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APIs · head to head

Formance vs Kong Gateway

Formance logo

Formance

APIs

Open source double-entry ledger and payment orchestration for money-moving software

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Kong Gateway logo

Kong Gateway

APIs

Open-source and cloud API gateway for managing microservices traffic

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

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.; Kong Gateway the free open-source gateway lacks the analytics, portals, and support of the paid Konnect tiers.
  • They diverge on capability: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Kong Gateway covers API request routing.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Formance and Kong Gateway actually diverge.

Attributes where Formance and Kong Gateway differ
AttributeFormanceKong Gateway
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feefreemium
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, APIweb, linux, api
FoundedUnknown2017

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), 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 Formance

  • Double-entry ledger
  • Numscript transaction DSL
  • Multi-currency
  • Payments connectivity
  • Reconciliation
  • Self-hosted deployment
  • Cloud offering
  • API and SDKs

Only in Kong Gateway

  • API request routing
  • Plugin ecosystem
  • Developer portals
  • AI Gateway
  • Analytics and observability
  • SSO and audit logs

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 Kong Gateway
  • A fintech whose homegrown balances table produced numbers finance could not reconcile and now needs proper double-entry before an auditnot Kong Gateway
  • A payments team that wants one normalised model across several PSPs so reconciliation is not written separately for eachnot Kong Gateway
  • A company that wants its ledger under a licence it can keep running even if the vendor disappearsnot Kong Gateway

Kong Gateway

  • Routing and securing traffic across microservicesnot Formance
  • Publishing internal or external developer portalsnot Formance
  • Managing rate limits and authentication at the API edgenot Formance
  • Gateway-level routing to multiple LLM providersnot 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.

Kong Gateway

  • The free open-source gateway lacks the analytics, portals, and support of the paid Konnect tiers.
  • Plus tier caps API requests at 1M/month before incurring per-million overage charges.
  • Enterprise pricing is custom and not published, making budgeting harder without sales contact.
  • Configuration and plugin management can require significant operational expertise to run at scale.

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

Kong Gateway

Free
  • Free TrialFree
    • 30-day enterprise functionality trial
    • Unlimited gateways
    • 30-day analytics retention
  • Plus$undefined/month
    • Up to 5 serverless, 2 hybrid, 2 dedicated cloud gateways
    • 1M API requests/month included
    • Up to 2 developer portals
  • Enterprise$undefined/month
    • Unlimited hybrid and dedicated cloud gateways
    • Unlimited developer portals
    • SSO and audit logs

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.
Formance review

Choose Kong Gateway if

  • You need api request routing.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on web, linux, api.
  • You also want plugin ecosystem.
Kong Gateway review

Questions people ask

Is Formance or Kong Gateway better?
Neither clearly leads. Formance starts at Free and Kong Gateway at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Formance or Kong Gateway?
Formance starts at Free and Kong Gateway at Free.
Does Formance or Kong Gateway run on more platforms?
Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API. Kong Gateway runs on web, linux, api.
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 Kong Gateway is typically brought in for.
What can Formance do that Kong Gateway cannot?
Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity. Kong Gateway covers API request routing, Plugin ecosystem, Developer portals, AI Gateway.

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.

Kong Gateway: Is Kong Gateway free?

Kong's core gateway is open source and free to self-host. Kong Konnect, the managed cloud platform, offers a 30-day free trial before moving to paid Plus or custom Enterprise pricing.

Source
Formance: Does Formance move money?

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

Kong Gateway: How is usage metered on the Plus plan?

The Plus plan includes 1M API requests per month, with additional usage billed at $200 per extra 1 million requests up to a 10M/month cap, plus per-gateway and per-LLM-model charges.

Source
Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

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

Kong Gateway: What support is included?

Plus includes email support with a 2-business-day SLA, while Enterprise adds dedicated success managers and professional services.

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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