Ask HN: Stripe or Braintree? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Stripe or Braintree?

#11

Post by ericcholis » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 12:41 PM UTC

stephenr wrote: post #2

Isn't Braintree owned by PayPal now? I personally wouldn't trust PayPal for anything more than running a kids lemonade stand - there are far too many horror stories.

As a business, we've used PayPal since it's inception and Braintree as of last year. Both have been amazing experiences for us (Except for PayPal.com usabliity....ugh). Braintree, in particular, doesn't feel like a PayPal company. Good API documentation, support and website usability.

We've never experienced any of the pains that I've read about PayPal. But, perhaps, it's due to our long-standing relationship.

Re: Ask HN: Stripe or Braintree?

#12

Post by Kihashi » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 12:43 PM UTC

I don't own a SaaS or eCommerce company, but I would be wary of a company owned by PayPal. It might be that the increased availability and PayPal integration is worth the risk, but it's something I would weigh pretty heavily against Braintree.

Re: Ask HN: Stripe or Braintree?

#13

Post by davismwfl » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 12:45 PM UTC

You can search HN and find this question many times.

My 2 cents, I don't trust any company owned by Paypal as Paypal has a very strange, aggressive and non-transparent and inflexible process to holding funds from businesses, charities etc (even after providing all the extra "evidence" they ask for).

Stripe has a lot of advantages, API being a huge one. I have heard of a few people that complain about delays in responses from them, but at least for me I have never had that. In fairness too, 99% of the time the answers I have needed are in their documentation.

If I were you, no matter who you choose to integrate, I'd encapsulate it behind your own payment "service" so that even if you have to switch or you need to add more then one (highly recommended), then you can. Some will argue this is overkill, but I have done a lot of payment integrations, with specific banks, First Data and Stripe, Paypal etc. Having it encapsulated means a little more design but a lot less breakage and lets you minimize risk if a vendor decides to shut you down or freeze funds etc.

IMO if you are accepting payments you should already have encapsulated your payment vendor, as a real risk to business continuity exists if they decide to freeze your ability to charge or like Paypal freeze funds during charge back windows etc.

Re: Ask HN: Stripe or Braintree?

#14

Post by ericcholis » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 12:46 PM UTC

I've used Braintree for about a year in a mid-sized ecommerce situation. Not a single complaint to be had. I find the API very easy to work with, and the support to be very responsive. They have a nice drop-in payment form with built-in support for PayPal.

On the surface level, Stripe seems to offer more in the way of open source and integrations (POS, Analytics, etc..https://stripe.com/docs/integrations)

Re: Ask HN: Stripe or Braintree?

#15

Post by Rezo » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 12:46 PM UTC

Also consider what complimentary services you may need: Automated dunning, receipts / billing history management, sales tax calculations, subscription analytics, accounting integration, etc. Personally I found that the ecosystem around Stripe is better, and there's many great options for all of the above.

Re: Ask HN: Stripe or Braintree?

#16

Post by EGreg » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 12:48 PM UTC

toomanythings4 wrote: post #5

nickjj wrote: post #3

At face value Stripe's API is about a billion times better (at least it was a year ago when I looked into using both). I ultimately went with Stripe because I couldn't stand Braintree's API. So even with getting $50,000 at 0% revenue sharing and having PayPal support I still went with Stripe. My condition was a bit different than yours tho. Most of my market had credit cards and it was an expensive item ($200). Part…

Totally agree with this. Braintree will save you a little money but their documentation is horrible; some of the worst I've ever seen. Their email tech support can be responsive and somewhat good but I feel like I have to email them about every little thing cause I can't find the answer in their disconnected documentation.

If you think Braintree's docs are bad, you probably haven't had to implement Authorize.net!

Re: Ask HN: Stripe or Braintree?

#17

Post by hellomoto998 » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 12:50 PM UTC

ericcholis wrote: post #14

I've used Braintree for about a year in a mid-sized ecommerce situation. Not a single complaint to be had. I find the API very easy to work with, and the support to be very responsive. They have a nice drop-in payment form with built-in support for PayPal. On the surface level, Stripe seems to offer more in the way of open source and integrations (POS, Analytics, etc.. https://stripe.com/docs/integrations )

How are Stripe integrations surface?

Re: Ask HN: Stripe or Braintree?

#18

Post by hellomoto998 » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 12:55 PM UTC

ericcholis wrote: post #11

stephenr wrote: post #2

Isn't Braintree owned by PayPal now? I personally wouldn't trust PayPal for anything more than running a kids lemonade stand - there are far too many horror stories.

As a business, we've used PayPal since it's inception and Braintree as of last year. Both have been amazing experiences for us (Except for PayPal.com usabliity....ugh). Braintree, in particular, doesn't feel like a PayPal company. Good API documentation, support and website usability. We've never experienced any of the pains that I've read about PayPal. But, perhaps, it's due to our long-standing relationship.

I interpreted your last sentence as: "We've never had any problems with the Don, but that's because we've known him longer. Maybe you should make an effort to show him a little throat and he'll be nice to you."

Re: Ask HN: Stripe or Braintree?

#19

Post by stephenr » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 1:02 PM UTC

ericcholis wrote: post #11

stephenr wrote: post #2

Isn't Braintree owned by PayPal now? I personally wouldn't trust PayPal for anything more than running a kids lemonade stand - there are far too many horror stories.

As a business, we've used PayPal since it's inception and Braintree as of last year. Both have been amazing experiences for us (Except for PayPal.com usabliity....ugh). Braintree, in particular, doesn't feel like a PayPal company. Good API documentation, support and website usability. We've never experienced any of the pains that I've read about PayPal. But, perhaps, it's due to our long-standing relationship.

> We've never experienced any of the pains that I've read about PayPal

Some smokers will never experience throat, lung or mouth Cancer. That doesn't mean I'm going to buy a pack of Marlboros tomorrow.

Re: Ask HN: Stripe or Braintree?

#20

Post by FunnyLookinHat » Mon, Jul 11, 2016, 1:02 PM UTC

davismwfl wrote: post #13

You can search HN and find this question many times. My 2 cents, I don't trust any company owned by Paypal as Paypal has a very strange, aggressive and non-transparent and inflexible process to holding funds from businesses, charities etc (even after providing all the extra "evidence" they ask for). Stripe has a lot of advantages, API being a huge one. I have heard of a few people that complain about delays in respon…

"If I were you, no matter who you choose to integrate, I'd encapsulate it behind your own payment "service" so that even if you have to switch or you need to add more then one (highly recommended), then you can."

This is the best advice in the comments. I've seen my own code and others become overly coupled to a specific provider's terminology, mechanisms, and expectations - leading it to be exceptionally painful when you inevitably have to migrate away to a new provider (or support more than one).