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APIs · head to head

Formance vs Skaleet

Formance logo

Formance

APIs

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Skaleet logo

Skaleet

APIs

Cloud-native core banking and payment hub with deployments measured in months

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Formance has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • 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.; Skaleet the installed base is in the tens rather than the hundreds, so the pool of consultants and systems integrators who know the platform is small and expensive.
  • They diverge on capability: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Skaleet covers Cloud-native core.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Formance and Skaleet actually diverge.

Attributes where Formance and Skaleet differ
AttributeFormanceSkaleet
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feequote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, APIWeb, REST API, Linux

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (APIs).

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 Skaleet

  • Cloud-native core
  • Payment hub
  • Card management
  • Lending
  • API-first
  • Configurable products

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

Skaleet

  • A banking group launching a digital savings or deposit brand in a new country within a yearnot Formance
  • A bank modernising payments to ISO 20022 without replacing its whole corenot Formance
  • A payroll or HR software company adding embedded banking to its productnot Formance
  • A payment service provider needing a ledger and accounts under its existing licencenot 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.

Skaleet

  • The installed base is in the tens rather than the hundreds, so the pool of consultants and systems integrators who know the platform is small and expensive.
  • Speed references are mostly greenfield launches inside large groups, which is an easier problem than migrating an existing book off a legacy core.
  • It is European-centric, with payment rails and regulatory work concentrated on SEPA and EU requirements rather than global coverage.
  • As a smaller vendor carrying a bank core, it attracts hard concentration and viability questions in procurement that larger competitors do not face.
  • Pricing is unpublished and scaled by accounts and transactions, so a bank whose volumes grow faster than forecast faces cost escalation it did not model.

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

Skaleet

On request
  • Skaleet Core Banking Platform$undefined/year
    • Subscription licence scaled by accounts and transaction volume
    • Payment hub licensable separately from the full core
    • Implementation and configuration charged as a project

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 Skaleet if

  • You need cloud-native core.
  • You work on Web, REST API, Linux.
  • You also want payment hub.
Skaleet review

Questions people ask

Is Formance or Skaleet better?
Neither clearly leads. Formance starts at Free and Skaleet at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Formance or Skaleet?
Formance has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Formance and On request for Skaleet.
Does Formance or Skaleet run on more platforms?
Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API. Skaleet runs on Web, REST API, Linux.
Can I use Formance for free?
Yes. Formance has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Skaleet starts at On request.
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 Skaleet is typically brought in for.
What can Formance do that Skaleet cannot?
Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity. Skaleet covers Cloud-native core, Payment hub, Card management, Lending.

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.

Skaleet: What was Skaleet called before?

TagPay. The company rebranded to Skaleet while keeping the same platform lineage.

Formance: Does Formance move money?

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

Skaleet: Can I buy just the payment hub?

Yes. The payment engine is licensable standalone and can sit over an existing core, which is a common first step.

Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

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

Skaleet: How fast are real deployments?

Named European deployments have gone live in six to twelve months, including a Crédit Agricole savings platform live in Germany in eight months.

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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