head to head · open source
Ballerine vs Formance
Ballerine has 2,454 GitHub stars, 315 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 25 days ago. Formance has 533 stars, 73 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Ballerine leads on adoption by 360% (2,454 vs 533 stars). Ballerine is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Formance is written in Go under a custom or non-standard licence. Ballerine has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, Formance 14%. Formance was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Ballerine | Formance | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 2.5K | ★ 533 |
| License | Custom / other | Custom / other |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-09 | 2026-10-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 315 | ⑂ 73 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ballerine if
- You weight community size — 2.5K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Formance if
- You want the Formance feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Formance fits your workflow better
About Ballerine
Open Source Risk Management Infrastructure Documentation · Slack · Website · Contact · Issues ⚠️ Important Notice The open source repository is currently undergoing a major rebuild and is not actively supported at this time. Stay tuned for updates! Interested in our SaaS version? Join our Slack workspace and ping anyone from the team Email us at sales@ballerine.com Have questions about the OSS version? Reach out to oss@ballerine.com Connect with us on our Slack workspace Ballerine is an Open Source Risk Management Infrastructure that helps global payment companies, marketplaces and Fintechs to automate their…
read the full Ballerine overview →
About Formance
Formance Stack • Formance is a highly modular developer platform to build and operate complex money flows of any size and shapes. It comes with several components, that can be used as a whole as the Formance Stack or separately as standalone micro services and libraries: Formance Ledger Programmable double entry, immutable source of truth to record internal financial transactions and money movements Formance Payments Unified API and data layer for payments processing Formance Numscript DSL and virtual machine monetary computations and transactions modeling ⚡️ Getting started with Formance Cloud Sandbox Install…
read the full Formance overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ballerine or Formance more popular?
Ballerine has 2,454 GitHub stars and Formance has 533. Ballerine has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ballerine and Formance free?
Neither Ballerine nor Formance declares a licence in this registry, so check each project's own repository before relying on either for a commercial use. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Ballerine and Formance?
Ballerine is written in TypeScript and Formance in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Ballerine or Formance?
Choose Ballerine if you want the larger community (2,454 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Formance if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.