Topic: What is the best custodial lightning payment processor these days? (Read 223 times)

Only alternative I would consider using other than BTCPayServer is self-hosted open source project called CypherpunkPay.
I consider this to be lightweight and simplified version of older brother BTCPayServer, and it supports Lightning Network.
It's much better to run things yourself instead of trusting some custodial payment processor to do everything for you.

you can add:
 
 - https://cryptochill.com/
 - https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning-charge: (merchant solution for c-lightning)
 - https://neutronpay.com/ (payment processor)
 - https://www.bitcoinsuisse.com/bitcoin-suisse-pay

Full list from here ---> https://www.lopp.net/lightning-information.html

I have not visited those sites so if you try them and give personal advice it will be better.

Personally, I see that BTCPayServer provides all the advantages, so it is the best for beginners.

The business doesn't have to do anything. AFAIK, CoinPayments will automatically check the IP addresses before generating the invoice for you. This can easily be avoided by using a VPN obviously, but still, I don't think this is something you should put the average user through.

Interesting, they do support lightning, and they only charge 0.5% fee, and only network fees for withdrawals.

About what you're saying, how does that work?. Let's say for example a business which is outside of those banned regions sets up CoinPayments, do they have to somehow check that the clients buying are not from the banned regions?, or is this done automatically by CoinPayments and it will just not work from a banned region?

As mentioned on the pricing page, they charge no fees for the lightning network and a 1% fee for on-chain (on-demand) withdrawals.

Also, AFAIK, Coinbase Commerce doesn't support the lightning network. You can add CoinPayments instead[2][3] but I wouldn't recommend their services, not if your business is targeting a lot of countries anyway since they have a lot of banned regions.

[2] https://blog.coinpayments.net/resources/bitcoin-as-it-was-intended-lightning-fast-and-truly-digital-cash
[3] https://www.coinpayments.net/help-fees

Using something like BTCPayServer is ideal as it's open source, there are no fees, it supports lightning (and NFC!) and you don't need to rely on any middlemen. The only issue is that you have to deal with the configuration, and ongoing maintenance of the server/nodes. This is fine in certain use cases, but I'm curious about what is being offered these days as an alternative.

The main requirement I have for this proof of concept is to be able to receive payments through lightning in a website on demand when someone interacts with it somehow, let's say they click a button that says Pay Now, they pay with lightning, an action is executed when funds are transferred, and I receive the payment at my wallet(which will be custodial of course). I'm expecting to have certain limitations and/or required to pay a fee for such a service. Bonus points for being Bitcoin only.

Here's what I've found so far, happy to hear other alternatives or opinions about these services as I haven't used them so I don't know how good or bad they are:

lnpay:
This seems to be one of the best services as it's focused on lightning only, has a nice interface/api, and seems to work great. The free tier seems good to test it out, but having to pay $99 a month independent of how much I use it seems to defeat the purpose. It's probably great for a dedicated business, but seems a bit too much for just a fun project on the side.


Coinbase Commerce API:
They are a big player so there's a lot of support and third party tools. Also, this is a fee that I would be more comfortable to pay as it's free until I get paid.
But it looks like they don't support lightning payments(instead they support many alts), so this option is out.


Coingate:
They seem to be similar to Coinbase, with also a 1% fee, but they do offer lightning at checkout. It does feel a bit bloated with all the alts, but it might be an option.


CoinCorner
CoinCorner also charges 1% per transaction, they have lightning, and they don't have any alts!. This seems like a great option as they offer free unlimited withdrawals with lightning.


OpenNode
OpenNode supports lightning, they are Bitcoin only, and offer free scheduled withdrawals to on-chain addresses and free lightning withdrawals on-demand!. This seems too good to be true, not sure where they would be making any money. They do charge 1% for on-demand on-chain withdrawals, but I could easily just use lightning or the scheduled option. They only seem to charge a fee when converting to fiat, but maybe I'm missing something since if I'm not planning to do that, then the service would be free.


So, after reviewing these options it seems that either OpenNode or CoinCorner are the best ones that I've found so far. If anyone has any other option, has used any of them, or they can confirm that OpenNode indeed doesn't have any fees for Bitcoin only transactions, feel free to share it here.