Stripe is really coming after Square. Square Capital is an extremely similar product (prequalifies you & autopays based on your payment volume).
Square has a platform / payments SDK but if you look at the Github repo it's a disorganized mess versus Stripe's with virtually no "stars".[1] There's also Stripe Terminal which is a platform-y approach to Square's register/terminal. I wonder how much longer until they go after Square's cash app.
Not to nitpick, but a quick check shows Square has way more stars overall. (233,343 stars for Square repos and 30,982 stars for Stripe repos.) If you’re talking about Square’s brand new SDKs, they of course start with zero stars and some are just weeks old.
Wow, looks like Square is updating its github repository in response to this thread! Just saw they pinned their SDKs. Good job Square, that helps.
Square if you're listening, also work on the docs and dev experience. For example I noticed that Stripe's docs immediately show you how to work with charges. Whereas with Square the first step is... setting a location. It's just another little dev experience hurdle. What if I don't have a location? What if I'm an online store that spans all my locations? Stripe has put a lot of attention to detail here. Pinning repos is just the tip of the iceberg.
This is important because developer mindshare matters. For instance it seems like lots of devs here think this stripe capital product is novel/brilliant, a testament to wunderkind founders, etc. etc. That's all Stripe doing an A+ job grabbing and holding developer mindshare. GET ON IT SQUARE.
P.S. I think my characterization about the SDK stars is correct. They have some other open source projects that are very popular, but their SDK is trailing way behind Stripe by this measure (even years old repos), by like a couple orders of magnitude.
We are most definitely listening. We appreciate the feedback and are always looking to improve our developer experience. Stripe has done an excellent job in that regard.
If you would be open to it, we'd really like to chat with you on your thoughts about our SDKs & documentation. Feel free to shoot an email to moot@squareup.com or message our Twitter @SquareDev.
Square has a platform / payments SDK but if you look at the Github repo it's a disorganized mess versus Stripe's with virtually no "stars".[1] There's also Stripe Terminal which is a platform-y approach to Square's register/terminal. I wonder how much longer until they go after Square's cash app.
[1] https://github.com/square https://github.com/stripe