Polar vs Bunny.net
Merchant of Record for devs — usage-based billing, MoR, 4% + 40¢
vs. Ridiculously affordable CDN + video streaming + edge compute
Pricing tiers
Polar
Pay-as-you-go
4% + 40¢ per transaction. Cheapest Merchant-of-Record. No monthly or setup fees.
$0 base (usage-based)
Enterprise
Custom. Volume discounts for high-growth teams.
Custom
Bunny.net
CDN Volume — 1-2 PB
$0.002/GB at 1-2 PB volume.
$0/mo
CDN Volume — First 500 TB
$0.005/GB Volume Network (10 PoPs) for high-volume.
$0/mo
CDN Standard — EU/NA
$0.01/GB. 119 PoPs Standard Network in Europe + North America.
$0/mo
CDN Standard — Asia + Oceania
$0.03/GB.
$0/mo
CDN Standard — South America
$0.045/GB.
$0/mo
CDN Standard — ME/Africa
$0.06/GB.
$0/mo
Monthly Minimum
Minimum $1/month.
$1/mo
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing payg on Polar vs volume-1pb-2pb on Bunny.net.
| Metric | Polar | Bunny.net |
|---|---|---|
| No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers. | ||
Features
Polar · 15 features
- Customer Portal — Self-serve subscription management.
- Feature Flags — Simple flag mgmt tied to subscription tiers.
- Framework Adapters — Next.js, BetterAuth, TS, Python, Laravel, Ruby, 11+ more.
- Fraud Protection — Chargeback + fraud handling included.
- GitHub Sponsors Import — Import existing sponsors to Polar.
- Global Tax Compliance — VAT/GST/sales tax filed by Polar.
- Hosted Checkout — Polar-hosted + embeddable checkout.
- License Keys — Generate + validate license keys for software.
- Metering — Track API calls, tokens, custom units.
- One-off Purchases — Single purchases + digital downloads.
- Open-Source Backend — Full platform code on GitHub.
- Sandbox Environment — Test transactions without charging.
- Subscriptions — Tiered plans with upgrades/downgrades.
- Usage-Based Billing — Event ingestion → meter → invoice.
- Webhooks — Resource events with HMAC signatures.
Bunny.net · 14 features
- Bunny CDN — Standard + Volume networks. 119 PoPs globally.
- Bunny Database — Edge-distributed key-value DB.
- Bunny DNS — Free anycast DNS.
- Bunny Optimizer — On-the-fly image + video optimization.
- Bunny Shield (WAF + DDoS) — DDoS protection + WAF + bot defense.
- Bunny Stream — Video hosting + transcoding + HLS delivery.
- Custom Hostname — Use yourdomain.com with CDN.
- Edge Scripting — JavaScript at the edge (like CF Workers).
- Edge Storage — Object storage replicated across regions.
- Free Let's Encrypt SSL — Auto cert issuance/renewal.
- Hot-linking Protection — Block unauthorized embeds.
- Instant Purge — Global invalidation.
- Magic Containers — Serverless containers at edge.
- Real-Time Analytics — Per-zone + per-country usage stats.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Polar | Bunny.net |
|---|---|---|
| SDK | polar-sdk-python, @polar-sh/better-auth, @polar-sh/nextjs, @polar-sh/sdk | bunnycdn.js (community) |
| REST | Polar REST API | Bunny.net API |
| MCP | Polar MCP | — |
| OTHER | Polar Checkout, Polar Webhooks | Bunny Dashboard, CDN HTTP base URL, Edge Scripting |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Some links to Polar and Bunny.net may be affiliate links — Staxly may earn a commission if you sign up through them, at no extra cost to you. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
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