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APIs · head to head

Formance vs Ory

Formance logo

Formance

APIs

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Ory logo

Ory

Cybersecurity

Open-source identity, authentication, and permissions infrastructure

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.; Ory production and Growth plans are billed annually ($770/year and $9,350/year), which is a larger upfront commitment than monthly-only competitors.
  • They diverge on capability: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Ory covers Authentication APIs.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Formance and Ory actually diverge.

Attributes where Formance and Ory differ
AttributeFormanceOry
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feeusage-based
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, APIweb, api
CategoryAPIsCybersecurity

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 Ory

  • Authentication APIs
  • Permissions engine
  • Machine-to-machine tokens
  • B2B organizations
  • SAML SSO
  • Multi-region deployments

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

Ory

  • Adding self-hosted or cloud identity to a new productnot Formance
  • Implementing fine-grained permission checksnot Formance
  • Supporting B2B organizations and multi-tenancynot Formance
  • Building machine-to-machine authentication for microservicesnot 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.

Ory

  • Production and Growth plans are billed annually ($770/year and $9,350/year), which is a larger upfront commitment than monthly-only competitors.
  • SAML SSO and multi-region deployments are reserved for the custom-priced Enterprise tier.
  • Usage-based pricing across aDAU, M2M tokens, and permission checks makes cost estimation more complex than flat per-MAU billing.

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

Ory

Free
  • DeveloperFree
    • Community support
    • No production environments
  • Production$64/month
    • $21 monthly credit included
    • 1 production environment
    • 3 staging environments
  • Growth$779/month
    • $255 monthly credit included
    • 2 production environments
    • B2B organizations (max 3)

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 Ory if

  • You need authentication apis.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on web, api.
  • You also want permissions engine.
Ory review

Questions people ask

Is Formance or Ory better?
Neither clearly leads. Formance starts at Free and Ory at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Formance or Ory?
Formance starts at Free and Ory at Free.
Does Formance or Ory run on more platforms?
Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API. Ory runs on web, 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 Ory is typically brought in for.
What can Formance do that Ory cannot?
Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity. Ory covers Authentication APIs, Permissions engine, Machine-to-machine tokens, B2B organizations.

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.

Ory: What does Ory cost?

Ory has a free Developer tier, a Production plan at $770/year including a $21 monthly credit, a Growth plan at $9,350/year including a $255 monthly credit, and 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.

Ory: How is usage metered?

Beyond the included credit, Ory charges per average daily active user (aDAU), per machine-to-machine token, and per permission check, with lower per-unit rates on the Growth plan.

Source
Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

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

Ory: What payment methods are supported?

Ory accepts credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, Amex) and bank transfer, processed via Stripe.

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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