Saleor vs Vendure
Both are alternatives to Shopify. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Also searched as Vendure vs Saleor — same comparison, one verdict.
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.
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
| Saleor | Vendure | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty Score | 91 | 89 |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| Local-first | Yes | Yes |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT (core; some enterprise plugins are commercial) |
| Pricing | Free and open source. Saleor Cloud is an optional paid hosted tier. | Free and open source core. Vendure Cloud and certain plugins are paid. |
Saleor edges it on the Sovereignty Score, but the right pick depends on the trade-offs below.
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
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
Related alternative guides
Facts verified 2026-08-07. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.