# L402 vs x402

> x402 has a score of 79.7 (A) against L402's 60.5 (C). Both do agent payment protocols. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 66 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-05

x402 has a score of 79.7 (A) against L402's 60.5 (C). Both do agent payment protocols. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 66 points.

- L402: grade C, 60.5/100, rank graded, not ranked against tools. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/l402.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/l402.json
- x402: grade A, 79.7/100, rank graded, not ranked against tools. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/x402.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/x402.json

## Which one, for what

Pick L402 for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

Pick x402 for reliability (+32), schema & documentation (+21), agent ergonomics (+23), security & auth (+9), maintenance & community (+66), transparency & trust (+15).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | L402 | x402 | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 55 | 87 | x402 +32 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 86 | x402 +21 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 61 | 84 | x402 +23 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 58 | 67 | x402 +9 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 97 | 97 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 27 | 93 | x402 +66 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 50 | 65 | x402 +15 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **60.5 · C** | **79.7 · A** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | L402 | x402 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Payment protocol | Payment protocol |
| Vendor | Lightning Labs | x402 Foundation (Linux Foundation) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (per l402.tech) | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-03-25 | 2026-09-30 |
| Popularity | 89 stars | 6.4k stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 4.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**L402.** Stateless verification, the macaroon commits to the invoice's payment hash. Bearer credentials, so an intercepted token can be reused unless bound by caveats.

**x402.** No account and no protocol fee, a funded wallet is enough. Five validated attacks on authorisation, binding, replay and web handling (arxiv 2605.11781).

## Before you call either

### L402

1. Run lnget with `--max-cost` and `--max-fee` set
2. Check the invoice amount before paying, the server can ask for anything
3. Accept both `LSAT` and `L402` in challenges, servers still send both
4. Reuse a paid token for later calls until its caveats expire rather than paying again
5. Keep macaroons and preimages out of logs, they're bearer credentials

### x402

1. Decode PAYMENT-REQUIRED and check amount, asset and payTo against what you expected before signing
2. Use the upto scheme when the final price isn't known, and cap it
3. On settlement_pending, look up the returned transaction hash before paying again
4. Use a production facilitator for Base mainnet, x402.org/facilitator is testnet only
5. Give the agent its own wallet with a small balance, never a treasury key

## Other comparisons with L402 or x402

- [Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) vs L402](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-l402.md)
- [Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) vs x402](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-x402.md)
- [Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) vs L402](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ap2-vs-l402.md)
- [Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) vs x402](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ap2-vs-x402.md)
- [L402 vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/l402-vs-mpp.md)
- [Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) vs x402](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mpp-vs-x402.md)