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APIs · head to head

Formance vs VerneMQ

Formance logo

Formance

APIs

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
VerneMQ logo

VerneMQ

Databases

Erlang MQTT broker whose source is Apache 2.0 but whose official binaries need a paid subscription

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.; VerneMQ the official binaries and Docker images are not Apache 2.0 but sit under a EULA requiring a yearly commercial subscription, a distinction easy to miss and awkward to discover during a licence audit.
  • They diverge on capability: Formance covers Double-entry ledger, VerneMQ covers Erlang/OTP clustering.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Formance and VerneMQ actually diverge.

Attributes where Formance and VerneMQ differ
AttributeFormanceVerneMQ
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feequote
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, APILinux, Docker, macOS, Kubernetes
CategoryAPIsDatabases

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 VerneMQ

  • Erlang/OTP clustering
  • MQTT 5.0 support
  • Plugin system
  • Backpressure handling
  • Bridge support
  • Metrics export
  • MQTT over WebSockets
  • Pluggable auth backends

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

VerneMQ

  • An industrial operator that wants an MQTT broker with predictable memory behaviour and no data integration features it will not usenot Formance
  • A team building from source to stay strictly under Apache 2.0 terms with no vendor licence entanglementnot Formance
  • A deployment needing custom authentication logic implemented as a plugin in Lua or over a webhooknot Formance
  • An organisation that wants a broker maintained by a small European company rather than by a vendor that keeps changing licencesnot 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.

VerneMQ

  • The official binaries and Docker images are not Apache 2.0 but sit under a EULA requiring a yearly commercial subscription, a distinction easy to miss and awkward to discover during a licence audit.
  • Octavo Labs is a very small company, so support depth, response times and the bus factor on the codebase are materially thinner than at HiveMQ or EMQ.
  • There is no data integration or rule engine layer, so routing messages into a database means writing and operating your own consumer service.
  • Operating an Erlang cluster requires runtime knowledge that most teams do not have and will use for nothing else in their stack.
  • There is no vendor-managed cloud offering, so every deployment is self-operated with the infrastructure and on-call cost that implies.

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

VerneMQ

Free
  • Source buildFree
    • Apache 2.0 licensed source from GitHub
    • Full clustering and plugin capability
    • You compile and package it yourself
  • Binary packages and Docker images$undefined/year
    • Covered by the VerneMQ EULA, not Apache 2.0
    • Yearly usage subscription expected for commercial use
    • Official builds and Docker images
  • Commercial support$undefined/year
    • Evaluation, customisation and operations assistance
    • Custom development
    • Long-term maintenance agreements

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 VerneMQ if

  • You need erlang/otp clustering.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, macOS, Kubernetes.
  • You also want mqtt 5.0 support.
VerneMQ review

Questions people ask

Is Formance or VerneMQ better?
Neither clearly leads. Formance starts at Free and VerneMQ at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Formance or VerneMQ?
Formance starts at Free and VerneMQ at Free.
Does Formance or VerneMQ run on more platforms?
Formance runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web, API. VerneMQ runs on Linux, Docker, macOS, 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 VerneMQ is typically brought in for.
What can Formance do that VerneMQ cannot?
Formance covers Double-entry ledger, Numscript transaction DSL, Multi-currency, Payments connectivity. VerneMQ covers Erlang/OTP clustering, MQTT 5.0 support, Plugin system, Backpressure handling.

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.

VerneMQ: Is VerneMQ free?

The source is Apache 2.0 and free. The official binary packages and Docker images are covered by a separate EULA that expects a yearly fee for commercial use.

Formance: Does Formance move money?

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

VerneMQ: Is the project still maintained?

Yes. Octavo Labs AG in Zurich continues to publish 2.x releases, most recently in 2026.

Formance: What does the enterprise version cost?

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

VerneMQ: Does it have a managed cloud?

No. Every deployment is self-hosted, with commercial support available from Octavo Labs.

Formance: Do I have to use Numscript?

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

VerneMQ: How does it compare to EMQX?

Narrower in features and without a rule engine, but with a simpler licence story for source builds after EMQX moved to BSL.

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