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APIs · head to head

Formance vs OpenSearch

Formance logo

Formance

APIs

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
OpenSearch logo

OpenSearch

Databases

Open-source search and analytics suite forked from Elasticsearch

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.; OpenSearch diverged from Elasticsearch since 7.10, so clients, plugins and features no longer map one to one
  • They diverge on capability: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, OpenSearch covers Full-text search.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Formance and OpenSearch actually diverge.

Attributes where Formance and OpenSearch differ
AttributeFormanceOpenSearch
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feeOpen source, no licence fee; managed services billed separately
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, APILinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted
CategoryAPIsDatabases

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 OpenSearch

  • Full-text search
  • OpenSearch Dashboards
  • Log analytics
  • Vector search

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

OpenSearch

  • Log and observability storage where an Apache-2.0 licence is a requirementnot Formance
  • Replacing Elasticsearch after the licence change without changing architecturenot Formance
  • Search plus analytics on one cluster rather than two systemsnot 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.

OpenSearch

  • Diverged from Elasticsearch since 7.10, so clients, plugins and features no longer map one to one
  • Operationally heavy in the way Elasticsearch is: cluster sizing, shard strategy and JVM tuning are ongoing work
  • Smaller ecosystem of third-party tooling than Elasticsearch, which most integrations still target first
  • Overkill for plain application search, where a dedicated search engine is far simpler

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

OpenSearch

Free
  • OpenSearchFree
    • Full functionality
    • Self-hosted
    • No usage limits

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 OpenSearch if

  • You need full-text search.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted.
  • You also want opensearch dashboards.
OpenSearch review

Questions people ask

Is Formance or OpenSearch better?
Neither clearly leads. Formance starts at Free and OpenSearch at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Formance or OpenSearch?
Formance starts at Free and OpenSearch at Free.
Does Formance or OpenSearch run on more platforms?
Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API. OpenSearch runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, 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 OpenSearch is typically brought in for.
What can Formance do that OpenSearch cannot?
Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity. OpenSearch covers Full-text search, OpenSearch Dashboards, Log analytics, Vector search.

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.

OpenSearch: Is OpenSearch free?

Yes, Apache 2.0 licensed under the Linux Foundation. Amazon OpenSearch Service is a paid managed option.

Formance: Does Formance move money?

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

OpenSearch: Why does OpenSearch exist?

Elastic moved Elasticsearch off the Apache 2.0 licence in 2021. AWS forked the last Apache-licensed version, and the project now sits under the Linux Foundation.

Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

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

OpenSearch: Is OpenSearch compatible with Elasticsearch?

It was at the 7.10 fork point. Both have developed independently since, so compatibility weakens with every release and should be verified for the features you use.

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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