head to head · open source
reaction vs paylinks
reaction has 12,399 GitHub stars, 2,176 forks, 96 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. paylinks has 1,879 stars, 491 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. reaction leads on adoption by 560% (12,399 vs 1,879 stars). reaction is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0; paylinks is written in C# under MIT. reaction has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, paylinks 26%. reaction was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| reaction | paylinks | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 1.9K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | C# |
| Last push | 2026-03-01 | 2025-11-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 491 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick reaction if
- You weight community size — 12K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick paylinks if
- You want the paylinks feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and paylinks fits your workflow better
About reaction
Mailchimp Open Commerce, formerly Reaction Commerce, is an API first, headless commerce platform built on Node.js, MongoDB, and GraphQL for development teams that want to run a custom storefront, marketplace, or multi shop operation on their own infrastructure — and the project has been discontinued.
read the full reaction overview →
About paylinks
Paylinks is an open source third party payment software development kit written in C and released under the MIT license. It lives in the .NET ecosystem, supports Alipay and WeChat Pay, and describes itself as a cross platform, multi merchant payment SDK. The repository reports 1879 stars, 491 forks, two open issues, a nine year history, and a last push on 2025 11 24.
read the full paylinks overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is reaction or paylinks more popular?
reaction has 12,399 GitHub stars and paylinks has 1,879. reaction has the larger community by that measure.
Are reaction and paylinks free?
Both are open source. reaction is licensed under GPL-3.0 and paylinks under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between reaction and paylinks?
reaction is written in JavaScript and paylinks in C#. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, reaction or paylinks?
Choose reaction if you want the larger community (12,399 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose paylinks if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.