Medusa vs BigCommerce
Both are alternatives to Shopify. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Also searched as BigCommerce vs Medusa — same comparison, one verdict.
Medusa is open source (MIT) and BigCommerce is not (Proprietary (hosted service)) — so the real question is whether you want to own the e-commerce platforms stack or rent it.
Medusa
TOP PICKA headless commerce engine in TypeScript, MIT, no revenue share.
Medusa is a modular commerce backend built in Node and TypeScript: cart, orders, fulfilment, payments and inventory exposed as APIs, with the storefront entirely your own. There is no transaction fee and no seat count — you pay for hosting. MIT, around 35.6k stars and actively developed. It suits teams that already build in JavaScript and want commerce to be a service inside their own application rather than a platform their application lives inside. The cost is real: you are assembling a stack Shopify hands you complete.
BigCommerce
Shopify's closest hosted rival, with no platform transaction fee.
BigCommerce is a hosted platform in the same shape as Shopify with one meaningful difference: it charges no additional platform fee for using your own payment provider, which for a store negotiating its own card rates is real money. It also allows deeper API access and headless use on lower tiers than Shopify does. It is proprietary and hosted, so the sovereignty position is no better — but if the driver is the payment levy specifically rather than ownership, it addresses exactly that.
Side by side
6 points of comparison, every one read from a verified field. Green marks the side that wins a row outright. A dash means we do not hold that fact — never that it is zero.
| Medusa | BigCommerce | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty ScoreOur transparent 0–100 composite for data ownership and exit cost. | 93 | 32 |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Self-hostable | Yes | No |
| Local-first data | Yes | No |
| License | MIT | Proprietary (hosted service) |
| Pricing | Free and open source. You pay for hosting and the developers who build the storefront. | Plans from roughly $39/month with no additional platform transaction fee on your chosen gateway. Annual revenue thresholds move you up tiers. |
Medusa is Macrostack's recommended Shopify alternative, so it's our pick here.
Weighing both against staying on Shopify? Is Shopify free? What it actually costs →
Medusa
Strengths
- +MIT with no revenue share — growth does not raise the software bill
- +TypeScript throughout, which is where most web teams already are
- +Modular by design: use the commerce parts you need, ignore the rest
- +Headless, so the storefront is yours entirely
Trade-offs
- −You build the storefront — Shopify gives you one on day one
- −No app store; integrations are code you write and maintain
- −Needs a developer permanently, not just at launch
- −Checkout conversion is your problem to solve and optimise
BigCommerce
Strengths
- +No platform fee for using your own payment provider
- +Strong API and headless support on standard tiers
- +More built in before you reach for paid apps
- +Migration from Shopify is comparatively straightforward
Trade-offs
- −Proprietary and hosted — the ownership problem is unchanged
- −Revenue thresholds force tier upgrades whether you want them or not
- −Smaller app ecosystem and theme market than Shopify
- −Still a platform whose roadmap is not yours
Which one fits you
The trade-offs above, turned into a decision. Find the line that describes your team.
Choose Medusa
if you want the source and the option to fork it, and you would rather run it on your own hardware, and your data should stay on machines you control.
Choose BigCommerce
if no platform fee for using your own payment provider.
Neither, yet
if both carry a real cost you should weigh first — you build the storefront — Shopify gives you one on day one, and proprietary and hosted — the ownership problem is unchanged. If either of those is a dealbreaker for your team, the shortlist is wrong rather than the choice.
Medusa vs BigCommerce — common questions
Is Medusa a better fit than BigCommerce for e-commerce platforms?
It depends on what you are optimising for, and the honest split is this: Medusa scores 93 to BigCommerce's 32 on data ownership and exit cost, so it is the safer choice if you care about being able to leave. BigCommerce earns its place on a different axis — no platform fee for using your own payment provider. Neither is a wrong answer for every team; the table above is the actual comparison.
What happens if we want to switch later?
Medusa keeps its data local or in open formats, so leaving is an export rather than a negotiation. BigCommerce keeps your data on its own infrastructure, which is the part to plan for: confirm the export path before you commit, not when you are already trying to leave.
Is Medusa free?
Medusa: Free and open source. You pay for hosting and the developers who build the storefront.. The other side of this comparison, BigCommerce, is priced as Plans from roughly $39/month with no additional platform transaction fee on your chosen gateway. Annual revenue thresholds move you up tiers.. "Free" here means no licence fee — if you self-host it you still pay for the server, and the running cost row above is our honest estimate of that.
Can I self-host Medusa?
Medusa can be self-hosted; BigCommerce cannot, so it stays on the vendor's infrastructure whatever you do.
Are Medusa and BigCommerce both alternatives to Shopify?
Yes — both appear in our Shopify comparison, which is why they are worth putting side by side. People usually arrive here already having decided to move off Shopify and now choosing between the two replacements, which is a narrower and much easier question.
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Facts verified 2026-08-07. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.