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Payments Gateway Provider Braintree Going International

73 points by thehammer 14y ago

jcoder 14y ago
I'm glad to see that Stripe has lit such a fire under their competitors. I'm new to the payment gateway scene—can anyone with experience give a comparison of Stripe vs Braintree's APIs?
- nmcfarl 14y ago
  I’ve not used Stripe, but I’ve used Braintree for a while. Braintree is an older company, and it seems to have a bigger, lower level API. Stripe’s is much higher level, and looks like it could be both simpler and easier to use. This is probably not just because of age, but also because Stripe wraps and owns your merchant account (it looks like), while Braintree works with a merchant account, exposing many more technical details of the payments process (thus making you manage them). Braintree’s API, while REST underneath, is only supported at the library level and they have more languages supported for this reason than Stripe (Including mobile specific APIs). Obviously this makes it much easier to support newer, hipper languages with Stripe - just write your own wrapper to the REST API. Most of the big features seem to be supported on both platforms, one off and reoccurring payments, token based transactions, etc.
  - zachanker 14y ago
    Started to use Stripe recently for a project and have used Braintree extensively for work. Your comparison is spot on. There are some small differences such as, Stripe can send credit card details through AJAX to their servers so they are never sent to yours. Whereas Braintree uses Javascript encryption to do it, so the encrypted values are sent to your server. But I haven't seen anything that only Braintree supports yet. Tradeoff with Stripe is that while you get a much simpler API, it (likely) will cost you more than Braintree depending on scale and what cards are commonly used.
    - jcoder 14y ago
      Good info, thank you both.
    - pgr0ss 14y ago
      Besides client side (javascript) encryption, Braintree supports Transparent Redirect (https://www.braintreepayments.com/developers/api-overview https://www.braintreepayments.com/developers/api-overview) which lets you post data directly to Braintree. The nice part of sending the data to your servers with client side encryption is that you can do validation before sending to the payment gateway. For example, if you want to ensure everyone enters a cardholder name, you can validate the non-encrypted fields before eating the cost of calling a payment gateway. You can do some of these validations in javascript, but javascript is error-prone (firebug) and not as flexible (have access to a lot more data server side).
tzaman 14y ago
There is justice in this world after all :) I was hoping for Stripe to go international soon but Braintree seems like a good alternative for all of us who don't want to wait any longer (and are reluctant to use Paypal)
- richardlblair 14y ago
  The race is on for Stripe. I know many Canadians who really want Stripe, but at the end of the day whichever company pulls it off first wins.
boundlessdreamz 14y ago
Hugely disappointed that India is not among the countries Braintree is expanding to. People in other areas(like europe) have at least one half decent payment gateway provider. In India we have NONE. This is the biggest payment gateway in India - http://www.ccavenue.com/content/pricing.jsp http://www.ccavenue.com/content/pricing.jsp they charge 3-7% and they suck. API docs suck, payments get timed out etc. There is an annual "maintenance" charge! Developers (and users) are really fed up with the low quality of payment providers in India. - have a look at these http://hackerstreet.in/item?id=9565 http://hackerstreet.in/item?id=9565 http://hackerstreet.in/item?id=14592 http://hackerstreet.in/item?id=14592 http://hackerstreet.in/item?id=6727 http://hackerstreet.in/item?id=6727
- ngsayjoe 14y ago
  Don't be too sad ... my countries Malaysia, Singapore, or any Asian countries is neither in the list ... but this is a great first step ... hope more competitors (Stripe, Square, etc.) will follow ..
- tomjen3 14y ago
  The problem with India is that the indian government is broken (or is at least percived to be broken) outside of India. I wouldn't risk my customers money there -- too much corruption. I doubt it will ever be available in Nigeria either, nor most of Africa.
  - boundlessdreamz 14y ago
    I don't know how to respond to this :). It is so widely off the mark that I can only shake my head in surprise. A huge number of MNC's dominate certain sectors of the economy. India is one of the top destinations for FDI in the world. See - http://unctad.org/en/docs/diaeia20104_en.pdf http://unctad.org/en/docs/diaeia20104_en.pdf. Equating India to Nigeria .. Sheesh.. I don't know whether you were trolling or serious!
    - fdr 14y ago
      I don't think FDI is a very good indication for the challenges that a consumer payment processing company might encounter in India, especially in relation to their product.
rdl 14y ago
I really like Stripe, but Braintree is a great company too. I think both companies are pulling the industry forward. I would still seriously consider setting up a US business in most cases, since it makes everything else easier, if you want to take investment, enter the us market, etc.
nodata 14y ago
The list of countries isn't linkable (it's a div on https://www.braintreepayments.com/tour/international#countries_list https://www.braintreepayments.com/tour/international#countri...) So here is the list: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom
- markokocic 14y ago
  I wouldn't call it international since it only supports a handful of counties. If you really want international go with 2checkout and moneybookers.
geori 14y ago
It'd be nice if they also handled ACH transactions from checking accounts.
- huxley 14y ago
  I noticed in the article on Braintree's blog they mention "Support for local, non-credit card payment methods will be added in the coming year" ... so hopefully.

73 points by thehammer 14y ago

I'm glad to see that Stripe has lit such a fire under their competitors. I'm new to the payment gateway scene—can anyone with experience give a comparison of Stripe vs Braintree's APIs?

nmcfarl 14y ago
I’ve not used Stripe, but I’ve used Braintree for a while. Braintree is an older company, and it seems to have a bigger, lower level API. Stripe’s is much higher level, and looks like it could be both simpler and easier to use. This is probably not just because of age, but also because Stripe wraps and owns your merchant account (it looks like), while Braintree works with a merchant account, exposing many more technical details of the payments process (thus making you manage them). Braintree’s API, while REST underneath, is only supported at the library level and they have more languages supported for this reason than Stripe (Including mobile specific APIs). Obviously this makes it much easier to support newer, hipper languages with Stripe - just write your own wrapper to the REST API. Most of the big features seem to be supported on both platforms, one off and reoccurring payments, token based transactions, etc.
- zachanker 14y ago
  Started to use Stripe recently for a project and have used Braintree extensively for work. Your comparison is spot on. There are some small differences such as, Stripe can send credit card details through AJAX to their servers so they are never sent to yours. Whereas Braintree uses Javascript encryption to do it, so the encrypted values are sent to your server. But I haven't seen anything that only Braintree supports yet. Tradeoff with Stripe is that while you get a much simpler API, it (likely) will cost you more than Braintree depending on scale and what cards are commonly used.
  - jcoder 14y ago
    Good info, thank you both.
  - pgr0ss 14y ago
    Besides client side (javascript) encryption, Braintree supports Transparent Redirect (https://www.braintreepayments.com/developers/api-overview https://www.braintreepayments.com/developers/api-overview) which lets you post data directly to Braintree. The nice part of sending the data to your servers with client side encryption is that you can do validation before sending to the payment gateway. For example, if you want to ensure everyone enters a cardholder name, you can validate the non-encrypted fields before eating the cost of calling a payment gateway. You can do some of these validations in javascript, but javascript is error-prone (firebug) and not as flexible (have access to a lot more data server side).

tzaman 14y ago

There is justice in this world after all :) I was hoping for Stripe to go international soon but Braintree seems like a good alternative for all of us who don't want to wait any longer (and are reluctant to use Paypal)

richardlblair 14y ago
The race is on for Stripe. I know many Canadians who really want Stripe, but at the end of the day whichever company pulls it off first wins.

boundlessdreamz 14y ago

Hugely disappointed that India is not among the countries Braintree is expanding to. People in other areas(like europe) have at least one half decent payment gateway provider. In India we have NONE. This is the biggest payment gateway in India - http://www.ccavenue.com/content/pricing.jsp http://www.ccavenue.com/content/pricing.jsp they charge 3-7% and they suck. API docs suck, payments get timed out etc. There is an annual "maintenance" charge! Developers (and users) are really fed up with the low quality of payment providers in India. - have a look at these http://hackerstreet.in/item?id=9565 http://hackerstreet.in/item?id=9565 http://hackerstreet.in/item?id=14592 http://hackerstreet.in/item?id=14592 http://hackerstreet.in/item?id=6727 http://hackerstreet.in/item?id=6727

ngsayjoe 14y ago
Don't be too sad ... my countries Malaysia, Singapore, or any Asian countries is neither in the list ... but this is a great first step ... hope more competitors (Stripe, Square, etc.) will follow ..
tomjen3 14y ago
The problem with India is that the indian government is broken (or is at least percived to be broken) outside of India. I wouldn't risk my customers money there -- too much corruption. I doubt it will ever be available in Nigeria either, nor most of Africa.
- boundlessdreamz 14y ago
  I don't know how to respond to this :). It is so widely off the mark that I can only shake my head in surprise. A huge number of MNC's dominate certain sectors of the economy. India is one of the top destinations for FDI in the world. See - http://unctad.org/en/docs/diaeia20104_en.pdf http://unctad.org/en/docs/diaeia20104_en.pdf. Equating India to Nigeria .. Sheesh.. I don't know whether you were trolling or serious!
  - fdr 14y ago
    I don't think FDI is a very good indication for the challenges that a consumer payment processing company might encounter in India, especially in relation to their product.

rdl 14y ago

I really like Stripe, but Braintree is a great company too. I think both companies are pulling the industry forward. I would still seriously consider setting up a US business in most cases, since it makes everything else easier, if you want to take investment, enter the us market, etc.

nodata 14y ago

The list of countries isn't linkable (it's a div on https://www.braintreepayments.com/tour/international#countries_list https://www.braintreepayments.com/tour/international#countri...) So here is the list: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom

markokocic 14y ago
I wouldn't call it international since it only supports a handful of counties. If you really want international go with 2checkout and moneybookers.

geori 14y ago

It'd be nice if they also handled ACH transactions from checking accounts.

huxley 14y ago
I noticed in the article on Braintree's blog they mention "Support for local, non-credit card payment methods will be added in the coming year" ... so hopefully.