APIs · head to head
Astra vs Formance
Astra
APIs
Instant payments API for push-to-card, card-to-account and FedNow transfers
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
Formance
APIs
Open source double-entry ledger and payment orchestration for money-moving software
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Formance has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Astra push-to-card costs materially more per transaction than ACH, so a platform that switches all payouts to instant sees payment costs rise sharply, and the usual answer of charging the recipient for speed only works where recipients will pay.; 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: Astra covers Instant disbursements, Formance covers Double-entry ledger.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Astra and Formance actually diverge.
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 Astra
- Instant disbursements
- Card to account
- Net debit mode
- FedNow and RTP transfers
- ACH transfers
- Routing logic
- SDK
- Sandbox
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.
Astra
- A gig or marketplace platform paying workers to their debit cards at the end of a shift rather than on a weekly ACH cyclenot Formance
- An insurer settling small claims instantly to a claimant debit card to remove the cheque processnot Formance
- A lending product disbursing approved funds in seconds so the borrower experience matches the approval decisionnot Formance
- A consumer fintech letting users fund a new account from an existing debit card so the balance is usable immediatelynot Formance
Formance
- A marketplace splitting a single customer payment between seller, platform fee and tax that needs the split to be atomic and auditablenot Astra
- A fintech whose homegrown balances table produced numbers finance could not reconcile and now needs proper double-entry before an auditnot Astra
- A payments team that wants one normalised model across several PSPs so reconciliation is not written separately for eachnot Astra
- A company that wants its ledger under a licence it can keep running even if the vendor disappearsnot Astra
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Astra
- Push-to-card costs materially more per transaction than ACH, so a platform that switches all payouts to instant sees payment costs rise sharply, and the usual answer of charging the recipient for speed only works where recipients will pay.
- Original Credit Transaction support is not universal across card issuers, so a proportion of payouts fall back to slower rails and you must build and explain a two speed experience rather than promising instant to everyone.
- The programme depends on Cross River Bank as sponsor, a bank with concentrated fintech exposure and a documented regulatory history, so a single supervisory action on that institution is a direct operational risk to your payouts.
- Nothing is published on pricing, and per transaction economics vary by rail and volume, so small platforms cannot estimate cost before a sales conversation and have limited leverage in it.
- FedNow reach still depends on the recipient bank participating, so instant account-to-account is not available to every recipient and the routing logic has to degrade gracefully, which is more integration work than the single API framing suggests.
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
Astra
On request- Astra Payments$undefined/year
- Per transaction pricing quoted by volume and rail
- Push-to-card economics differ materially from ACH
- Net debit mode available in place of prefunding
Formance
Free- Open SourceFree
- MIT licensed core ledger
- Numscript transaction DSL
- Multi-currency tracking
- Enterprise$undefined/year
- Managed or private deployment
- Payments connectivity and reconciliation
- Support with response commitments
Which should you pick?
Choose Astra if
- You need instant disbursements.
- You work on API, Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want card to account.
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.
Questions people ask
- Is Astra or Formance better?
- Neither clearly leads. Astra 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, Astra or Formance?
- Formance has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Astra and Free for Formance.
- Does Astra or Formance run on more platforms?
- Astra runs on API, Web, iOS, Android. 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. Astra starts at On request.
- What is Astra best used for?
- Astra is most often used for a gig or marketplace platform paying workers to their debit cards at the end of a shift rather than on a weekly ach cycle, an insurer settling small claims instantly to a claimant debit card to remove the cheque process, a lending product disbursing approved funds in seconds so the borrower experience matches the approval decision, a consumer fintech letting users fund a new account from an existing debit card so the balance is usable immediately. Of those, a gig or marketplace platform paying workers to their debit cards at the end of a shift rather than on a weekly ach cycle and an insurer settling small claims instantly to a claimant debit card to remove the cheque process are not what Formance is typically brought in for.
- What can Astra do that Formance cannot?
- Astra covers Instant disbursements, Card to account, Net debit mode, FedNow and RTP transfers. Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Astra: Who is the sponsor bank?
Cross River Bank. All banking and payment services run through that relationship, so the bank should be part of your diligence rather than an implementation detail.
Formance: Is Formance really open source?
Yes. The core ledger is MIT licensed with full source access and no deployment restrictions.
Astra: Do I have to prefund payouts?
Not necessarily. Astra offers a net debit arrangement where disbursements settle against a reserve rather than a permanently funded float account, which is the main working capital argument for the product.
Formance: Does Formance move money?
No. It records and orchestrates movements; the actual payments happen at a PSP or bank you connect.
Astra: Is every payout instant?
No. Push-to-card requires the recipient card issuer to support Original Credit Transactions, and FedNow requires the recipient bank to participate. The rest fall back to ACH.
Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?
Not published. It is an annual subscription quoted per customer.
Astra: What does it cost?
Nothing is published. Pricing is per transaction and varies by rail and volume, and card rails cost considerably more than ACH.
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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