Show HN: We built an open source, zero webhooks payment processor

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

What Flowglad Actually Is (vs. the Title)

  • Not a standalone processor today; it’s an abstraction layer on top of Stripe using Stripe Connect.
  • Acts more like a “value-added gateway reseller” / payfac-style middleman, though it aspires to move closer to the “card rails” over time.
  • Some commenters criticize the title as misleading (“processor”, “open source”), noting that payments and data flow through their hosted SaaS. Others point out the entire platform code is AGPL/MIT, so it is technically fully open source.

Developer Experience and “Zero Webhooks”

  • Core pitch: Flowglad consumes Stripe’s webhooks and complex lifecycle events, exposing a simpler, state-based API and React hooks for billing and entitlements.
  • Supporters say Stripe’s webhook/event model (hundreds of event types, overlapping semantics) is stressful and error‑prone; they welcome a cleaner, opinionated DX.
  • Critics counter that webhooks are conceptually simple, operationally necessary (especially for async events, disputes, 3DS, non-card methods), and that adding a middle layer increases complexity and failure modes.

Entitlements, Data Model, and Source of Truth

  • Flowglad stores pricing, features, usage credits, and subscription state, then exposes checks like checkFeatureAccess and checkUsageBalance to gate features in the app.
  • Some praise the “single source of truth” and not having to model Stripe objects, maps, and state transitions themselves.
  • Others worry about latency, dependence on Flowglad’s uptime, and vendor lock-in vs. owning a local billing database.

Pricing and Economics

  • Under the hood, card fees are Stripe’s ~2.9% + $0.30; Flowglad adds ~0.65% for its billing engine (slightly under Stripe Billing’s 0.7%).
  • There’s debate over whether this is “expensive”; some note EU merchants often negotiate substantially lower rates outside Stripe.

Risk, Compliance, and Roadmap

  • Founders emphasize that real difficulty in payments is bank partnerships, compliance, and risk—not webhooks—and claim to be working toward payfac/acquirer roles and possibly merchant-of-record.
  • Merchant-of-record plans would impose restrictions (e.g., on selling human services) due to compliance, not Stripe alone.

Technology Choices and Integrations

  • Current SDK is React-centric, by design, to tightly integrate billing flows into the frontend; future Svelte/Vue support is planned but not yet available.
  • Comparisons are made to Lago, Autumn, Polar, Chargebee, and “Shopify for software”; Flowglad’s differentiation is claimed to be consolidated onboarding plus entitlements-focused DX.