What YNAB does well
YNAB is a method as much as a product. Zero-based, envelope-style budgeting with a strong point of view about giving every dollar a job, and two decades of teaching material behind it. For people who want a system to follow and will do the work each week, it has few peers.
Footnote is not trying to replace that method. If assigning every dollar is working for you, keep doing it.
Where Footnote differs
Less assignment, more evidence. Footnote's premise is that most numbers in a finance app are unverifiable, so every figure links back to the bank rows that produced it.
Money shared with a person. A running balance per person, each line originating from a real charge rather than a typed entry, and a settle-up the other side can act on.
Equity compensation. Vest schedules, cost basis by lot, withholding, and concentration by underlying security.
Bring your history
Footnote imports a YNAB register export. Outflow and inflow columns are read correctly, dates are parsed in either format, and accounts are matched to your existing connections by shared transactions.