Easy Digital Downloads vs WordPress PayPal (WP PayPal)
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| Feature | Easy Digital Downloads v3.7.2 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.7/5 Visit Details | WordPress PayPal (WP PayPal) v1.2.3.49 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free · ★ 4.5/5 Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | 40,000+ | 4,000+ |
| Last updated | October 14, 2026 | October 13, 2026 |
| Editions | Easy Digital Downloads · Easy Digital Downloads Pro ($) | WP PayPal · Payment Button for PayPal add-ons ($) |
| Pros | Built for selling digital downloads, with checkout and customer downloads; Stripe, PayPal and Square payment gateways; Discounts, reports and blocks for checkout pages | PayPal Checkout with a sandbox mode for testing; Product and checkout shortcodes for buy-now buttons; Orders kept in the dashboard with a debug page |
| Cons | Subscriptions, recurring payments and recurring revenue reports need Pro; Pro requires a licence key from the vendor | Many features are sold as separate paid add-ons; Needs PayPal API keys and sandbox setup before going live; Fewer store features than a full e-commerce plugin |
| Mentioned in our posts | 2 | 2 |
| 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 ($) | PayPal Checkout API payments, wp_paypal_product shortcode, wp_paypal_checkout shortcode, PayPal IPN listener, Orders stored as a custom post type, PayPal sandbox credentials, Configurable sender for order emails |
| Integrations | ||
| Payment | Stripe, PayPal, Square | PayPal |
| Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun | — | |
| Analytics | MonsterInsights (Google Analytics for WordPress) | — |
| Plugins | Elementor | — |
| Other | Google reCAPTCHA, Cloudflare Turnstile | — |
| Requires WordPress | 6.7 | 5.3 |
| Requires PHP | 8.0 | — |
| 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 | api-m.paypal.com, api-m.sandbox.paypal.com |
| Blocks | 16 | — |
| Shortcodes | 14 | 2 |