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APIs · head to head

Formance vs PostgreSQL

Formance logo

Formance

APIs

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
PostgreSQL logo

PostgreSQL

Databases

The world's most advanced open source relational database

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.; PostgreSQL requires manual scaling across multiple machines for very large deployments
  • They diverge on capability: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, PostgreSQL covers ACID Compliance.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Formance and PostgreSQL actually diverge.

Attributes where Formance and PostgreSQL differ
AttributeFormancePostgreSQL
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feeUnknown
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, APILinux, Windows, macOS, BSD, Unix
CategoryAPIsDatabases
FoundedUnknown1996

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 PostgreSQL

  • ACID Compliance
  • JSON/JSONB Support
  • Full-text Search
  • Extensibility
  • Advanced Indexing
  • Partitioning
  • Replication
  • pgAdmin

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

PostgreSQL

  • Transaction processingnot Formance
  • Data storagenot Formance
  • Application backendnot Formance
  • Reportingnot Formance
  • Data analyticsnot 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.

PostgreSQL

  • Requires manual scaling across multiple machines for very large deployments
  • Performance tuning requires deep knowledge of database internals
  • No built-in graphical admin interface; command-line tools are primary method

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

PostgreSQL

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the PostgreSQL review.

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 PostgreSQL if

  • You need acid compliance.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Windows, macOS, BSD, Unix.
  • You also want json/jsonb support.
PostgreSQL review

Questions people ask

Is Formance or PostgreSQL better?
Neither clearly leads. Formance starts at Free and PostgreSQL at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Formance or PostgreSQL?
Formance starts at Free and PostgreSQL at Free.
Does Formance or PostgreSQL run on more platforms?
Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API. PostgreSQL runs on Linux, Windows, macOS, BSD, Unix.
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 PostgreSQL is typically brought in for.
What can Formance do that PostgreSQL cannot?
Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity. PostgreSQL covers ACID Compliance, JSON/JSONB Support, Full-text Search, Extensibility.

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.

PostgreSQL: Is PostgreSQL completely free?

Yes. PostgreSQL is completely free and open source with no licensing fees or restrictions on use.

Source
Formance: Does Formance move money?

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

PostgreSQL: What platforms does PostgreSQL run on?

PostgreSQL runs on all major operating systems including Linux, Windows, macOS, BSD, and commercial Unix variants, and has been proven highly scalable managing terabytes to petabytes of data.

Source
Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

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

PostgreSQL: What procedural languages are supported?

PostgreSQL supports stored functions and procedures in multiple languages including PL/pgSQL, Perl, Python, Tcl, Java, JavaScript, R, and Rust.

Source
Formance: Do I have to use Numscript?

Yes for anything beyond the simplest transfers. It is how multi-party transactions are expressed atomically.

PostgreSQL: What is ACID compliance in PostgreSQL?

PostgreSQL has been ACID-compliant since 2001, ensuring data integrity through atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability guarantees for all transactions.

Source
PostgreSQL: Does PostgreSQL support JSON data?

Yes. PostgreSQL supports JSON and JSONB data types for storing and querying JSON documents, along with XML and other document formats.

Source
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