Chargebee
Subscription billing and revenue management for recurring businesses
Formance
Modular developer platform for complex financial transaction flows
Open-source platform with programmable ledger, unified payments API, and transaction modeling DSL. Deploy components together or as standalone microservices for financial operations.
Overview
Purpose and Audience
Formance Stack is a highly modular developer platform designed for engineering teams building and operating complex financial transaction systems at any scale. Whether you're building a fintech application, marketplace, or embedded finance product, Formance provides the infrastructure to model, record, and process money movements with precision.
Core Capabilities
The platform comprises three primary components: Formance Ledger delivers a programmable double-entry, immutable ledger as your source of truth for internal financial transactions. Formance Payments provides a unified API and data layer that abstracts payment processing complexity. Formance Numscript offers a domain-specific language and virtual machine for modeling monetary computations and transaction logic.
Deployment and Architecture
Built on PostgreSQL, Kafka/NATS, and Traefik, Formance can be deployed locally via Docker Compose for development or to Kubernetes clusters using official Helm charts for production. Components work together as a complete stack or independently as microservices, giving teams flexibility to adopt what they need. A cloud sandbox environment enables rapid prototyping without infrastructure setup.
Highlights
Programmable double-entry ledger with immutable transaction history
Unified payments API abstracting multiple payment processor integrations
Numscript DSL for declarative monetary computation and transaction modeling
Modular architecture supporting full-stack or standalone microservice deployment
Pros
- Flexible deployment options from local Docker to cloud-native Kubernetes
- Components can be used independently or as integrated stack
- Built on proven open-source technologies (PostgreSQL, Kafka, Traefik)
- Cloud sandbox available for rapid testing and prototyping
Considerations
- Requires minimum 5GB Docker RAM for local deployment
- Documentation and ecosystem maturity may be evolving
- Learning curve for Numscript DSL and ledger concepts
- Kubernetes expertise needed for production cloud-native deployments
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When teams consider Formance, these hosted platforms usually appear on the same shortlist.
Looking for a hosted option? These are the services engineering teams benchmark against before choosing open source.
Fit guide
Great for
- Fintech startups building transaction-heavy applications from scratch
- Platforms requiring auditable, immutable financial record-keeping
- Teams needing to abstract and unify multiple payment provider integrations
- Engineering organizations comfortable with microservices and Kubernetes
Not ideal when
- Simple payment flows requiring only basic checkout functionality
- Teams without container orchestration or DevOps capabilities
- Projects needing plug-and-play SaaS solutions without infrastructure management
- Organizations requiring extensive vendor support and SLAs
How teams use it
Marketplace Split Payments
Model complex multi-party transactions with automatic commission splits, escrow handling, and reconciliation across vendors using programmable ledger logic.
Embedded Finance Platform
Build white-label financial products with unified payment processing, immutable audit trails, and custom transaction rules defined in Numscript.
Multi-Currency Wallet System
Track user balances across currencies with double-entry accuracy, process cross-border payments through unified API, and maintain complete transaction history.
Subscription Billing Infrastructure
Orchestrate recurring payments, usage-based billing, and revenue recognition with programmable ledger entries and payment provider abstraction.
Tech snapshot
Earthly55%
Go24%
JavaScript16%
Dockerfile5%
Frequently asked questions
Can I use individual components without deploying the full stack?
Yes, Formance components are designed as standalone microservices. You can deploy only the Ledger, Payments API, or Numscript runtime independently based on your needs.
What is Numscript and why would I use it?
Numscript is a domain-specific language for modeling monetary transactions declaratively. It simplifies complex financial logic like multi-party splits, conditional transfers, and balance validations without imperative code.
Is the cloud sandbox suitable for production workloads?
No, the Formance Cloud sandbox is intended for testing and prototyping only. Production deployments should use self-hosted infrastructure via Docker Compose or Kubernetes with Helm charts.
What payment providers does Formance Payments support?
The documentation does not specify supported providers. Formance Payments provides a unified API layer, but you should consult the official documentation for the current list of integrations.
What are the minimum infrastructure requirements?
Local development requires Docker with at least 5GB available RAM and Docker Compose. Production deployments typically use Kubernetes clusters with PostgreSQL and either Kafka or NATS for messaging.
Project at a glance
Active- Stars
- 485
- Watchers
- 485
- Forks
- 60
Repo age3 years old
Last commit2 months ago
Primary languageEarthly
Last synced yesterday