Comparison with other websites

I'd argue that Wesabe is more of a true Web 2.0 application in that socializes the experience of managing money, and views itself as part of a "web of data". It's harnessing collective intelligence to achieve auto-tagging and financial advice, and has an api for re-imagining the data.

Mint is a more familiar financial web app, and may be more comfortable to many who are familiar with Quicken, etc. But it does have an enchanting user experience, and it offers some very practical savings right out of the gate.

For now, my wife and I are using them both. They're each free and self-updating (though Wesabe requires a bit more work to set up) so there's little downside to put them both through their paces.

we're also using both, and i would say that mint's big win at the moment is presentational. enter your accounts and bam! instant gratification, amazing charts, sudden insights -- "wow, did i really spend that much on restaurants this month?"

but, it's very harder to order and manipulate your information once it's in there. certainly it's a 1.0 thing, but try changing the category on one of your line items; i've been using it for a few days and i'm *still* not totally clear on how to do it, or when i've done it successfully.

on the other hand, the wesabe interface for manipulating your data is incredibly elegant and well thought-through (not to mention that the tagging is totally brilliant), but the immediate value of wesabe isn't as clear -- you don't get that clarity of insight, at least not initially.

also, wesabe manages your passwords in a safer but clunkier way, with a desktop uploader, whereas mint just has you enter your financial account passwords directly into their system. though the mint approach is much easier to get started with, in talking with a few folks, i've heard a number of people say that they have a real concern about giving over their most protected passwords, and that that might be a deal-breaker for them. time will tell which of these approaches gains the most users, i suppose.

either way, both of them are so many light-years beyond quicken it's not even funny.