to use the class functionality from separate C++ project.

What I’d like to achieve is to have a WPF class which implements simple form like window where can i output the text messages using “shared”. exposed function, say OutputText. What i want is to instantiate the class object what in turn just spawns the form text window, and the using the OutputText just send some text to it. That all have to be done from C++ application, using exposed COM class and CoCreateInstance function to get the things roll.

Here is the C# code:

using Microsoft.SqlServer.Server;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Data;
using System.Windows.Documents;
using System.Windows.Input;
using System.Windows.Media;
using System.Windows.Media.Imaging;
using System.Windows.Navigation;
using System.Windows.Shapes;

namespace WpfCustomControlLibrary11
{
    [Guid("0E633447-41D9-4E28-A8F4-D24ADE2913CD")]
    public interface ICustomControl1
    {
        void Test();
    }
    [Guid("2002FDA9-E74A-4A88-B0E3-0CCD2C2695AD")]
    public class CustomControl1 : Control
    {
        static CustomControl1()
        {
            DefaultStyleKeyProperty.OverrideMetadata(typeof(CustomControl1), new FrameworkPropertyMetadata(typeof(CustomControl1)));
        }

        public void Test()
        {
            MessageBox.Show("CustomControl1 - Test");
            System.Console.Beep();
        }
    }
}

and the C++ code calling the exposed COM class:

#include <windows.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <thread>
#import  <WpfCustomControlLibrary11.tlb>
//#include <WpfCustomControlLibrary11.tlh>

EXTERN_C const CLSID CLSID_FileOpenDialog2;

const GUID CLSID_riid = { 0xe633447, 0x41d9, 0x4e28, { 0xa8, 0xf4, 0xd2, 0x4a, 0xde, 0x29, 0x13, 0xcd } };
const GUID CLSID_rclsid = { 0x2002fda9, 0xe74a, 0x4a88, { 0xb0, 0xe3, 0xc, 0xcd, 0x2c, 0x26, 0x95, 0xad } };

using namespace std;
using namespace WpfCustomControlLibrary11;

HANDLE fileHandle;
char buffer[100];
ICustomControl1* g_pMyComClient = NULL;
HRESULT g_hr = NULL;

void RunClient() {

    HRESULT hr = CoInitializeEx(NULL,
        //COINIT_APARTMENTTHREADED | COINIT_DISABLE_OLE1DDE
        COINIT_MULTITHREADED
    );
    if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
    {
        ICustomControl1* pMyComClient;
        
        hr = CoCreateInstance(
            CLSID_rclsid,
            NULL, CLSCTX_ALL,
            CLSID_riid,
            reinterpret_cast<void**>(&pMyComClient));

        if (SUCCEEDED(hr)) {
            g_hr = hr;
            g_pMyComClient = pMyComClient;
            pMyComClient->Test();
        }

        CoUninitialize();
    }
}

int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
    PSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
{
    sprintf(buffer, "WinMain - creating Client thread\n");
    OutputDebugString(buffer);
    buffer[0] = '\0';

    thread newThread(RunClient);
    newThread.join();

    sprintf(buffer, "WinMain - Client thread has ENDED!\n");
    OutputDebugString(buffer);
    buffer[0] = '\0';

    return 0;
}

I’ve performed below steps:

created the C# project using the WPF Custom Control Library(.NET Fremework) template.
checked “Make assembly COM-visible“ in the project settings.
signed the library using the “sn -k Proj_Name.snk” and then providing this key in “signing” section in the project settings.
registered via RegAsm.exe
added to the GAC via gacutil /i

Now when i run the C++ Client i’m getting “REGDB_E_CLASSNOTREG Class not registered” error in response to CoCreateInstance call.

What’s curious when i create just the Windows Forms project using the Windows Forms Control Library(.NET Fremework) template and follow above steps everything works great – CoCreateInstance returns no errors and the function test is successfully being called.

What could be the reason for the WPF project class NOT being registered and therefore used by C++ client while the Windows Forms project class registers and run flawlessly?

Thx for help in advance!