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Toot

Written by polarity :wig: on 2025-01-09 at 16:00

probably a stupid question: Is there an open source "paypal" ?

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Descendants

Written by Simon Greenwood on 2025-01-09 at 16:05

@polarity There are a few. GNU Taler is a self hosted one, and Open Collective is an open source service for example.

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Written by Kernel Bob on 2025-01-09 at 16:06

@polarity Handling other people's money creates liability. Open source business models don't generally create enough profit to offset the liability of a payments processor.

So I vote no, but would be interested if I'm wrong.

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Written by Space Catitude 🚀 on 2025-01-09 at 16:13

@polarity

I think the closest you could get with this would be to install an open-source e-commerce (storefront) software on a server you host, and then connect to a payment processor directly.

This is lower-level than dealing with PayPal, but there will still be fees, etc. If you're interfacing with the global financial system, there will be a gateway somewhere.

I haven't dealt with this in a LONG time. Last I did, there was "authorize.net", which I could arrange with my business bank.

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Written by Space Catitude 🚀 on 2025-01-09 at 16:16

@polarity

From the customers' PoV, this basically means "you can take credit/debit cards".

I think authorize.net is kind of dated, now. But your bank will surely have some system you can use to post transactions that the e-commerce software will support.

But basically, you can cut PayPal (or Stripe) of the loop. They make transactions easier, but with a significant fee (and also some high-handed arbitrary rules). As I'm sure you know.

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Written by Space Catitude 🚀 on 2025-01-09 at 16:19

@polarity

Theoretically, of course, you could have a 100% open source system using crypto-currency, but that's a whole other can of worms. And I suspect not what you wanted.

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Written by polarity :wig: on 2025-01-09 at 16:46

@TerryHancock My question was less about the technical side. Technically, there are certainly many ways to build something similar to PayPal. I was more curious about the integration aspect. PayPal is widely accepted in countless shops and platforms. I’m surprised there isn’t an open-source payment bundler that’s just as widespread.

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Written by Space Catitude 🚀 on 2025-01-09 at 16:49

@polarity

I had assumed you meant a way to accept payments.

But as others have mentioned, the problem is the business liability issues. PayPal isn't so much a software as it is a banking service.

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Written by polarity :wig: on 2025-01-09 at 16:50

@TerryHancock yea I wasn’t very specific :)

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Written by Petra van Cronenburg on 2025-01-09 at 16:43

@polarity Depends for what you need it. For fundraising/Fiscal hosting e.g. there's Open Collective (Mastodon uses it for donations): https://opencollective.com/

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