Medusa vs Vendure
Both are alternatives to Shopify. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Also searched as Vendure vs Medusa — same comparison, one verdict.
Medusa and Vendure are closely matched on ownership (93 vs 89) — 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.
Vendure
TypeScript commerce with an admin UI you do not have to build.
Vendure sits between Medusa and Saleor: a headless commerce framework in TypeScript and GraphQL that ships with a genuinely usable admin interface, so you are not building order management from nothing. MIT-licensed core with a plugin architecture for extending it. Smaller community than the others here, which is the honest caveat — but the developer experience is well regarded and the admin UI removes a chunk of work that Medusa leaves to you.
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 | Vendure | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty ScoreOur transparent 0–100 composite for data ownership and exit cost. | 93 | 89 |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| Local-first data | Yes | Yes |
| License | MIT | MIT (core; some enterprise plugins are commercial) |
| Pricing | Free and open source. You pay for hosting and the developers who build the storefront. | Free and open source core. Vendure Cloud and certain plugins are paid. |
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
Vendure
Strengths
- +Ships with a real admin UI — significant work you do not repeat
- +TypeScript and GraphQL, cleanly architected
- +Plugin system makes extension straightforward
- +MIT core with no revenue share
Trade-offs
- −Smallest community of the four open options here
- −Some enterprise plugins are commercial
- −Still headless — the storefront is yours to build
- −Fewer worked examples when you get stuck
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 Vendure
if ships with a real admin UI — significant work you do not repeat.
Neither, yet
if both carry a real cost you should weigh first — you build the storefront — Shopify gives you one on day one, and smallest community of the four open options here. If either of those is a dealbreaker for your team, the shortlist is wrong rather than the choice.
Medusa vs Vendure — common questions
Is Medusa a better fit than Vendure for e-commerce platforms?
It depends on what you are optimising for, and the honest split is this: Medusa scores 93 to Vendure's 89 on data ownership and exit cost, so it is the safer choice if you care about being able to leave. Vendure earns its place on a different axis — ships with a real admin UI — significant work you do not repeat. 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. Vendure 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 Vendure?
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 Vendure 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.