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APIs · head to head

Formance vs Selenium

Formance logo

Formance

APIs

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Selenium logo

Selenium

Testing

Browser automation framework and the W3C WebDriver standard

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.; Selenium flaky tests are the standing complaint: explicit waits and synchronisation are the tester’s job, where newer tools handle it automatically
  • They diverge on capability: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Selenium covers W3C WebDriver.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Formance and Selenium actually diverge.

Attributes where Formance and Selenium differ
AttributeFormanceSelenium
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, APILinux, macOS, Windows, Web
CategoryAPIsTesting

Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (Open source, no licence fee), 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 Selenium

  • W3C WebDriver
  • Many language bindings
  • Selenium Grid
  • Broad browser support

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

Selenium

  • Cross-browser testing where Safari and legacy browsers must be coverednot Formance
  • Teams whose test suites are written in Java or C# rather than JavaScriptnot Formance
  • Distributing a large suite across a grid of machinesnot 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.

Selenium

  • Flaky tests are the standing complaint: explicit waits and synchronisation are the tester’s job, where newer tools handle it automatically
  • Setup involves drivers, versions and grid infrastructure that Playwright and Cypress bundle away
  • Slower to run than tools that talk to browsers over a debugging protocol rather than WebDriver

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

Selenium

Free
  • SeleniumFree
    • Full functionality
    • Unlimited tests
    • 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 Selenium if

  • You need w3c webdriver.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Web.
  • You also want many language bindings.
Selenium review

Questions people ask

Is Formance or Selenium better?
Neither clearly leads. Formance starts at Free and Selenium at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Formance or Selenium?
Formance starts at Free and Selenium at Free.
Does Formance or Selenium run on more platforms?
Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API. Selenium runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Web.
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 Selenium is typically brought in for.
What can Formance do that Selenium cannot?
Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity. Selenium covers W3C WebDriver, Many language bindings, Selenium Grid, Broad browser support.

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.

Selenium: Is Selenium free?

Yes, open source with no licence fee. Paid costs come from grid infrastructure or services like BrowserStack.

Formance: Does Formance move money?

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

Selenium: Selenium or Playwright?

Playwright handles waiting automatically and is faster to set up, which removes most flakiness complaints. Selenium wins on language breadth, browser coverage including Safari, and existing suites you already have.

Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

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

Selenium: Is Selenium still relevant?

Yes. Its WebDriver protocol is a W3C standard implemented by every major browser, and very large existing suites are not rewritten cheaply.

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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