Lightning is the technology, think: apple pay.

A lightning invoice is the qr code you generate for payment. You can usually specify the amount required and even a message, hence invoice. You can send it by email, show it on screen, or share it online. Once paid once, it's paid, done.

Zaps is a nostr feature, it's more like a type of payment: like donations are a type of payment that helps those in need, Zaps are a type of payment that publicises the payment on nostr for everyone to see and to help publicly identify which nostr posts were most popular.

Zaps tend to rely on a technology called lnaddress, where you get an email address looking identifier and people can send you funds over lightning. This allows you to pay someone without them asking for payment first, invoices are the opposite.

It's like a payment vs a tip.

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Discussion

Thank you that is very helpful.

How does one generate a QR code for payment? (Or is that too complex a question)

Assuming you have a lightning wallet application on your phone, you click "receive" and you may need to enter an amount and it will give you a qr code.

If you don't mind, it can be useful to know what apps you are using (e.g. phoenix wallet, alby, lntipbot) and what nostr apps/sites you are using also.

I have Alby on my desktop, and am using Damus on my cell.

I don't use getAlby, and I couldn't find docs on how to generate an invoice using their browser extension, but they do have guides to connect it to either Zeus or BlueWallet which are typical wallets with send and receive buttons.

With those if you tap receive, it will make you an invoice.

Oh, hi nostr:npub1getal6ykt05fsz5nqu4uld09nfj3y3qxmv8crys4aeut53unfvlqr80nfm, can you generate invoices using the extension?

Thanks so much for your time and responses, so helpful!