Easy Digital Downloads vs PayPal Donation
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| Feature | Easy Digital Downloads v3.7.2 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.7/5 Visit Details | PayPal Donation v1.5.7 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free · ★ 3.8/5 Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | 40,000+ | 10,000+ |
| Last updated | October 14, 2026 | October 7, 2026 |
| Editions | Easy Digital Downloads · Easy Digital Downloads Pro ($) | Accept Donations with PayPal & Stripe · PayPal Donation Pro ($) |
| Pros | Built for selling digital downloads, with checkout and customer downloads; Stripe, PayPal and Square payment gateways; Discounts, reports and blocks for checkout pages | Donation buttons by shortcode, widget or media button; PayPal and Stripe payment options; Donation orders listed in the admin |
| Cons | Subscriptions, recurring payments and recurring revenue reports need Pro; Pro requires a licence key from the vendor | Needs a PayPal or Stripe account to take payments; Pro version with more features is sold separately |
| Mentioned in our posts | 2 | 1 |
| More features | ||
| Other features | Digital product downloads, Checkout and purchase blocks, Discount codes and claims, Stripe payments, PayPal Standard payments, Square payments, Sales and download reports, Email summary of sales, Pro licence connection from the Lite edition ($) | Donation buttons admin, Donation button shortcode, Donation button widget, PayPal IPN handler for payment notifications, Stripe payments, PayPal Commerce Platform onboarding, Pro version upsell in admin ($) |
| Integrations | ||
| Payment | Stripe, PayPal, Square | PayPal, Stripe |
| Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun | — | |
| Analytics | MonsterInsights (Google Analytics for WordPress) | — |
| Plugins | Elementor | — |
| Other | Google reCAPTCHA, Cloudflare Turnstile | — |
| Requires WordPress | 6.7 | 3.1.0 |
| Requires PHP | 8.0 | 5.4 |
| Tested up to | 7.0 | 7.1 |
| Phones home | Only if you agree | No |
| External services | services.easydigitaldownloads.com, easydigitaldownloads.com, downloads.wordpress.org, challenges.cloudflare.com, www.google.com, api.stripe.com, connect.squareup.com, opencollective.com, ipinfo.io, plugin.easydigitaldownloads.com, static-eu.payments-amazon.com, static-na.payments-amazon.com, sellercentral.amazon.com, payments.amazon.co.uk, payments.amazon.de, www.paypal.com | wpplugin.org, js.stripe.com, www.paypal.com |
| Blocks | 16 | — |
| Shortcodes | 14 | 1 |