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APIs · head to head

Formance vs Trivy

Formance logo

Formance

APIs

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Trivy logo

Trivy

Cybersecurity

Open-source vulnerability and misconfiguration scanner

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.; Trivy reports what public advisory databases know, so coverage varies by ecosystem and unfixed CVEs create noise
  • They diverge on capability: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Trivy covers Multi-target scanning.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Formance and Trivy actually diverge.

Attributes where Formance and Trivy differ
AttributeFormanceTrivy
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, APILinux, macOS, Windows, Docker, Kubernetes
CategoryAPIsCybersecurity

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 Trivy

  • Multi-target scanning
  • Vulnerability detection
  • Misconfiguration checks
  • Secret detection

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

Trivy

  • Failing a pull request when a container image introduces a known CVEnot Formance
  • Scanning Terraform and Kubernetes manifests for misconfiguration before applynot Formance
  • Catching committed secrets as part of an existing CI stepnot 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.

Trivy

  • Reports what public advisory databases know, so coverage varies by ecosystem and unfixed CVEs create noise
  • No built-in triage or exception workflow, so suppressing accepted risk is managed in config files
  • Findings are point-in-time from CI, with no continuous runtime monitoring unless you add the commercial platform

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

Trivy

Free
  • TrivyFree
    • Full scanner
    • Unlimited scans
    • 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 Trivy if

  • You need multi-target scanning.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Docker, Kubernetes.
  • You also want vulnerability detection.
Trivy review

Questions people ask

Is Formance or Trivy better?
Neither clearly leads. Formance starts at Free and Trivy at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Formance or Trivy?
Formance starts at Free and Trivy at Free.
Does Formance or Trivy run on more platforms?
Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API. Trivy runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Docker, Kubernetes.
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 Trivy is typically brought in for.
What can Formance do that Trivy cannot?
Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity. Trivy covers Multi-target scanning, Vulnerability detection, Misconfiguration checks, Secret detection.

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.

Trivy: Is Trivy free?

Yes, open source from Aqua Security with no licence fee. Aqua sells a commercial platform around it.

Formance: Does Formance move money?

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

Trivy: What can Trivy scan?

Container images, filesystems, Git repositories, Kubernetes clusters and infrastructure-as-code, for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, secrets and licences.

Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

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

Trivy: Does Trivy need a server?

No. It is a single binary, which is a large part of why it became a default in CI.

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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