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APIs · head to head

Formance vs Strapi

Formance logo

Formance

APIs

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Strapi logo

Strapi

APIs

Headless CMS with REST and GraphQL APIs

From
$35/month
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.; Strapi cloud pricing is per project, not per account, so a second project doubles the bill
  • They diverge on capability: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Strapi covers REST API.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Formance and Strapi actually diverge.

Attributes where Formance and Strapi differ
AttributeFormanceStrapi
Starting priceFree$35/month
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feesubscription
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, APINode.js, Cloud, Self-hosted, Docker
FoundedUnknown2015

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 Strapi

  • REST API
  • GraphQL API
  • Content management
  • PostgreSQL
  • MySQL
  • MongoDB
  • AWS
  • Webhooks

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

Strapi

  • Running a self hosted headless CMS with a REST or GraphQL APInot Formance
  • Giving editors a content admin panel over a custom content modelnot 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.

Strapi

  • Cloud pricing is per project, not per account, so a second project doubles the bill
  • Starter at $35 a month allows 100,000 API requests, and overage is $1.50 per 25,000
  • Extra bandwidth is $30 per 100 GB and extra asset storage $0.60 per GB
  • Backups start at the Pro plan, weekly, and only become daily at Business
  • An uptime SLA is Business only, at $450 a month per project
  • Additional environments cost $60 a month on Pro and $300 a month on Business

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

Strapi

$35/month
  • Starter$35/month
    • 100k API requests
    • 50 GB asset storage
    • 50 GB asset bandwidth
  • Pro$90/month
    • 1M API requests
    • 250 GB asset storage
    • 500 GB asset bandwidth
  • Business$450/month
    • 10M API requests
    • 1000 GB asset storage
    • 1000 GB asset bandwidth

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 Strapi if

  • You need rest api.
  • You work on Node.js, Cloud, Self-hosted, Docker.
  • You also want graphql api.
Strapi review

Questions people ask

Is Formance or Strapi better?
Neither clearly leads. Formance starts at Free and Strapi at $35/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Formance or Strapi?
Formance has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Formance and $35/month for Strapi.
Does Formance or Strapi run on more platforms?
Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API. Strapi runs on Node.js, Cloud, Self-hosted, Docker.
Can I use Formance for free?
Yes. Formance has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Strapi starts at $35/month.
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 Strapi is typically brought in for.
What can Formance do that Strapi cannot?
Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity. Strapi covers REST API, GraphQL API, Content management, PostgreSQL.

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.

Strapi: How much do API request overages cost?

Additional API requests beyond the plan limit cost $1.50 per 25000 requests. Extra asset storage costs $0.60 per GB, and additional bandwidth costs $30 per 100 GB.

Source
Formance: Does Formance move money?

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

Strapi: Is yearly billing available?

Yes, yearly billing saves up to 17% compared to monthly billing on Strapi Cloud plans.

Source
Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

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

Strapi: What is included with the Pro plan?

The Pro plan costs $90 per month per project and includes 1M API requests, 250 GB asset storage, 500 GB bandwidth, multi-environment support, weekly backups, and manual backups.

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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