Is Formance or Lago better?

Neither clearly leads. Formance starts at Free and Lago at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Formance or Lago?

Formance starts at Free and Lago at Free.

Does Formance or Lago run on more platforms?

Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API. Lago runs on Web, Cloud, Self-hosted, On-premise, VPC.

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 Lago is typically brought in for.

What can Formance do that Lago cannot?

Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity. Lago covers Real-time usage metering, Multiple pricing models, Automated invoicing, Prepaid credits.

APIs · head to head

Formance vs Lago

Formance

APIs

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

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

Lago

Accounting

Open-source billing infrastructure for usage-based models

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

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.; Lago free tier limited to 10,000 entities per month with 5M event cap
They diverge on capability: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Lago covers Real-time usage metering.
Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Formance and Lago actually diverge.

Attributes where Formance and Lago differ
Attribute	Formance	Lago
Pricing model	Open source, no licence fee	Freemium with optional paid tiers
Platforms	Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API	Web, Cloud, Self-hosted, On-premise, VPC
Category	APIs	Accounting

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 Lago

Real-time usage metering
Multiple pricing models
Automated invoicing
Prepaid credits
Entitlements
Multi-currency support
Payment orchestration
Revenue analytics

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

Lago

Building usage-based billing for high-volume APIs and infrastructurenot Formance
Implementing metered billing for AI and tokenized servicesnot Formance
Creating subscription and hybrid pricing modelsnot Formance
Managing multi-currency billing for global companiesnot Formance
Maintaining billing infrastructure without vendor lock-innot 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.

Lago

Free tier limited to 10,000 entities per month with 5M event cap
No specific pricing published for Pro annual plan or Scale plan
Self-hosted and on-premise deployments require engineering resources
Community support only on free tier
Scale plan requires annual contracts and sales engagement

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

Lago

Free

Build (Free)Free
- 10,000 managed entities per month
- 5M usage events per month
- 1K events per second rate limit
Pro$399/month
- 10,000 entities included (graduated pricing to 100K)
- 25M usage events included (to 500M with graduated rates)
- 10K events per second (upgradeable to 100K)
Scale$null/custom
- Custom entity and event volumes
- 50K events per second (upgradeable to 100K)
- RBAC and SSO (SAML)

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 Lago if

You need real-time usage metering.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Web, Cloud, Self-hosted, On-premise, VPC.
You also want multiple pricing models.

Lago review

Questions people ask

Is Formance or Lago better?: Neither clearly leads. Formance starts at Free and Lago at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Formance or Lago?: Formance starts at Free and Lago at Free.
Does Formance or Lago run on more platforms?: Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API. Lago runs on Web, Cloud, Self-hosted, On-premise, VPC.
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 Lago is typically brought in for.
What can Formance do that Lago cannot?: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity. Lago covers Real-time usage metering, Multiple pricing models, Automated invoicing, Prepaid credits.

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.

Lago: Can I use Lago open-source for free?

Yes, Lago is open-source under the AGPLv3 license and can be self-hosted. The cloud-based Build plan is also free with limits of 10,000 entities and 5M events per month.

Source

Formance: Does Formance move money?

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

Lago: What payment providers does Lago integrate with?

Lago integrates with Stripe and Adyen for payment processing. It is not a payment processor itself but orchestrates payments through these providers.

Source

Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

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

Lago: Does Lago support multiple currencies?

Yes, Lago supports multi-currency billing with automatic currency conversion for global businesses.

Source

Formance: Do I have to use Numscript?

Yes for anything beyond the simplest transfers. It is how multi-party transactions are expressed atomically.

Formance vs Lago

Formance

Lago

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Formance

Only in Lago

What people use each for

Formance

Lago

Where each one falls short

Formance

Lago

Pricing, plan by plan

Formance

Lago

Which should you pick?

Choose Formance if

Choose Lago if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Formance

More on Lago

Keep looking

Other head to heads