What it is
Payum is a PHP payment processing library. It lives in the PHP e-commerce ecosystem, where online stores and business software need to accept payments through external gateways. The project supports credit card purchasing, offsite purchasing, subscriptions, and payouts. It is released under the MIT license and is distributed as a PHP package.
The concrete problem it solves is payment integration inside a PHP application. Instead of writing separate code for each payment service, a developer can use one library to connect several gateways. The README says Payum reduces development time by supporting more than 50 payment services simultaneously. It also says the package has been downloaded more than 1,000,000 times and is friendly for all top PHP frameworks.
Key capabilities
- It supports credit card purchasing and offsite purchasing for PHP payment flows.
- It supports subscriptions, which are needed for recurring billing in e-commerce applications.
- It supports payouts, so an application can send money to users or vendors.
- It integrates with payment services named in the topics, including Authorize.net, Be2Bill, Payex, PayPal, Sofort, and Stripe.
- It is built for PHP and is described as friendly for all top PHP frameworks.
- It is MIT licensed, which permits commercial use under the license terms.
- It has a public documentation site, Packagist package, GitHub issue tracker, and Stack Overflow questions tagged Payum.
Who uses it and how
- PHP developers use it when an e-commerce platform needs payment processing inside its own application.
- Store owners or operators use it through a PHP application that connects to gateways such as PayPal, Stripe, Sofort, Authorize.net, Be2Bill, or Payex.
- Subscription-based services use it to model recurring payment flows rather than one-time checkout only.
- Payout workflows use it when the application must send funds back to users or sellers.
- Framework teams use it as a payment layer because the README says it works with top PHP frameworks.
Getting started
Install the payum/payum package from Packagist in a PHP project, then configure the desired payment gateway and follow the documentation.
When to use it — and when not to
Payum fits teams that want a PHP library inside their own application and can maintain payment integration. It is not a hosted payment platform, and the provided facts do not list a paid replacement or hosted checkout option. A self-hosted PHP application still carries the integration work, and the repository shows 99 open issues.
