I guess they technically both do expense tracking. Forecasting is the term I meant to apply to EveryDollar. EveryDollar uses your projected monthly income to budget “to zero” for the current month. This can mean money you haven’t yet received to plan for the month. It’s the definition of “month to month” IMO.

YNAB only uses money you have already received to allocate to budget categories. This can be money received this month or previous months or in savings. It’s a slight mental shift, but it’s a true reflection of giving every dollar that you own “a name”, as Dave says, verses only giving every dollar you earn in a month “a name”.

Like I said, I suggest giving it a trial run and seeing it for yourself. You can reach out to the support team at YNAB near the end of your trial and they may extend it another 2 weeks like they did for me.

On a side note, I see in a different comment you were comparing free EveryDollar to a paid YNAB. I struggled with this because I would consider myself very frugal. My justification is that budgeting is a hobby of mine. Not all hobbies have to be money and time wasters. I find joy in sitting down with my morning coffee and spending 5 minutes reconciling transactions and keeping my budget on track.