Fineract 1.x vs CN
An overview of versions of Fineract by the community and major differences between them.
Versioning: What should we deploy? Fineract 1.x or Fineract CN?
Fineract 1. x is a mature platform with open APIs, while Fineract CN WAS a planned cloud native, microservice architecture.
The current decisive stance is to deploy Fineract 1. x.
Relevant Links:
Fineract CN Architecture Discussion
Remove Fineract CN from Active Status
Deprecate Fineract CN
A brief about the versioning history:
This is the identified chronology labels associated with observations made on the Apache Fineract project earlier parts of which known as Mifos X:
2006 - OpenMF
2011 - Mifos X: Frontend UI(known as community app) + Self service App + Backend
2015 onwards - Community app powered by Fineract 1.x
2019 - Community efforts on Fineract CN pre-release version
Another way to look at these community developments:
Gen 1 was an MIS for Microfinance
Gen 2 (Mifos X/Apache Fineract 1.0): an API-driven Core Banking Platform for Financial Inclusion
Gen 3(Mifos I/O/Apache Fineract-CN) : a planned application framework for digital financial services.
Note: The proposed Fineract CN was entirely different from Fineract 1. x, whereas Fineract CN is microservices-based.
A powerful feature of the Fineract CN concept is that it is easily deployable and configured and easy to change.
Version Comparison Table
(The following table summarises assessments made in the year 2020)
Fineract 1.x | Fineract CN | Features Note |
Lending API | Lending API | Fineract 1.x is more stable in terms of lending API support |
Clients API | Members API | |
Inter Ops API | NA | |
Multiple Lending Strategy API | NA | Fineract CN can be built a robust lending strategy if performed |
Accounting API | Partial Accounting API | Fineract CN have robust and standalone API for accounting but lacks many features which fineract 1.x |
Staff API | Partial Staff API | |
Roles and Permissions API | Similar to fineract 1.x | |
Run once | Run multiple and run some | Fineract CN is complicated to deploy also at the moment where if we have to create a new service we might have to rely on many dependent services. |
Complete UI | Incomplete UI | Fineract 1.x supports UI for detailed API available. To test functionality we might need to use postman like client |
Multitenancy with single DB | Multiple DB support | Fineract CN services can interact with different DB at a given time |
Basic and Oauth | Identity services use JWT token based stateless transactions | |
Transactions are coupled with entities | Loose service based transaction processor | Though this feature is not built as of now in fineract CN where a decoupled centralized services based transaction processor is avail e |
External Integration | Notification services | Fineract 1.x is much easy to integrate with external services as of now, |
GitHub Resources for testing with Fineract CN:
These are relevant Github repositories to this part of the discussion:
Endnotes:
Specific components of Fineract CN can be used while referencing the wiki on Fineract CN from time to time. For example, members' services can be used and extended over the top of existing clients' services. Similarly, the Lending portfolio can also be used alongside Fineract 1. x.
See Fineract 1. x Latest Releases
Read the Latest Release notes below:
Last updated
