APIs · head to head
Formance vs Lithic
Formance
APIs
Open source double-entry ledger and payment orchestration for money-moving software
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
Lithic
APIs
API-first card issuing platform with direct Visa, Mastercard and Amex network connections
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Formance has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- 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.; Lithic pricing is entirely undisclosed, so a company cannot compare total cost against Marqeta, Galileo or Highnote without a sales conversation.
- They diverge on capability: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Lithic covers Direct network connections.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Formance and Lithic actually diverge.
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 Formance
- Double-entry ledger
- Numscript transaction DSL
- Multi-currency
- Payments connectivity
- Reconciliation
- Self-hosted deployment
- Cloud offering
- API and SDKs
Only in Lithic
- Direct network connections
- Processor Client mode
- Lithic Program Management
- Card lifecycle APIs
- Sandbox environment
- Real-time authorization controls
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 Lithic
- A fintech whose homegrown balances table produced numbers finance could not reconcile and now needs proper double-entry before an auditnot Lithic
- A payments team that wants one normalised model across several PSPs so reconciliation is not written separately for eachnot Lithic
- A company that wants its ledger under a licence it can keep running even if the vendor disappearsnot Lithic
Lithic
- A fintech wanting direct Visa or Mastercard network access rather than routing through a third-party processornot Formance
- A company that already holds its own issuing licence and wants API access without full programme managementnot Formance
- A neobank or expense platform wanting Lithic to manage bank and network relationships end to endnot Formance
- A product team prototyping a card programme in sandbox before committing to a launchnot 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.
Lithic
- Pricing is entirely undisclosed, so a company cannot compare total cost against Marqeta, Galileo or Highnote without a sales conversation.
- Choosing Processor Client mode still leaves the company responsible for holding its own issuing licence and managing the regulatory relationship, which is a substantial undertaking many teams underestimate.
- As with any card infrastructure provider, an outage or network issue at Lithic becomes a direct outage for every card programme built on it, and a customer has limited visibility into root cause during an incident.
- Building a card programme on API infrastructure requires real engineering investment; it is not a plug-and-play product for a non-technical team.
- Switching card infrastructure providers after launch is a major undertaking involving card reissuance and programme migration, so the initial choice carries lasting lock-in.
Pricing, plan by plan
Formance
Free- Open SourceFree
- MIT licensed core ledger
- Numscript transaction DSL
- Multi-currency tracking
- Enterprise$undefined/year
- Managed or private deployment
- Payments connectivity and reconciliation
- Support with response commitments
Lithic
On request- Lithic$undefined/year
- Volume and interchange-based pricing, not published
- Separate Processor Client and Program Management pricing tracks
- Custom quote required via sales
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 Lithic if
- You need direct network connections.
- You work on Web, API.
- You also want processor client mode.
Questions people ask
- Is Formance or Lithic better?
- Neither clearly leads. Formance starts at Free and Lithic at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Formance or Lithic?
- Formance has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Formance and On request for Lithic.
- Does Formance or Lithic run on more platforms?
- Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API. Lithic runs on Web, API.
- Can I use Formance for free?
- Yes. Formance has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Lithic starts at On request.
- 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 Lithic is typically brought in for.
- What can Formance do that Lithic cannot?
- Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity. Lithic covers Direct network connections, Processor Client mode, Lithic Program Management, Card lifecycle APIs.
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.
Lithic: Does Lithic publish pricing?
No, pricing is volume-based and requires a sales conversation.
Formance: Does Formance move money?
No. It records and orchestrates movements; the actual payments happen at a PSP or bank you connect.
Lithic: What is the difference between Processor Client and Program Management?
Processor Client suits companies with their own issuing licence and bank relationships; Program Management is for companies wanting Lithic to coordinate those relationships on their behalf.
Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?
Not published. It is an annual subscription quoted per customer.
Lithic: Which networks does it connect to?
Visa, Mastercard and American Express directly.
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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