What is the best payment gateway to use with ActiveMerchant?

Question

I need to set up a payment solution within one of our Rails apps using the ActiveMerchant library. Although this question is highly subjective, what are people experiences with the major gateways out there (BrainTree, Authorize.net etc)?

It must:

• handle recurring payments.
• have the ability to credit a persons account.
• have the ability to void a payment.
• have a way to store the users payment details (such as Authotize.nets CIM).

Cheers

Answer 1

ActiveMerchant is great, but there are a few issues I've discovered while working with it for the past year or so.

First, while some gateways maybe be 'supported' - not all functionality may be included. See the feature matrix to be sure the gateway you choose is fully supported -

http://wiki.github.com/Shopify/active_merchant/gatewayfeaturematrix

I've had to add additional functionality to gateways a few times.

Second, keep in mind that additional gateways may be 'supported' by applying a simple patch. Many people, myself included, have submitted support for additional gateways that are awaiting approval by Cody and crew. Most of these gateway patches are production tested and ready to go.

https://jadedpixel.lighthouseapp.com/projects/11599-active-merchant/tickets

Answer 2

Your problem probably relates more to your business and the fees the service will charge you than ActiveMerchant itself. If you find yourself wanting a gateway not supported by AM you can write the support yourself or pay some AM developer to do it.

For a good explanation on fees and issues regarding Payment Gateways, refer to this post:

What's the best online payment processing solution?

Another great post about payment processors that you could read is:

Payment Processors - What do I need to know if I want to accept credit cards on my website?