Your whole financial life on one local machine: Aurelio turns AI into a personal wealth advisor that never leaves your computer

What this project does

Aurelio is a wealth-management and financial-planning application that runs entirely on your own computer. In plain terms, it pulls everything you own — stocks, ETFs, cash, debts, and your overall net worth — into a single local interface so you can see your whole financial picture in one place. Its standout feature is a built-in AI financial advisor: you can ask it questions in plain language, such as "How much can I still invest each month?" or "Should I pay down this debt first or put the money into a fund?" and it answers based on the accounts you keep locally. Crucially, all of your data stays on your own machine. The AI layer is optional, and when you turn it on it routes through OpenRouter using your own API key, which means the details of your financial life never get uploaded to any third-party server. For an ordinary person who wants to use AI but does not want to hand their bank statements to someone else, this is a very appealing combination.

Why it is trending right now

Aurelio only went open source in early October 2026, yet it climbed past 2,800 stars within about a week, which is a strong trajectory. I think it caught fire for two reasons. First, "self-hosted plus privacy" has been gaining real momentum in the developer community over the past couple of years; more and more people are reluctant to hand sensitive financial data to closed-source SaaS products. Second, the team made the AI advisor an optional layer rather than a forced one, which attracted both AI-curious users and the privacy-paranoid crowd at the same time. On top of that, it ships with a near-zero barrier to entry: a single ./start.sh --demo command shows you the full experience using bundled sample data, so it spreads easily through word-of-mouth on social platforms.

Technical highlights

The technical architecture of Aurelio is genuinely interesting. Its core is a local-first data model: every record you enter lives in a standalone file on your own computer instead of a cloud database. The AI advisor layer speaks the OpenRouter protocol, so you can plug in essentially any compatible model — from cheap small models to top-tier large ones — as long as you supply your own key; the app assembles the context locally, calls the model, and renders the reply back into the interface. It natively supports net-worth tracking and can roll up scattered assets across different accounts and even different countries into one chart, including drilling down into the underlying country allocation inside a fund. The project's promo animation makes the point well: it shows a question like "I have 1,235 euros left each month, how should I split it?", the AI proposes a breakdown, and you confirm or reject it — the whole loop feels like talking to a human advisor. For developers, the Python stack under an MIT license means adding a new import format, wiring up a different model, or restyling the UI is just a fork away.

Who it is for

This project fits three groups best. First, ordinary investors who have some savings, buy a few ETFs and stocks, and want to see their complete net-worth picture — especially people who refuse to authorize their accounts to cloud tools. Second, the self-hosting tinkerers who already run a NAS or a home server and can stand Aurelio up as a permanent ledger without thinking twice. Third, developers building personal-finance AI apps, for whom Aurelio's local-first architecture and OpenRouter integration are a ready-made reference implementation. If you are the type who happily hands everything to a bank app and have no interest in self-hosting, this tool is probably not for you.

Quick try

Clone the repo and run the start script; on first launch it installs its dependencies in-folder and opens http://localhost:8000. Use the demo flag to preview with sample data:

git clone https://github.com/LosaLosSantos/aurelio-finance.git
cd aurelio-finance
./start.sh --demo          # macOS / Linux
# Windows (PowerShell): .\start.ps1 -Demo

Run without the flag to use your own real data.

How it compares to alternatives

Personal bookkeeping and wealth tools roughly split into two camps. One camp is closed-source SaaS like the built-in apps from banks: they auto-sync accounts and are convenient, but your data sits on someone else's servers, and many have gone paid or shut down. The other camp is self-hosted ledgers like Firefly III: great privacy and control, but pure bookkeeping with no AI advisor, so you stare at the reports yourself. Aurelio sits in between: self-hosting guarantees privacy, and the optional AI advisor fills the "I can't read the numbers" gap. It is also completely different from "pure AI advisory" products that ask you to transfer money in for them to manage — Aurelio never touches your money, it only helps you understand the books. In short, it is like a combination of Firefly III's privacy DNA and an on-call AI financial planner.