Hi, I have both Yolt and Emma (and moneydashboard, and Bud…), but I have been using Yolt most recently for some months for 1 reason only - the sync speed. If I load up Yolt, all of my accounts (20 ish) will sync within about 10 seconds. The same process in Emma takes several minutes.
Is there a technical reason for this? Is it a roadmap item to improve? If the display messages are correct, it seems your app syncs accounts 1 by 1 whereas Yolt do them all simultaneously?
You’ll presumably be getting an influx of Yolt users given that they are closing but the speed is a huge negative for UX (who wants to wait around in any app for minutes before it’s useable?!)
Thanks!
Hey @Boyd,
thanks a lot for sending feedback.
From what I recall Yolt has an option to start syncing when you open the app which we can definitely include in Emma as well.
What we recently changed in Emma is the ability to import 5-6 years so the first sync is naturally slower (Yolt imports 12 months).
Syncing shouldn’t be a problem unless there are 20+ bank connections, we are aware the system might get stuck on this edge case (or if you have some crypto). In any case, the app would pick them at the next sync.
We are definitely looking at syncing on a daily basis to make sure we deliver the best experience.
Thanks for quickly responding, very encouraging!
It’s not about the fact that Yolt initiates when first opened, nor is it to do with historic syncing - I have kept both Yolt and Emma up to date with all my connections for years now. It is literally the sync speed of any sync. I will try to record my screen and show you. If I walk into a shop now and buy something, then open Yolt and hit sync, it will sync all my banks again and load the latest transaction in around 10 seconds. If I do the same in Emma it takes several minutes. I have 9 banks, but around 20 accounts due to banks with multiple accounts. Still, that’s only 9 APIs (I think?).
Emma says “syncing data from 9 banks”, then that number reduces 1 by 1 as time goes on (syncing data from 8 banks, syncing data from 7 banks etc), which to me implies you call the APIs 1 by 1?
Whereas Yolt syncs all banks at the same time - calling all APIs at the same time. The rest of your app is actually better - the search function for example is particularly useful 
But the speed is an absolute killer for me - I, like many others I’m sure, don’t have the patience to leave an app open for minutes while the data refreshes!
So as it stands, I use Yolt for real time analytics, and I use Emma for more historic analytics (using your search).
With the end of Yolt, I’d love to be able to do real time and historical in the same app!
This would be nice, thanks. 
I think the main issue here is in the way we built syncing when we started Emma. At this point, syncs are not parallelized, but instead, we do 1 by 1, that’s why they are slower than Yolt.
I have just mentioned this to @antonio and we have plans to refactor and change this logic in the short term.
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Amazing! You definitely won’t have any complaints about customer service!
I have DM’d you the two comparative videos of a sync on Yolt vs Emma, hope it’s helpful
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Thanks again for this.
Agreed… faster synching, and more in line with transactions, would be great 
Yes, we are going to transition to parallel syncing very soon.
In terms of daily syncing, we probably can’t speed that much (it’s 4 a day by law), but you can’t force as many syncs as you want.
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Syncing is painfully slow. It takes several minutes for my app to sync my accounts. Is there any update on this?
You’re the lucky one! I’m not sure how long my syncs take, as waiting to see would take a chunk out of my day… 
As mentioned before, we should start working on parallel syncing this or next week hopefully. 
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I’ve had Emma Pro for a while and really like the overall view of my finances it gives me, as well as cross-account budgeting and categorisation.
However, I find the app to be increasingly sluggish and poorly responsive. E.g. when opening the app it always takes at least a minute to refresh all my accounts, general navigation through the app is slow such as when opening recent transactions view or trying to categorise. Notifications sometimes appear and are hard to get rid of with several attempts needed to get rid of the notification.
Is anyone else finding this? It’s definitely one of the apps that performs poorest on my phone (iPhone 12) and makes for a clunky experience.
Hey @tom11,
thanks a lot for sending feedback.
Syncing shouldn’t be a problem unless there are 20+ bank connections, we are aware the system might get stuck on this edge case. In terms of daily syncing, we probably can’t speed that much (it’s 4 a day by law), but you can’t force as many syncs as you want.
But, we are going to transition to parallel syncing very soon to make sure we deliver the best experience. 
What do you mean by this? We don’t refresh accounts when you open the app.
Where do you mean? We have moved them to a separate screen on the app.
There’s plenty of delay between screens for me - lots of spinning wheel. I have Emma on two phones and it’s better on the newer, so it might be to do with your phone. What do you have?
What phones?