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APIs · head to head

Formance vs Vault

Formance logo

Formance

APIs

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Vault logo

Vault

Cloud

Manage Secrets and Protect Sensitive Data

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.; Vault vault 1.15.0 and later is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1, not an OSI open source licence, with IBM Corporation as licensor
  • They diverge on capability: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Vault covers Secrets management.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Formance and Vault actually diverge.

Attributes where Formance and Vault differ
AttributeFormanceVault
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feeopen-source
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, APILinux, Windows, Mac, Cloud
CategoryAPIsCloud
FoundedUnknown2015

Identical on both: starting price (Free), 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 Vault

  • Secrets management
  • Encryption
  • Authentication
  • Authorization
  • Audit logging
  • API access
  • High availability
  • Replication

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

Vault

  • Centrally storing and rotating secrets, API keys and database credentialsnot Formance
  • Issuing short-lived dynamic credentials to applications instead of static passwordsnot Formance
  • Encryption as a service and PKI certificate issuancenot 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.

Vault

  • Vault 1.15.0 and later is licensed under the Business Source License 1.1, not an OSI open source licence, with IBM Corporation as licensor
  • The Additional Use Grant forbids offering Vault to third parties on a hosted or embedded basis in a paid product that competes with IBM's paid versions of Vault
  • Each version only converts to MPL 2.0 four years after that version is published, and the Change Date is tracked per version
  • Replication, HSM support, namespaces, performance standby nodes, FIPS builds, control group authorisation, multi-factor authentication, secrets sync and lease count quotas all require a Vault Enterprise licence
  • A Vault Enterprise licence must be applied to the cluster before any Enterprise feature can be used

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

Vault

Free
  • Open SourceFree
    • Secrets management
    • Encryption as a service
    • Identity management
  • EnterpriseFree
    • Advanced features
    • Premium support
    • Dedicated updates

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 Vault if

  • You need secrets management.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Windows, Mac, Cloud.
  • You also want encryption.
Vault review

Questions people ask

Is Formance or Vault better?
Neither clearly leads. Formance starts at Free and Vault at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Formance or Vault?
Formance starts at Free and Vault at Free.
Does Formance or Vault run on more platforms?
Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API. Vault runs on Linux, Windows, Mac, Cloud.
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 Vault is typically brought in for.
What can Formance do that Vault cannot?
Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity. Vault covers Secrets management, Encryption, Authentication, Authorization.

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.

Vault: Is HashiCorp Vault free to use?

Yes, Vault is available as a free, open-source project. The community version includes secrets management, certificate generation and rotation, encryption services, and credential management. Vault Enterprise is a commercial offering with additional features.

Source
Formance: Does Formance move money?

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

Vault: What are the differences between open-source Vault and Vault Enterprise?

Open-source Vault is free and self-hosted. Vault Enterprise includes additional features and commercial support. HashiCorp also offers Vault Dedicated on the HashiCorp Cloud Platform as a fully managed cloud option.

Source
Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

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

Vault: Can I try HashiCorp Cloud Platform Vault without payment?

Yes, HashiCorp offers a free trial option for HCP Vault Dedicated. New users also receive a $500 credit to use across HashiCorp Cloud Platform services.

Source
Formance: Do I have to use Numscript?

Yes for anything beyond the simplest transfers. It is how multi-party transactions are expressed atomically.

Vault: What does Vault manage and protect?

Vault provides identity-based secrets management for users, machines, services, and AI agents. It automates authentication and authorization for access to secrets, passwords, certificates, encryption keys, and other sensitive data across your infrastructure.

Source
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