Polar vs PayPal

At a Glance

Polar

PayPal

Polar

PayPal

Polar

Pros

Zero fees on the free tier for open source projects — finally a payments tool designed with OSS maintainers in mind+154
The GitHub integration lets backers sponsor your repo directly from the README which lowers the friction for OSS donations+138
Fully open source, so you can self-host or audit the code — no black box in your payment infrastructure+112
Issue funding lets users back specific bugs or features, which is a creative way to prioritize work based on community demand+97

Cons

Payout availability is still limited to certain countries and US-based founders have fewer friction issues than international ones

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