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APIs · head to head

Formance vs Temenos Transact

Formance logo

Formance

APIs

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Temenos Transact logo

Temenos Transact

APIs

Established core banking system used by banks in over a hundred countries

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.; Temenos Transact the codebase originates in the 1990s, so banks on older releases face major upgrade programmes to reach current versions, and many defer them for years.
  • They diverge on capability: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Temenos Transact covers Country model banks.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Formance and Temenos Transact actually diverge.

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

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 Temenos Transact

  • Country model banks
  • Multi-product core
  • Payments processing
  • API layer
  • Cloud deployment
  • Accounting engine

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

Temenos Transact

  • A bank in an emerging market needing local regulatory compliance without building it from scratchnot Formance
  • An institution running Islamic banking products alongside conventional ones on one corenot Formance
  • A bank that needs a large pool of experienced implementation consultants to de-risk a migrationnot Formance
  • A group standardising subsidiaries in several countries onto one core banking systemnot 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.

Temenos Transact

  • The codebase originates in the 1990s, so banks on older releases face major upgrade programmes to reach current versions, and many defer them for years.
  • Total cost is dominated by implementation partner fees rather than licence, and those programmes routinely overrun their original estimates.
  • Product changes that cloud-native cores treat as configuration can require development work and a release cycle, which slows time to market for new products.
  • Heavy customisation is common and it makes every subsequent upgrade harder, creating a compounding cost that banks feel a decade after go-live.
  • Temenos has repeatedly restructured its product line and naming, so buyers must check carefully which components a proposal actually includes and which are separately licensed.

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

Temenos Transact

On request
  • Temenos Transact$undefined/year
    • Perpetual or subscription licence scaled by assets, accounts or users
    • Annual maintenance typically a percentage of licence value
    • Implementation delivered by partners and charged separately

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 Temenos Transact if

  • You need country model banks.
  • You work on Web, Linux, Windows, REST API.
  • You also want multi-product core.
Temenos Transact review

Questions people ask

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

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.

Temenos Transact: Is Transact the same as T24?

Yes. T24 was renamed Temenos Transact; older installations and much of the consultant population still use the T24 name.

Formance: Does Formance move money?

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

Temenos Transact: Can it run in the cloud?

Yes, it is offered on public cloud, though many existing installations remain on-premises and moving them is a project.

Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

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

Temenos Transact: What drives the cost?

Licence scaled by size, annual maintenance as a percentage of licence, and implementation partner fees that usually exceed the software cost.

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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