stripe vs braintree vs razorpay vs square vs paypal-rest-sdk
Payment Processing Libraries Comparison
1 Year
stripebraintreerazorpaysquarepaypal-rest-sdk
What's Payment Processing Libraries?

Payment processing libraries are essential tools for web developers to integrate payment solutions into their applications. They provide APIs and SDKs to handle transactions securely, manage customer data, and support various payment methods. These libraries simplify the complexities of payment processing, enabling developers to focus on building their applications while ensuring compliance with security standards and regulations. Each library offers unique features tailored to different business needs, making it crucial to choose the right one based on specific requirements.

Package Weekly Downloads Trend
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Package
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stripe2,882,8173,9705.34 MB4222 days agoMIT
braintree109,337333348 kB720 days agoMIT
razorpay62,327198312 kB954 months agoMIT
square28,7439216.8 MB5a month agoMIT
paypal-rest-sdk22,830---7 years agoSEE LICENSE IN https://github.com/paypal/PayPal-node-SDK/blob/master/LICENSE
Feature Comparison: stripe vs braintree vs razorpay vs square vs paypal-rest-sdk

Payment Methods Supported

  • stripe:

    Stripe supports a wide variety of payment methods, including credit cards, ACH transfers, digital wallets, and international payment options. Its extensive API allows for easy integration of new payment methods as they become available.

  • braintree:

    Braintree supports a wide range of payment methods, including credit cards, PayPal, Venmo, digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay, and even local payment methods in various regions, making it versatile for global businesses.

  • razorpay:

    Razorpay offers a diverse set of payment methods tailored for the Indian market, including UPI, net banking, wallets, and credit/debit cards, making it an excellent choice for businesses operating in India.

  • square:

    Square supports multiple payment methods, including credit cards, debit cards, and digital wallets. It also offers POS solutions for in-person transactions, making it ideal for brick-and-mortar businesses.

  • paypal-rest-sdk:

    The PayPal REST SDK primarily focuses on PayPal transactions, allowing users to pay via their PayPal accounts. It also supports credit card payments through PayPal, but its strength lies in leveraging PayPal's extensive network.

Ease of Integration

  • stripe:

    Stripe is known for its developer-friendly approach, offering extensive documentation, libraries for multiple languages, and a wide range of integration options, including pre-built checkout solutions.

  • braintree:

    Braintree provides a straightforward integration process with well-documented APIs and SDKs. Its drop-in UI components make it easy to implement payment forms without extensive frontend development.

  • razorpay:

    Razorpay offers a simple integration process with clear documentation and SDKs for various programming languages. Its dashboard provides a seamless way to manage transactions and settings.

  • square:

    Square provides easy-to-use APIs and SDKs for integration, along with a comprehensive dashboard for managing payments, making it accessible for developers of all skill levels.

  • paypal-rest-sdk:

    The PayPal REST SDK is designed for quick integration, especially for existing PayPal users. Its documentation is user-friendly, allowing developers to set up payment processing in a matter of hours.

Security Features

  • stripe:

    Stripe is highly regarded for its security features, including PCI compliance, encryption, and machine learning-based fraud detection, ensuring that transactions are secure and customer data is protected.

  • braintree:

    Braintree offers robust security features, including advanced fraud detection tools, PCI compliance, and tokenization to protect sensitive customer data, ensuring secure transactions.

  • razorpay:

    Razorpay provides strong security measures, including PCI DSS compliance and advanced fraud detection systems, ensuring that transactions are secure and customer data is protected.

  • square:

    Square emphasizes security with end-to-end encryption, PCI compliance, and fraud detection tools, providing a secure environment for both online and offline transactions.

  • paypal-rest-sdk:

    The PayPal REST SDK leverages PayPal's security infrastructure, including fraud protection and buyer/seller protection policies, making it a secure choice for online transactions.

Customer Support

  • stripe:

    Stripe is known for its high-quality customer support, offering 24/7 assistance through chat and email, along with extensive documentation and a vibrant developer community.

  • braintree:

    Braintree offers extensive customer support, including dedicated account managers for larger businesses, comprehensive documentation, and a community forum for developers.

  • razorpay:

    Razorpay offers responsive customer support via chat, email, and phone, along with a detailed knowledge base and community forums for developers.

  • square:

    Square provides excellent customer support, including live chat, email, and phone support, along with a wealth of online resources and tutorials for users.

  • paypal-rest-sdk:

    PayPal provides robust customer support through various channels, including live chat, email, and a detailed help center, making it easy for developers to get assistance when needed.

Pricing Structure

  • stripe:

    Stripe operates on a pay-as-you-go pricing model, charging a percentage per transaction with no monthly fees. It also offers volume discounts for larger businesses, making it scalable.

  • braintree:

    Braintree has a competitive pricing structure with no monthly fees, charging a percentage per transaction plus a fixed fee. This makes it cost-effective for businesses of all sizes, especially startups.

  • razorpay:

    Razorpay offers a transparent pricing model with no setup fees and charges a percentage per transaction. It also provides customized pricing for larger businesses, making it flexible for various business sizes.

  • square:

    Square has a straightforward pricing model with no monthly fees, charging a flat percentage per transaction. This simplicity makes it easy for businesses to understand their costs.

  • paypal-rest-sdk:

    PayPal charges a fee per transaction, which can vary based on the volume of sales and the type of transaction. There are no monthly fees, making it suitable for small businesses and freelancers.

How to Choose: stripe vs braintree vs razorpay vs square vs paypal-rest-sdk
  • stripe:

    Opt for Stripe if you require a highly customizable payment solution with extensive developer-friendly APIs. It's perfect for tech-savvy businesses that want to build a tailored payment experience and need support for international transactions and various payment methods.

  • braintree:

    Choose Braintree if you need a comprehensive payment solution that supports multiple payment methods, including credit cards, PayPal, and digital wallets. It's ideal for businesses looking for a flexible platform that can scale with their growth and offers advanced fraud protection features.

  • razorpay:

    Select Razorpay if you're targeting the Indian market, as it provides localized payment solutions tailored for Indian businesses. It supports various payment methods, including UPI, wallets, and credit cards, making it a great choice for startups and small businesses in India.

  • square:

    Choose Square if you need an all-in-one payment solution that includes point-of-sale (POS) capabilities. It's ideal for businesses that operate both online and offline, offering features like inventory management and customer engagement tools alongside payment processing.

  • paypal-rest-sdk:

    Opt for PayPal REST SDK if your primary focus is on integrating PayPal payments. It's suitable for businesses that want to leverage PayPal's extensive user base and trust. This SDK is straightforward for quick setups and offers features like recurring payments and invoicing.

README for stripe

Stripe Node.js Library

Version Build Status Downloads Try on RunKit

The Stripe Node library provides convenient access to the Stripe API from applications written in server-side JavaScript.

For collecting customer and payment information in the browser, use Stripe.js.

Documentation

See the stripe-node API docs for Node.js.

See video demonstrations covering how to use the library.

Requirements

Node 12 or higher.

Installation

Install the package with:

npm install stripe
# or
yarn add stripe

Usage

The package needs to be configured with your account's secret key, which is available in the Stripe Dashboard. Require it with the key's value:

const stripe = require('stripe')('sk_test_...');

stripe.customers.create({
  email: 'customer@example.com',
})
  .then(customer => console.log(customer.id))
  .catch(error => console.error(error));

Or using ES modules and async/await:

import Stripe from 'stripe';
const stripe = new Stripe('sk_test_...');

const customer = await stripe.customers.create({
  email: 'customer@example.com',
});

console.log(customer.id);

[!WARNING] If you're using v17.x.x or later and getting an error about a missing API key despite being sure it's available, it's likely you're importing the file that instantiates Stripe while the key isn't present (for instance, during a build step). If that's the case, consider instantiating the client lazily:

import Stripe from 'stripe';

let _stripe: Stripe | null = null;
const getStripe = (): Stripe => {
  if (!_stripe) {
    _stripe = new Stripe(process.env.STRIPE_SECRET_KEY as string, {
      // ...
    });
  }
  return _stripe;
};

const getCustomers = () => getStripe().customers.list();

Alternatively, you can provide a placeholder for the real key (which will be enough to get the code through a build step):

import Stripe from 'stripe';

export const stripe = new Stripe(
  process.env.STRIPE_SECRET_KEY || 'api_key_placeholder',
  {
    // ...
  }
);

Usage with TypeScript

As of 8.0.1, Stripe maintains types for the latest API version.

Import Stripe as a default import (not * as Stripe, unlike the DefinitelyTyped version) and instantiate it as new Stripe() with the latest API version.

import Stripe from 'stripe';
const stripe = new Stripe('sk_test_...');

const createCustomer = async () => {
  const params: Stripe.CustomerCreateParams = {
    description: 'test customer',
  };

  const customer: Stripe.Customer = await stripe.customers.create(params);

  console.log(customer.id);
};
createCustomer();

You can find a full TS server example in stripe-samples.

Using old API versions with TypeScript

Types can change between API versions (e.g., Stripe may have changed a field from a string to a hash), so our types only reflect the latest API version.

We therefore encourage upgrading your API version if you would like to take advantage of Stripe's TypeScript definitions.

If you are on an older API version (e.g., 2019-10-17) and not able to upgrade, you may pass another version and use a comment like // @ts-ignore stripe-version-2019-10-17 to silence type errors here and anywhere the types differ between your API version and the latest. When you upgrade, you should remove these comments.

We also recommend using // @ts-ignore if you have access to a beta feature and need to send parameters beyond the type definitions.

Using expand with TypeScript

Expandable fields are typed as string | Foo, so you must cast them appropriately, e.g.,

const paymentIntent: Stripe.PaymentIntent = await stripe.paymentIntents.retrieve(
  'pi_123456789',
  {
    expand: ['customer'],
  }
);
const customerEmail: string = (paymentIntent.customer as Stripe.Customer).email;

TypeScript and the stripe-node versioning policy

The TypeScript types in stripe-node always reflect the latest shape of the Stripe API. When the Stripe API changes in a backwards-incompatible way, there is a new Stripe API version, and we release a new major version of stripe-node. Sometimes, though, the Stripe API changes in a way that weakens the guarantees provided by the TypeScript types, but that cannot result in any backwards incompatibility at runtime. For example, we might add a new enum value on a response, along with a new parameter to a request. Adding a new value to a response enum weakens the TypeScript type. However, if the new enum value is only returned when the new parameter is provided, this cannot break any existing usages and so would not be considered a breaking API change. In stripe-node, we do NOT consider such changes to be breaking under our current versioning policy. This means that you might see new type errors from TypeScript as you upgrade minor versions of stripe-node, that you can resolve by adding additional type guards.

Please feel welcome to share your thoughts about the versioning policy in a Github issue. For now, we judge it to be better than the two alternatives: outdated, inaccurate types, or vastly more frequent major releases, which would distract from any future breaking changes with potentially more disruptive runtime implications.

Using Promises

Every method returns a chainable promise which can be used instead of a regular callback:

// Create a new customer and then create an invoice item then invoice it:
stripe.customers
  .create({
    email: 'customer@example.com',
  })
  .then((customer) => {
    // have access to the customer object
    return stripe.invoiceItems
      .create({
        customer: customer.id, // set the customer id
        amount: 2500, // 25
        currency: 'usd',
        description: 'One-time setup fee',
      })
      .then((invoiceItem) => {
        return stripe.invoices.create({
          collection_method: 'send_invoice',
          customer: invoiceItem.customer,
        });
      })
      .then((invoice) => {
        // New invoice created on a new customer
      })
      .catch((err) => {
        // Deal with an error
      });
  });

Usage with Deno

As of 11.16.0, stripe-node provides a deno export target. In your Deno project, import stripe-node using an npm specifier:

Import using npm specifiers:

import Stripe from 'npm:stripe';

Please see https://github.com/stripe-samples/stripe-node-deno-samples for more detailed examples and instructions on how to use stripe-node in Deno.

Configuration

Initialize with config object

The package can be initialized with several options:

import ProxyAgent from 'https-proxy-agent';

const stripe = Stripe('sk_test_...', {
  maxNetworkRetries: 1,
  httpAgent: new ProxyAgent(process.env.http_proxy),
  timeout: 1000,
  host: 'api.example.com',
  port: 123,
  telemetry: true,
});

| Option | Default | Description | | ------------------- | ------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | apiVersion | null | Stripe API version to be used. If not set, stripe-node will use the latest version at the time of release. | | maxNetworkRetries | 1 | The amount of times a request should be retried. | | httpAgent | null | Proxy agent to be used by the library. | | timeout | 80000 | Maximum time each request can take in ms. | | host | 'api.stripe.com' | Host that requests are made to. | | port | 443 | Port that requests are made to. | | protocol | 'https' | 'https' or 'http'. http is never appropriate for sending requests to Stripe servers, and we strongly discourage http, even in local testing scenarios, as this can result in your credentials being transmitted over an insecure channel. | | telemetry | true | Allow Stripe to send telemetry. |

Note Both maxNetworkRetries and timeout can be overridden on a per-request basis.

Configuring Timeout

Timeout can be set globally via the config object:

const stripe = Stripe('sk_test_...', {
  timeout: 20 * 1000, // 20 seconds
});

And overridden on a per-request basis:

stripe.customers.create(
  {
    email: 'customer@example.com',
  },
  {
    timeout: 1000, // 1 second
  }
);

Configuring For Connect

A per-request Stripe-Account header for use with Stripe Connect can be added to any method:

// List the balance transactions for a connected account:
stripe.balanceTransactions.list(
  {
    limit: 10,
  },
  {
    stripeAccount: 'acct_foo',
  }
);

Configuring a Proxy

To use stripe behind a proxy you can pass an https-proxy-agent on initialization:

if (process.env.http_proxy) {
  const ProxyAgent = require('https-proxy-agent');

  const stripe = Stripe('sk_test_...', {
    httpAgent: new ProxyAgent(process.env.http_proxy),
  });
}

Network retries

As of v13 stripe-node will automatically do one reattempt for failed requests that are safe to retry. Automatic network retries can be disabled by setting the maxNetworkRetries config option to 0. You can also set a higher number to reattempt multiple times, with exponential backoff. Idempotency keys are added where appropriate to prevent duplication.

const stripe = Stripe('sk_test_...', {
  maxNetworkRetries: 0, // Disable retries
});
const stripe = Stripe('sk_test_...', {
  maxNetworkRetries: 2, // Retry a request twice before giving up
});

Network retries can also be set on a per-request basis:

stripe.customers.create(
  {
    email: 'customer@example.com',
  },
  {
    maxNetworkRetries: 2, // Retry this specific request twice before giving up
  }
);

Examining Responses

Some information about the response which generated a resource is available with the lastResponse property:

customer.lastResponse.requestId; // see: https://stripe.com/docs/api/request_ids?lang=node
customer.lastResponse.statusCode;

request and response events

The Stripe object emits request and response events. You can use them like this:

const stripe = require('stripe')('sk_test_...');

const onRequest = (request) => {
  // Do something.
};

// Add the event handler function:
stripe.on('request', onRequest);

// Remove the event handler function:
stripe.off('request', onRequest);

request object

{
  api_version: 'latest',
  account: 'acct_TEST',              // Only present if provided
  idempotency_key: 'abc123',         // Only present if provided
  method: 'POST',
  path: '/v1/customers',
  request_start_time: 1565125303932  // Unix timestamp in milliseconds
}

response object

{
  api_version: 'latest',
  account: 'acct_TEST',              // Only present if provided
  idempotency_key: 'abc123',         // Only present if provided
  method: 'POST',
  path: '/v1/customers',
  status: 402,
  request_id: 'req_Ghc9r26ts73DRf',
  elapsed: 445,                      // Elapsed time in milliseconds
  request_start_time: 1565125303932, // Unix timestamp in milliseconds
  request_end_time: 1565125304377    // Unix timestamp in milliseconds
}

Webhook signing

Stripe can optionally sign the webhook events it sends to your endpoint, allowing you to validate that they were not sent by a third-party. You can read more about it here.

Please note that you must pass the raw request body, exactly as received from Stripe, to the constructEvent() function; this will not work with a parsed (i.e., JSON) request body.

You can find an example of how to use this with various JavaScript frameworks in examples/webhook-signing folder, but here's what it looks like:

const event = stripe.webhooks.constructEvent(
  webhookRawBody,
  webhookStripeSignatureHeader,
  webhookSecret
);

Testing Webhook signing

You can use stripe.webhooks.generateTestHeaderString to mock webhook events that come from Stripe:

const payload = {
  id: 'evt_test_webhook',
  object: 'event',
};

const payloadString = JSON.stringify(payload, null, 2);
const secret = 'whsec_test_secret';

const header = stripe.webhooks.generateTestHeaderString({
  payload: payloadString,
  secret,
});

const event = stripe.webhooks.constructEvent(payloadString, header, secret);

// Do something with mocked signed event
expect(event.id).to.equal(payload.id);

Writing a Plugin

If you're writing a plugin that uses the library, we'd appreciate it if you instantiated your stripe client with appInfo, eg;

const stripe = require('stripe')('sk_test_...', {
  appInfo: {
    name: 'MyAwesomePlugin',
    version: '1.2.34', // Optional
    url: 'https://myawesomeplugin.info', // Optional
  },
});

Or using ES modules or TypeScript:

const stripe = new Stripe(apiKey, {
  appInfo: {
    name: 'MyAwesomePlugin',
    version: '1.2.34', // Optional
    url: 'https://myawesomeplugin.info', // Optional
  },
});

This information is passed along when the library makes calls to the Stripe API.

Auto-pagination

We provide a few different APIs for this to aid with a variety of node versions and styles.

Async iterators (for-await-of)

If you are in a Node environment that has support for async iteration, such as Node 10+ or babel, the following will auto-paginate:

for await (const customer of stripe.customers.list()) {
  doSomething(customer);
  if (shouldStop()) {
    break;
  }
}

autoPagingEach

If you are in a Node environment that has support for await, such as Node 7.9 and greater, you may pass an async function to .autoPagingEach:

await stripe.customers.list().autoPagingEach(async (customer) => {
  await doSomething(customer);
  if (shouldBreak()) {
    return false;
  }
});
console.log('Done iterating.');

Equivalently, without await, you may return a Promise, which can resolve to false to break:

stripe.customers
  .list()
  .autoPagingEach((customer) => {
    return doSomething(customer).then(() => {
      if (shouldBreak()) {
        return false;
      }
    });
  })
  .then(() => {
    console.log('Done iterating.');
  })
  .catch(handleError);

autoPagingToArray

This is a convenience for cases where you expect the number of items to be relatively small; accordingly, you must pass a limit option to prevent runaway list growth from consuming too much memory. Once the limit number of items have been fetched, auto-pagination will stop.

Returns a promise of an array of all items across pages for a list request.

const allNewCustomers = await stripe.customers
  .list({created: {gt: lastMonth}, limit: 100}) // 100 items per page
  .autoPagingToArray({limit: 10000}); // Stop after 10000 items total

Telemetry

By default, the library sends request telemetry to Stripe regarding request latency and feature usage. These numbers help Stripe improve the overall latency of its API for all users, and improve popular features.

You can disable this behavior if you prefer:

const stripe = new Stripe('sk_test_...', {
  telemetry: false,
});

Beta SDKs

Stripe has features in the beta phase that can be accessed via the beta version of this package. We would love for you to try these and share feedback with us before these features reach the stable phase. The beta versions can be installed in one of two ways

  • To install the latest beta version, run the command npm install stripe@beta --save
  • To install a specific beta version, replace the term "beta" in the above command with the version number like npm install stripe@1.2.3-beta.1 --save

Note There can be breaking changes between beta versions. Therefore we recommend pinning the package version to a specific beta version in your package.json file. This way you can install the same version each time without breaking changes unless you are intentionally looking for the latest beta version.

We highly recommend keeping an eye on when the beta feature you are interested in goes from beta to stable so that you can move from using a beta version of the SDK to the stable version.

The versions tab on the stripe page on npm lists the current tags in use. The beta tag here corresponds to the the latest beta version of the package.

If your beta feature requires a Stripe-Version header to be sent, use the apiVersion property of config object to set it:

const stripe = new Stripe('sk_test_...', {
  apiVersion: '2022-08-01; feature_beta=v3',
});

Custom requests

If you would like to send a request to an undocumented API (for example you are in a private beta), or if you prefer to bypass the method definitions in the library and specify your request details directly, you can use the rawRequest method on the StripeClient object.

const client = new Stripe('sk_test_...');

client.rawRequest(
    'POST',
    '/v1/beta_endpoint',
    { param: 123 },
    { apiVersion: '2022-11-15; feature_beta=v3' }
  )
  .then((response) => /* handle response */ )
  .catch((error) => console.error(error));

Or using ES modules and async/await:

import Stripe from 'stripe';
const stripe = new Stripe('sk_test_...');

const response = await stripe.rawRequest(
  'POST',
  '/v1/beta_endpoint',
  {param: 123},
  {apiVersion: '2022-11-15; feature_beta=v3'}
);

// handle response

Support

New features and bug fixes are released on the latest major version of the stripe package. If you are on an older major version, we recommend that you upgrade to the latest in order to use the new features and bug fixes including those for security vulnerabilities. Older major versions of the package will continue to be available for use, but will not be receiving any updates.

More Information

Development

Contribution guidelines for this project

The tests depend on stripe-mock, so make sure to fetch and run it from a background terminal (stripe-mock's README also contains instructions for installing via Homebrew and other methods):

go get -u github.com/stripe/stripe-mock
stripe-mock

We use just for conveniently running development tasks. You can use them directly, or copy the commands out of the justfile. To our help docs, run just.

Run all tests (installing the dependencies first, if needed)

just test
# or: yarn && yarn test

If you do not have yarn installed, consult its installation instructions.

Run a single test suite:

just test test/Error.spec.ts
# or: yarn test test/Error.spec.ts

Run a single test (case sensitive) in watch mode:

just test test/Error.spec.ts --grep 'StripeError' --watch
# or: yarn test test/Error.spec.ts --grep 'StripeError' --watch

If you wish, you may run tests using your Stripe Test API key by setting the environment variable STRIPE_TEST_API_KEY before running the tests:

export STRIPE_TEST_API_KEY='sk_test....'
just test
# or: yarn test

Run prettier:

Add an editor integration or:

just format
# or: yarn prettier src/**/*.ts --write