Gnucash vs. QuickBooks

[Jim Muchow]

On 11/27/06, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Quoting "Denise M. Kauf" <DMK at ffhm.com>:
>
> > I would like to get opinions from Gnucash users on how Gnucash compares
> > to QuickBooks. I am trying to help someone determine if they can start
> > using Gnucash instead of QuickBooks. What are the pros and cons of
> > Gnucash compared to QuickBooks. Can any user comfortably use Gnucash or
> > do you need to be a programmer? Thanks.
>
> For one, Quickbooks doesn't run on Linux..  But keep in mind that
> QuickBook is a commercial application with lots of paid developers
> working full time to add features and make the application work well.
> GnuCash has a dearth of developers working on it, so it's not quite
> as nice and easy to use as QB for certain operations.

The makers of Quickbooks can at any time, for any reason also decide
to not support any particular version. This is so you'll be (think you're)
forced to buy the newest version. Filled with cool new features you
may not need and probably won't use.

My copy of GnuCash (1.8.11 running on a Mac) has worked flawlessly
from day one. It replaced Quicken after a long term relationship for the
reasons above. I wish GnuCash was a little more, um, golly-gee easy
to use (especially on a Mac), but the trade-off is a more true-to-life
accounting system. It's a fair trade and once I show my spouse how to
use it, it'll all be fine.

One thing in particular I like is that save or backup files are XML (a
specially formatted text file). They can get kind of large (espcially with daily
stock quote downloads), but they compress real nice (as part of a weekly
encrypted backup).