Medusa vs Saleor
Both are alternatives to Shopify. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Also searched as Saleor vs Medusa — same comparison, one verdict.
Medusa and Saleor are closely matched on ownership (93 vs 91) — this one comes down to pricing and to which trade-offs below you can live with.
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.
Saleor
GraphQL-native commerce built for complex, multi-region catalogues.
Saleor is a mature Python and GraphQL commerce platform aimed at the harder end of the market: multi-channel, multi-warehouse, multi-currency, complex tax and permission models. Where Medusa is the lightweight modular option, Saleor is the one that handles genuine enterprise complexity without an enterprise licence. BSD-3-Clause, around 23k stars. The GraphQL-first API is excellent and it is a real commitment — the whole team ends up working that way.
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 | Saleor | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty ScoreOur transparent 0–100 composite for data ownership and exit cost. | 93 | 91 |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| Local-first data | Yes | Yes |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Pricing | Free and open source. You pay for hosting and the developers who build the storefront. | Free and open source. Saleor Cloud is an optional paid hosted tier. |
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
Saleor
Strengths
- +BSD-3-Clause — the most permissive licence in this comparison
- +Handles multi-channel and multi-warehouse properly, not as an add-on
- +GraphQL API is comprehensive and well documented
- +Proven at large catalogue sizes
Trade-offs
- −Heavier to run than Medusa — Python, Postgres, Celery, Redis
- −GraphQL-first is a commitment for the whole team
- −Smaller plugin ecosystem than Shopify by orders of magnitude
- −Overkill for a straightforward single-region shop
Which one fits you
The trade-offs above, turned into a decision. Find the line that describes your team.
Choose Medusa
if a lower exit cost matters more to you than any single feature, and mIT with no revenue share — growth does not raise the software bill.
Choose Saleor
if bSD-3-Clause — the most permissive licence in this comparison.
Neither, yet
if both carry a real cost you should weigh first — you build the storefront — Shopify gives you one on day one, and heavier to run than Medusa — Python, Postgres, Celery, Redis. If either of those is a dealbreaker for your team, the shortlist is wrong rather than the choice.
Medusa vs Saleor — common questions
Is Medusa a better fit than Saleor for e-commerce platforms?
It depends on what you are optimising for, and the honest split is this: Medusa scores 93 to Saleor's 91 on data ownership and exit cost, so it is the safer choice if you care about being able to leave. Saleor earns its place on a different axis — bSD-3-Clause — the most permissive licence in this comparison. 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. Saleor is still self-hostable, so the files stay on your server either way — but it is not local-first by design, so check what its export produces before you rely on it.
Can I self-host Medusa or Saleor?
Both can be self-hosted. The difference is what it costs you in time rather than whether it is possible — see the setup and maintenance rows above.
Are Medusa and Saleor 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.