APIs · head to head
Formance vs Insomnia
Formance
APIs
Open source double-entry ledger and payment orchestration for money-moving software
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
Insomnia
Testing
REST and GraphQL API client for development and testing
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: 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.; Insomnia git Sync on the free tier covers up to 3 users only
- They diverge on capability: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Insomnia covers REST API Client.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Formance and Insomnia actually diverge.
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 Formance
- Double-entry ledger
- Numscript transaction DSL
- Multi-currency
- Payments connectivity
- Reconciliation
- Self-hosted deployment
- Cloud offering
- API and SDKs
Only in Insomnia
- REST API Client
- GraphQL Support
- gRPC Support
- GitHub
- GitLab
- Slack
- Windows support
- MacOS support
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Formance
- A marketplace splitting a single customer payment between seller, platform fee and tax that needs the split to be atomic and auditablenot Insomnia
- A fintech whose homegrown balances table produced numbers finance could not reconcile and now needs proper double-entry before an auditnot Insomnia
- A payments team that wants one normalised model across several PSPs so reconciliation is not written separately for eachnot Insomnia
- A company that wants its ledger under a licence it can keep running even if the vendor disappearsnot Insomnia
Insomnia
- Sending and debugging HTTP, GraphQL and gRPC requestsnot Formance
- Storing collections in Git rather than a vendor cloudnot Formance
- Mocking an API endpoint before it existsnot Formance
- Running collections in CI with the Inso CLInot Formance
- Environment management across staging and productionnot Formance
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
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.
Insomnia
- Git Sync on the free tier covers up to 3 users only
- Mock servers are capped at 1,000 requests a month on free, then $10 per 25,000
- Role-based access control requires Pro at $12 per user per month
- SSO, SCIM and vault integrations are Enterprise only at $45 per user per month
- Working without an account is limited to the local-only Scratch Pad
Pricing, plan by plan
Formance
Free- Open SourceFree
- MIT licensed core ledger
- Numscript transaction DSL
- Multi-currency tracking
- Enterprise$undefined/year
- Managed or private deployment
- Payments connectivity and reconciliation
- Support with response commitments
Insomnia
Free- EssentialsFree
- unlimited Cloud/Local projects
- up to 3 users with Git Sync
- 1,000 mock server requests/month
- Pro$12/user/month
- unlimited users with Git Sync access
- unlimited organizations
- role-based access control
- Enterprise$45/user/month
- Kong Konnect integration
- SSO (SAML/OIDC)
- SCIM provisioning
Which should you pick?
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.
Choose Insomnia if
- You need rest api client.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Windows, MacOS, Linux, Web.
- You also want graphql support.
Questions people ask
- Is Formance or Insomnia better?
- Neither clearly leads. Formance starts at Free and Insomnia at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Formance or Insomnia?
- Formance starts at Free and Insomnia at Free.
- Does Formance or Insomnia run on more platforms?
- Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API. Insomnia runs on Windows, MacOS, Linux, Web.
- Can I use Formance for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Formance best used for?
- Formance is most often used for a marketplace splitting a single customer payment between seller, platform fee and tax that needs the split to be atomic and auditable, a fintech whose homegrown balances table produced numbers finance could not reconcile and now needs proper double-entry before an audit, a payments team that wants one normalised model across several psps so reconciliation is not written separately for each, a company that wants its ledger under a licence it can keep running even if the vendor disappears. Of those, a marketplace splitting a single customer payment between seller, platform fee and tax that needs the split to be atomic and auditable and a fintech whose homegrown balances table produced numbers finance could not reconcile and now needs proper double-entry before an audit are not what Insomnia is typically brought in for.
- What can Formance do that Insomnia cannot?
- Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity. Insomnia covers REST API Client, GraphQL Support, gRPC Support, GitHub.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Formance: Is Formance really open source?
Yes. The core ledger is MIT licensed with full source access and no deployment restrictions.
Insomnia: How much does Insomnia cost?
Insomnia offers a free Essentials plan. Pro plans cost $12 per user per month with annual billing offering 17% savings. Enterprise plans cost $45 per user per month with support for up to 50 users self-serve; contact sales for larger teams.
SourceFormance: Does Formance move money?
No. It records and orchestrates movements; the actual payments happen at a PSP or bank you connect.
Insomnia: Is there a free version of Insomnia?
Yes, the Essentials plan is free and includes unlimited Cloud and Local projects, Git Sync for up to 3 users, 1,000 mock server requests per month, Inso CLI, E2EE, custom linting, plugins, and AI features.
SourceFormance: What does the enterprise version cost?
Not published. It is an annual subscription quoted per customer.
Insomnia: What mock server request limits apply to Insomnia plans?
Essentials includes 1,000 mock server requests per month. Pro includes 10,000 requests per month. Enterprise includes unlimited mock server requests. Additional mock server requests beyond plan allowances cost $10 per 25,000 requests.
SourceFormance: 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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