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APIs · head to head

Codat vs Formance

Codat logo

Codat

APIs

One API for small business accounting, banking and commerce 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: Codat the accounting platforms are metering developer access themselves, with Xero introducing tiered connection based developer pricing from 2 March 2026, so a cost you do not control has been inserted between you and the data and it scales with the number of customers you connect.; 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: Codat covers Normalised accounting API, Formance covers Double-entry ledger.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Codat and Formance actually diverge.

Attributes where Codat and Formance differ
AttributeCodatFormance
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsAPI, WebLinux, 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 Codat

  • Normalised accounting API
  • Banking and commerce data
  • Lending products
  • Write-back
  • Business verification
  • Supplier onboarding
  • Connection management
  • Data quality handling

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.

Codat

  • A business lender that wants live ledger data for underwriting rather than a borrower emailing exported PDF accountsnot Formance
  • A commercial bank monitoring covenant compliance across a portfolio of small business borrowers continuously rather than quarterlynot Formance
  • A payment company verifying a merchant trading history before extending working capitalnot Formance
  • A B2B platform writing bills and payments back into a customer accounting system so reconciliation happens automaticallynot Formance

Formance

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

Where each one falls short

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

Codat

  • The accounting platforms are metering developer access themselves, with Xero introducing tiered connection based developer pricing from 2 March 2026, so a cost you do not control has been inserted between you and the data and it scales with the number of customers you connect.
  • Pricing is opaque and enterprise shaped for a product developers expect to evaluate technically first, so build decisions get made before anyone knows the unit economics.
  • Normalisation hides but does not remove the underlying differences between accounting systems, and edge cases in multi-currency, journals and tax handling surface as data quality problems that your team must reason about in each source system anyway.
  • Data quality depends on the small business keeping its books properly, so a lender using ledger data for underwriting inherits the bookkeeping standard of its worst borrower and needs its own validation layer regardless.
  • Connection breakage from expired tokens and platform API changes is an ongoing operational load, and a borrower whose connection lapses stops being monitored silently, which is the failure mode that matters most in a lending portfolio.

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

Codat

On request
  • Codat Platform$undefined/year
    • Priced by connected companies, data types and products
    • Lending and verification products priced above core data access
    • Annual enterprise agreements

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 Codat if

  • You need normalised accounting api.
  • You work on API, Web.
  • You also want banking and commerce data.
Codat 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 Codat or Formance better?
Neither clearly leads. Codat 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, Codat or Formance?
Formance has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Codat and Free for Formance.
Does Codat or Formance run on more platforms?
Codat runs on API, 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. Codat starts at On request.
What is Codat best used for?
Codat is most often used for a business lender that wants live ledger data for underwriting rather than a borrower emailing exported pdf accounts, a commercial bank monitoring covenant compliance across a portfolio of small business borrowers continuously rather than quarterly, a payment company verifying a merchant trading history before extending working capital, a b2b platform writing bills and payments back into a customer accounting system so reconciliation happens automatically. Of those, a business lender that wants live ledger data for underwriting rather than a borrower emailing exported pdf accounts and a commercial bank monitoring covenant compliance across a portfolio of small business borrowers continuously rather than quarterly are not what Formance is typically brought in for.
What can Codat do that Formance cannot?
Codat covers Normalised accounting API, Banking and commerce data, Lending products, Write-back. Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Codat: What is changing with Xero in 2026?

Xero is introducing a tiered, usage based developer pricing model effective 2 March 2026, with tiers based on the number of customer connections an app holds. That is a new cost in the chain for anyone reading Xero data at scale, whether directly or through Codat.

Formance: Is Formance really open source?

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

Codat: Can Codat write data back?

Yes. It supports pushing bills, payments and journal entries into accounting systems, not only reading from them.

Formance: Does Formance move money?

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

Codat: Is pricing published?

No. It is quoted by connected companies, data types and products, and users consistently describe it as opaque.

Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

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

Codat: Does it replace bank data aggregation?

Not entirely. It covers banking alongside accounting and commerce, but lenders commonly run it beside a bank aggregator for transaction level cash flow.

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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