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APIs · head to head

Akoya vs Formance

Akoya logo

Akoya

APIs

Bank-owned, token-based open finance network that replaces screen scraping for US financial data

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Formance logo

Formance

APIs

Open source double-entry ledger and payment orchestration for money-moving software

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Formance has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Akoya coverage reaches several thousand institutions but does not match aggregators that can still scrape, so applications needing the long tail of small credit unions will run a second data provider alongside it.; Formance formance holds no money and provides no regulatory cover, so it must be paired with a payments provider or bank, and buyers occasionally mistake a ledger for a treasury system and discover the gap late.
  • They diverge on capability: Akoya covers FDX standard APIs, Formance covers Double-entry ledger.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Akoya and Formance actually diverge.

Attributes where Akoya and Formance differ
AttributeAkoyaFormance
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (APIs).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Akoya

  • FDX standard APIs
  • Token-based access
  • Investment data
  • Accounts, balances and transactions
  • Statements and tax forms
  • Customer identity
  • Consumer permission management
  • Single integration

Only in Formance

  • Double-entry ledger
  • Numscript transaction DSL
  • Multi-currency
  • Payments connectivity
  • Reconciliation
  • Self-hosted deployment
  • Cloud offering
  • API and SDKs

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Akoya

  • A wealth management platform that needs Fidelity brokerage holdings and tax lots, which cannot be scraped since Fidelity closed that route in October 2023not Formance
  • A tax preparation product retrieving tax forms and cost basis directly from the institution rather than asking users to upload PDFsnot Formance
  • A lender that needs a permissioning trail defensible under CFPB section 1033 rather than a credential-sharing arrangementnot Formance
  • A bank that wants to meet data sharing obligations through one network connection instead of building and policing its own developer interfacenot Formance

Formance

  • A marketplace splitting a single customer payment between seller, platform fee and tax that needs the split to be atomic and auditablenot Akoya
  • A fintech whose homegrown balances table produced numbers finance could not reconcile and now needs proper double-entry before an auditnot Akoya
  • A payments team that wants one normalised model across several PSPs so reconciliation is not written separately for eachnot Akoya
  • A company that wants its ledger under a licence it can keep running even if the vendor disappearsnot Akoya

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Akoya

  • Coverage reaches several thousand institutions but does not match aggregators that can still scrape, so applications needing the long tail of small credit unions will run a second data provider alongside it.
  • The network is owned by large banks, so roadmap and coverage priorities reflect owner interests rather than those of the fintechs consuming the data, and a recipient has no leverage over which institutions are added next.
  • Data availability is decided institution by institution, meaning a bank may expose balances but not transactions or investments, and recipients must verify field-level coverage per institution rather than assume the FDX model is fully populated.
  • Pricing is unpublished and usage based, which makes it difficult to compare against aggregator pricing during a build-versus-buy decision and forces a sales cycle before you can model cost.
  • The token model requires the institution to have implemented its side, so newly onboarded institutions arrive on the institution timetable, not yours, and a launch dependent on a specific bank can slip badly.

Formance

  • Formance holds no money and provides no regulatory cover, so it must be paired with a payments provider or bank, and buyers occasionally mistake a ledger for a treasury system and discover the gap late.
  • Numscript is a domain-specific language your team must learn, and while it makes complex splits expressible it also means transaction logic sits outside the languages your engineers already debug well.
  • Self-hosting a ledger that must never lose or duplicate a transaction is a serious operational commitment covering backups, upgrades and Postgres tuning, which is real cost the zero licence fee hides.
  • Enterprise pricing is not published, so the difference between the free path and the supported path cannot be evaluated without a sales conversation.
  • The company is much smaller than the incumbent alternatives, and while the MIT licence protects the code it does not protect the roadmap, so features on the hosted side may arrive slowly or change direction.

Pricing, plan by plan

Akoya

On request
  • Akoya Data Access$undefined/year
    • Usage-based pricing quoted by data product and call volume
    • Separate commercial terms for data recipients and for financial institutions joining the network
    • No published rate card

Formance

Free
  • Open SourceFree
    • MIT licensed core ledger
    • Numscript transaction DSL
    • Multi-currency tracking
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Managed or private deployment
    • Payments connectivity and reconciliation
    • Support with response commitments

Which should you pick?

Choose Akoya if

  • You need fdx standard apis.
  • You also want token-based access.
Akoya review

Choose Formance if

  • You need double-entry ledger.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API.
  • You also want numscript transaction dsl.
Formance review

Questions people ask

Is Akoya or Formance better?
Neither clearly leads. Akoya starts at On request and Formance at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Akoya or Formance?
Formance has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Akoya and Free for Formance.
Does Akoya or Formance run on more platforms?
Akoya runs on Web. Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API.
Can I use Formance for free?
Yes. Formance has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Akoya starts at On request.
What is Akoya best used for?
Akoya is most often used for a wealth management platform that needs fidelity brokerage holdings and tax lots, which cannot be scraped since fidelity closed that route in october 2023, a tax preparation product retrieving tax forms and cost basis directly from the institution rather than asking users to upload pdfs, a lender that needs a permissioning trail defensible under cfpb section 1033 rather than a credential-sharing arrangement, a bank that wants to meet data sharing obligations through one network connection instead of building and policing its own developer interface. Of those, a wealth management platform that needs fidelity brokerage holdings and tax lots, which cannot be scraped since fidelity closed that route in october 2023 and a tax preparation product retrieving tax forms and cost basis directly from the institution rather than asking users to upload pdfs are not what Formance is typically brought in for.
What can Akoya do that Formance cannot?
Akoya covers FDX standard APIs, Token-based access, Investment data, Accounts, balances and transactions. Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Akoya: Who owns Akoya?

A group of large US banks. It was spun out of Fidelity, which is why Fidelity data access runs through it.

Formance: Is Formance really open source?

Yes. The core ledger is MIT licensed with full source access and no deployment restrictions.

Akoya: Is Akoya screen scraping?

No. It uses FDX standard APIs with OpenID Connect tokens, so credentials are never shared with or stored by the data recipient.

Formance: Does Formance move money?

No. It records and orchestrates movements; the actual payments happen at a PSP or bank you connect.

Akoya: Can we use Akoya alone instead of an aggregator?

Usually not. Its investment and large-institution coverage is excellent, but the long tail of smaller institutions is thinner, so most teams run both.

Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

Not published. It is an annual subscription quoted per customer.

Akoya: Does it help with CFPB section 1033?

It is designed around it, providing tokenised permissioned access and consumer revocation rather than credential sharing.

Formance: Do I have to use Numscript?

Yes for anything beyond the simplest transfers. It is how multi-party transactions are expressed atomically.

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