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Cybersecurity · head to head

Feedzai vs Formance

Feedzai logo

Feedzai

Cybersecurity

Real-time transaction fraud and financial crime detection for banks and payment processors

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: Feedzai pricing is per transaction with an annual minimum, so a bank with seasonal or growing volume commits to a floor it may not use and pays overage above the band.; 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: Feedzai covers Real-time scoring, Formance covers Double-entry ledger.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Feedzai and Formance actually diverge.

Attributes where Feedzai and Formance differ
AttributeFeedzaiFormance
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, LinuxLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API
CategoryCybersecurityAPIs

Identical on both: 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 Feedzai

  • Real-time scoring
  • Rule and model hybrid
  • Case manager
  • Behavioural biometrics
  • Model explainability
  • Deployment options

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.

Feedzai

  • A bank joining an instant payments scheme where transfers are irrevocable and post-hoc recovery is impossiblenot Formance
  • A card issuer whose existing rules engine cannot be changed without a release, so fraud waves run for daysnot Formance
  • An acquirer needing per-merchant risk models rather than one portfolio-wide modelnot Formance
  • A bank required by its regulator to explain automated declines to customers, which rules out opaque scoringnot Formance

Formance

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

Where each one falls short

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

Feedzai

  • Pricing is per transaction with an annual minimum, so a bank with seasonal or growing volume commits to a floor it may not use and pays overage above the band.
  • It sits in the authorisation path, which makes every upgrade a change-controlled event with rollback plans, and the operational burden falls on the bank rather than the vendor.
  • Out of the box models need months of the customer own labelled fraud history before they beat the rules they replace, so the value case starts late.
  • AML and fraud are licensed as separate modules, so institutions expecting one platform fee find the transaction monitoring capability is a second line item.
  • The buyer profile is large institutions, so smaller banks and fintechs face minimums that make per-transaction economics unattractive below significant scale.

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

Feedzai

On request
  • Feedzai Financial Crime Platform$undefined/year
    • Priced by transaction volume with annual minimum commitment
    • Modules for fraud, AML and account opening licensed separately
    • Cloud, private cloud and on-premises deployment

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 Feedzai if

  • You need real-time scoring.
  • You work on Web, Linux.
  • You also want rule and model hybrid.
Feedzai 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 Feedzai or Formance better?
Neither clearly leads. Feedzai 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, Feedzai or Formance?
Formance has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Feedzai and Free for Formance.
Does Feedzai or Formance run on more platforms?
Feedzai runs on Web, Linux. 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. Feedzai starts at On request.
What is Feedzai best used for?
Feedzai is most often used for a bank joining an instant payments scheme where transfers are irrevocable and post-hoc recovery is impossible, a card issuer whose existing rules engine cannot be changed without a release, so fraud waves run for days, an acquirer needing per-merchant risk models rather than one portfolio-wide model, a bank required by its regulator to explain automated declines to customers, which rules out opaque scoring. Of those, a bank joining an instant payments scheme where transfers are irrevocable and post-hoc recovery is impossible and a card issuer whose existing rules engine cannot be changed without a release, so fraud waves run for days are not what Formance is typically brought in for.
What can Feedzai do that Formance cannot?
Feedzai covers Real-time scoring, Rule and model hybrid, Case manager, Behavioural biometrics. Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Feedzai: Can Feedzai run on-premises?

Yes. On-premises and private cloud deployments are supported, which is why it appears in markets where transaction data cannot legally leave the country.

Formance: Is Formance really open source?

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

Feedzai: Does it cover AML as well as fraud?

It does, but transaction monitoring is a separately licensed module. Assume two line items if you want both.

Formance: Does Formance move money?

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

Feedzai: How fast are decisions?

Designed for the authorisation window, typically tens of milliseconds. This is the constraint that rules out batch scoring architectures.

Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

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

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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