Sylius vs WooCommerce: 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.
| Sylius | WooCommerce | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | E-commerce | E-commerce |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| GitHub stars | 8k | 9k |
| Tech stack | PHP, Symfony, MySQL | PHP, WordPress, MySQL |
| Replaces | Shopify | Shopify |
WooCommerce has more GitHub stars, which usually indicates a larger community (not necessarily that it's the best option for your use case).
Sylius
Symfony ecommerce framework, a flexible alternative to Shopify.
Pros
- Maximum flexibility for complex business logic
Things to consider
- Requires solid Symfony experience to get the most out of it
WooCommerce
Ecommerce on WordPress, a free alternative to Shopify.
Pros
- Ideal if your site already runs on WordPress
Things to consider
- Performance depends heavily on the plugins you install
Key features
Sylius
- Extensible Symfony architecture
- Supports B2B and B2C stores
- Complete REST API
WooCommerce
- The largest plugin ecosystem in the world
- Works with any WordPress theme
- Thousands of supported payment gateways