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Customer Support · head to head

Chatwoot vs Formance

Chatwoot logo

Chatwoot

Customer Support

Open-source customer engagement platform

From
Free
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

  • Each has a real cost: Chatwoot free plan limited to 2 agents and 500 conversations per month; 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: Chatwoot covers Live chat, Formance covers Double-entry ledger.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Chatwoot and Formance actually diverge.

Attributes where Chatwoot and Formance differ
AttributeChatwootFormance
Pricing modelUnknownOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsWeb, Cloud, Self-hostedLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API
CategoryCustomer SupportAPIs
Founded2017Unknown

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

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 Chatwoot

  • Live chat
  • Email inbox
  • Social channels
  • Knowledge base
  • Chatbots
  • Reports
  • Slack
  • WhatsApp

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.

Chatwoot

  • Self-hosted supportnot Formance
  • Privacy-first chatnot Formance
  • Multi-channel supportnot Formance

Formance

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

Where each one falls short

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

Chatwoot

  • Free plan limited to 2 agents and 500 conversations per month
  • Self-hosted option requires managing infrastructure, updates, and external messaging costs
  • Smaller ecosystem and community compared to Zendesk or Intercom
  • AI features require credit consumption and additional configuration

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

Chatwoot

Free
  • HackerFree
    • 2 agents
    • 500 conversations per month
    • 1 live chat channel
  • Startups$19/month
    • Unlimited agents
    • Unlimited conversations

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 Chatwoot if

  • You need live chat.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Cloud, Self-hosted.
  • You also want email inbox.
Chatwoot 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 Chatwoot or Formance better?
Neither clearly leads. Chatwoot starts at Free and Formance at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Chatwoot or Formance?
Chatwoot starts at Free and Formance at Free.
Does Chatwoot or Formance run on more platforms?
Chatwoot runs on Web, Cloud, Self-hosted. Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API.
Can I use Chatwoot for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Chatwoot best used for?
Chatwoot is most often used for self-hosted support, privacy-first chat, multi-channel support. Of those, self-hosted support and privacy-first chat are not what Formance is typically brought in for.
What can Chatwoot do that Formance cannot?
Chatwoot covers Live chat, Email inbox, Social channels, Knowledge base. Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Chatwoot: Does Chatwoot offer a self-hosted option?

Yes. Chatwoot provides both cloud-hosted and self-hosted versions. Self-hosting is free with the open-source version, though you handle infrastructure, maintenance, and external messaging costs.

Source
Formance: Is Formance really open source?

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

Chatwoot: What communication channels does Chatwoot support?

Chatwoot supports email, live chat, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media channels consolidated into a single inbox.

Source
Formance: Does Formance move money?

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

Chatwoot: Is there a free plan for Chatwoot?

Yes. Chatwoot offers a free Hacker plan supporting up to 2 agents, 500 conversations per month, and one live chat channel.

Source
Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

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

Chatwoot: What AI features does Chatwoot include?

Chatwoot includes Captain AI agent for automated responses, Copilot for smart reply suggestions, and live translation features.

Source
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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