Medusa vs Shopware: which one to choose in 2026?
Both are open source alternatives to Shopify. We compare license, tech stack and features to help you decide which fits your team best.
| Medusa | Shopware | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | E-commerce | E-commerce |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| GitHub stars | 26k | 7k |
| Tech stack | Node.js, PostgreSQL, Redis | PHP, Symfony, Vue.js, MySQL |
| Replaces | Shopify | Shopify, Magento |
Medusa has more GitHub stars, which usually indicates a larger community (not necessarily that it's the best option for your use case).
Medusa
Headless ecommerce in Node.js, an alternative to Shopify for developers.
Pros
- No commission per sale, unlike Shopify
Things to consider
- Requires development skills to fully customize
Shopware
Ecommerce with a visual editor and API-first design, an alternative to Shopify/Magento.
Pros
- Very powerful visual editor for product landing pages
Things to consider
- Some advanced features are Commercial-edition only
Key features
Medusa
- Customizable order, inventory and pricing modules
- REST API and admin panel included
- Native multi-region and multi-currency
Shopware
- Visual store editor (Shopping Experiences)
- API-first with decoupled admin
- Extension marketplace