Open-source-friendly monetization platform designed for indie developers. Subscriptions, digital products, OSS funding with built-in GitHub integration — an emerging choice for indie devs in 2025-2026.
Polar's SDK and some components are open source, but the MoR/payment infrastructure is a closed-source SaaS. If you're pursuing a fully open-source OPC, Polar's service layer remains a closed dependency.
Polar is a 2023 entrant, ranking third in the MoR space (behind Lemon Squeezy and Paddle). Despite fast growth, community size, third-party tutorials, and edge case handling experience are all less than competitors.
Polar's best experience comes from its React components. If you use Vue, Svelte, or plain HTML, you can only use Polar's API (less documentation, inferior experience vs React components). Lemon Squeezy's hosted checkout is more flexible for cross-framework scenarios.
