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APIs · head to head

Formance vs Ory Kratos

Formance logo

Formance

APIs

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Ory Kratos logo

Ory Kratos

Cybersecurity

Headless identity and user management API

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 Kratos headless means you build every screen, which is significant work compared with a hosted login page
  • They diverge on capability: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Ory Kratos covers Headless API.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Formance and Ory Kratos actually diverge.

Attributes where Formance and Ory Kratos differ
AttributeFormanceOry Kratos
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feeOpen-source self-hosted, with a paid managed network
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, APILinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted
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 Kratos

  • Headless API
  • Self-service flows
  • Multi-factor authentication
  • Pluggable identity schemas

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

Ory Kratos

  • Products needing complete control over the look and flow of authenticationnot Formance
  • Applications that must not hand user identity data to a third partynot Formance
  • Teams building identity as infrastructure across several servicesnot 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 Kratos

  • Headless means you build every screen, which is significant work compared with a hosted login page
  • More moving parts than a monolithic IAM: Kratos handles identity, and OAuth2 needs Ory Hydra alongside
  • Documentation assumes real familiarity with identity concepts and is not a gentle introduction
  • Self-hosting identity carries the security and availability burden that hosted providers absorb

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 Kratos

Free
  • Self-hostedFree
    • Full identity server
    • All flows
    • Community support

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 Kratos if

  • You need headless api.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted.
  • You also want self-service flows.
Ory Kratos review

Questions people ask

Is Formance or Ory Kratos better?
Neither clearly leads. Formance starts at Free and Ory Kratos at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Formance or Ory Kratos?
Formance starts at Free and Ory Kratos at Free.
Does Formance or Ory Kratos run on more platforms?
Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API. Ory Kratos 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 Ory Kratos is typically brought in for.
What can Formance do that Ory Kratos cannot?
Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity. Ory Kratos covers Headless API, Self-service flows, Multi-factor authentication, Pluggable identity schemas.

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 Kratos: Is Ory Kratos free?

Yes, open source and free to self-host. Ory Network is a paid managed service.

Formance: Does Formance move money?

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

Ory Kratos: What does headless mean here?

Kratos provides identity flows as APIs and no user interface. You build the login, registration and recovery screens yourself.

Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

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

Ory Kratos: Does Kratos do OAuth2?

No. Kratos handles user identity; OAuth2 and OpenID Connect provider functionality is Ory Hydra, a separate component.

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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