Is Formance or n8n better?

Neither clearly leads. Formance starts at Free and n8n at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Formance or n8n?

Formance starts at Free and n8n at Free.

Does Formance or n8n run on more platforms?

Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API. n8n runs on Web, Docker, Self-hosted.

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 n8n is typically brought in for.

What can Formance do that n8n cannot?

Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity. n8n covers Workflow automation, Visual editor, Conditional execution, Looping. Both handle Self-hosted deployment.

APIs · head to head

Formance vs n8n

Formance

APIs

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

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

n8n

Automation Integration

The fair-code workflow automation tool

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.; n8n starter tier limited to 1 project and 5 concurrent executions
They diverge on capability: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, n8n covers Workflow automation.
Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Formance and n8n actually diverge.

Attributes where Formance and n8n differ
Attribute	Formance	n8n
Pricing model	Open source, no licence fee	subscription
Platforms	Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API	Web, Docker, Self-hosted
Category	APIs	Automation Integration
Founded	Unknown	2019

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
Cloud offering
API and SDKs

Only in n8n

Workflow automation
Visual editor
Conditional execution
Looping
Error handling
Scheduling
Webhooks
REST API

Both cover

Self-hosted deployment

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 n8n
A fintech whose homegrown balances table produced numbers finance could not reconcile and now needs proper double-entry before an auditnot n8n
A payments team that wants one normalised model across several PSPs so reconciliation is not written separately for eachnot n8n
A company that wants its ledger under a licence it can keep running even if the vendor disappearsnot n8n

n8n

Building AI agents and workflow automation for technical teamsnot Formance
Visual workflow design with capability to write custom JavaScript or Python codenot Formance
Enterprise deployments with self-hosted or cloud optionsnot Formance
Integrating 500+ pre-built applications with custom API connectionsnot 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.

n8n

Starter tier limited to 1 project and 5 concurrent executions
Starter and Pro tiers restricted to Cloud hosting only, not self-hosted
Business tier requires 6 months minimum commitment at €667/month
SSO/SAML/LDAP authentication requires Business or Enterprise tier
Dedicated support with SLA available only on Enterprise plan

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

n8n

Free

CommunityFree
- Free self-hosted version on GitHub
- Open source
Starter$20/month
- 2,500 workflow executions
- 5 concurrent executions
- 2,300 AI credits/month
Pro$50/month
- 10,000 workflow executions
- 20 concurrent executions
- 13,700 AI credits/month
Business$667/month
- 40,000 workflow executions
- Self-hosted option
- 6 shared projects

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 n8n if

You need workflow automation.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Web, Docker, Self-hosted.
You also want visual editor.

n8n review

Questions people ask

Is Formance or n8n better?: Neither clearly leads. Formance starts at Free and n8n at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Formance or n8n?: Formance starts at Free and n8n at Free.
Does Formance or n8n run on more platforms?: Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API. n8n runs on Web, Docker, Self-hosted.
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 n8n is typically brought in for.
What can Formance do that n8n cannot?: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity. n8n covers Workflow automation, Visual editor, Conditional execution, Looping. Both handle Self-hosted deployment.

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.

n8n: Is there a free version of n8n?

Yes, n8n Community Edition is free and open-source, available for self-hosting on GitHub with unlimited users and workflows.

Source

Formance: Does Formance move money?

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

n8n: What is the difference between n8n plans?

Plans differ by monthly workflow executions (2,500 for Starter, 10,000 for Pro, 40,000 for Business), concurrent execution limits, AI credits, and shared project counts.

Source

Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

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

n8n: Does n8n offer annual billing discounts?

Yes, n8n offers 17% off when billing annually instead of monthly, and provides a Startup Plan at 50% off Business pricing for companies under 20 employees.

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 n8n

Formance

n8n

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Formance

Only in n8n

Both cover

What people use each for

Formance

n8n

Where each one falls short

Formance

n8n

Pricing, plan by plan

Formance

n8n

Which should you pick?

Choose Formance if

Choose n8n if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Formance

More on n8n

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Other head to heads