Developer builds zero-commission UPI donation page with no backend or payment processor
A developer named Shivam has released an open-source donation platform called 'buy-me-a-chai', designed as a free alternative to services like Buy Me a Coffee for Indian creators. The static site requires no backend, database, or payment processor, instead leveraging India's UPI system to route payments directly between bank accounts. Users simply fork the template, edit a single YAML file, and deploy it for free on GitHub Pages. The project deliberately accepts that the page cannot confirm whether a payment was completed, eliminating the need for a payment aggregator and the commissions that come with one. Building the tool also surfaced a technical pitfall: using JavaScript's URLSearchParams corrupts UPI links by encoding spaces as plus signs, which UPI apps misread, requiring encodeURIComponent as the correct fix.
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