The biggest difference would be that GitHub Sponsors has no fees [1], so everything people put in will go to the developer. Where Patreon can take 5-12% depending on the plan [2].
Additionally, GitHub is just so much closer to the actual open source work and more easily discoverable for users of your product.
As a supporter, I'll pick GitHub over Patreon anytime.
It's a promotional incentive. Fees will happen, and matching will end. But in the meantime, it means my sponsoring a project I care about magnifies my money for a cause I value, so I'm happy to participate.
I don't have the feeling that I have to give something in return. It's a voluntary donation, people can donate, or not. They can cancel at any time. I don't feel any pressure to 'deliver' anything. They're paying because they want to reward the value I have provided, and likely will continue to provide. If I stop providing it, I assume people will slowly cancel their donations, which is how things should work.
If anything the fun-level has gone way up because a community has formed around one of my projects, which has been great.
I have my own little company and I feel like since its profitable (7 figures/year) I'm able to take my time and perfect parts of the project (like SQL indexing, UI/UX, new features). The money allows me to have the freedom to have fun. I've built internal libraries where I could have just used an open source version, but its mine and I enjoy it.
I had started another company before that I spent over a year on and I made $0. Not fun.
That is actually quite cool. If people had to pay for facebook they wouldn't. What do you think is missing for self-hosters, easy sign up ? I don't think it is easy create to DNS and private server for normal folks.
Nice work, I should think about having paid only videos as well, I believe I can do that pretty easily on Patreon. Good tips in here.