BTCPay Server is free, open-source software for taking Bitcoin: you run it on a server of your own, or use somebody's shared one, and payments arrive straight in your own wallet, with no fee and nobody in between. CoinsFlow is a hosted crypto payment gateway: nothing to install, Bitcoin and Litecoin, Ether, BNB, USDT and USDC, for 0.5% of each payment, and we hold the money until you withdraw it.
Side by side
| What | CoinsFlow | BTCPay Server |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | a hosted gateway | software you run, or use on a shared server |
| Fee | 0.5% of each payment | none |
| Who holds the money | we do, until you withdraw | you: it arrives in your own wallet |
| The software | ours, run by us | open source, MIT licence |
| Bitcoin | on-chain | on-chain and Lightning |
| Litecoin | part of the service | an opt-in integration kept by its community |
| Ether and BNB | part of the service | not in its list |
| USDT | on Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain | on TRON by plugin, and on Liquid |
| USDC | on Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain | not in its list |
| Shop plugins | none yet | WooCommerce, Shopify and many more |
| To start | sign up | deploy a server, or join a shared one |
BTCPay Server calls itself “a self-hosted, open-source cryptocurrency payment processor” and “an open-source project, not a company”. Its FAQ says it takes payments “with no fees, transaction cost or a middleman”, that it is “a non-custodial invoicing system”, and that it is licensed under the MIT License. It takes Bitcoin on-chain and over the Lightning Network. Its altcoin FAQ says “Bitcoin is the only focus of the project and its core developers”: Litecoin, Monero, USDt on TRON and others are opt-in integrations, some by plugin, “maintained by their respective communities”.
What each one asks of you
BTCPay Server asks you to run it: a server in the cloud or on your own hardware, with the wallet and the software kept up to date. What that costs is your server's price and your time, and the BTCPay pages we read give no figure for it. A shared server is the middle way, run by somebody else. BTCPay's own page on third-party hosts says that with a hot wallet the host will “act as a custodian of your private keys and thus your funds”, and advises using one “mainly for testing, learning and getting started with BTCPay”.
CoinsFlow asks you to trust us with the balance. A payment is credited to a balance we hold for you, not to a wallet you hold the keys to; you withdraw it to your own wallet whenever you like, by hand or automatically, and on Bitcoin and Litecoin from the first confirmation. In return there is nothing to run: the payment page, the nodes that watch each network, the webhooks and the withdrawals are ours.
Pick BTCPay Server if
- You want to hold your own keys: payments go straight to your wallet, and no company holds them.
- You want no fee, and can run a server or trust somebody who does.
- You take Bitcoin and want Lightning: CoinsFlow has no Lightning yet.
- You want a plugin for your shop: its site lists WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, PrestaShop, WHMCS, Wix and many more.
- You want software you can read, change and run anywhere.
Pick CoinsFlow if
- You would rather not run a server: sign up, make an invoice through the API or a payment link, and take payments the same day.
- You take Litecoin, Ether, BNB, or USDT and USDC on Ethereum or BNB Smart Chain, as part of the service rather than as integrations kept by others.
- You are paid in Litecoin or Bitcoin and want it counted at the first confirmation (about 2.5 minutes on Litecoin, 10 on Bitcoin), withdrawable at once, read from nodes we run ourselves and behind a public Litecoin explorer.
- You want to try every outcome without money: test mode makes an invoice paid, underpaid, overpaid or expired, with the same signed webhooks.
- You want your customer to pick the coin on the payment page, or to pay what they want.
Where the figures come from
We run CoinsFlow, so this is our side of the comparison. Everything said about BTCPay Server is from its own site and docs, read on :
- btcpayserver.org: “a self-hosted, open-source cryptocurrency payment processor”, “secure, private, censorship-resistant, and free”, “Funds arrive directly to your connected wallet.”, self-hosting or a shared server, “an open-source project, not a company”, and its e-commerce integrations.
- docs.btcpayserver.org/FAQ/General: no fees, non-custodial, Bitcoin on-chain and over the Lightning Network, and the MIT License.
- docs.btcpayserver.org/FAQ/Altcoin: Bitcoin as the project's focus, and the opt-in altcoins, among them Litecoin, Monero by plugin, USDt on TRON by plugin, and Liquid with Liquid Tether. Ether, BNB and USDC are not in it.
- docs.btcpayserver.org/Deployment/ThirdPartyHosting: what a third-party host can do, and what it advises using one for.
CoinsFlow's figures are on our pricing page and in the API docs.