# Alternatives to Medusa

Headless open source commerce in Node.

Medusa ranks #1 of 9 in E-commerce platforms, with an Alt Score of 91. It is licensed under MIT, open source with paid hosting from $29/mo (Medusa Cloud Develop plan) and available on the web. 10 of 10 checklist rows are verified against a public source.

Source: https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/medusa/
Category: E-commerce platforms

## Where Medusa stands out

- **Hosted vs self-hosted** — 4 of 9 apps with a verified answer have this

## Overview

- **Who it's for**: Developers and engineering teams building custom e-commerce, B2B, or marketplace platforms who need more flexibility than a SaaS platform like Shopify allows, without building commerce infrastructure from scratch.
- **What you get**: Medusa is an open-source, headless commerce framework built on Node.js and TypeScript, providing core commerce logic (products, carts, orders, inventory, pricing, promotions, multi-region/multi-currency support) as modular, customizable building blocks. It ships with an admin dashboard, a REST/JS SDK, and a plugin system for integrating payment, shipping, and other third-party services. Because it's headless, the storefront is decoupled and can be built with any frontend framework (Medusa also provides a Next.js starter).
- **How it works**: You install the Medusa application (self-hosted or via Medusa Cloud), configure and extend it using modules and customizable workflows written in TypeScript, then connect a storefront to its APIs to handle the actual shopping experience. Commerce logic runs in the Medusa backend, which you deploy alongside a database (PostgreSQL) and Redis.

## Profile

- **License**: MIT (verified 2026-07-10)
- **Pricing model**: OSS + paid hosting (verified 2026-07-10)
- **Starts at**: $29/mo (Medusa Cloud Develop plan) (verified 2026-07-10)
- **Platforms**: Web
- **Status**: active (verified 2026-07-10)

## Ranked alternatives

| # | App | Alt Score | Licence | Platforms |
|---|-----|-----------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | [WooCommerce](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/woocommerce.md) | 91 | GPL-3.0 | Web |
| 2 | [BigCommerce](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/bigcommerce.md) | 82 | Proprietary | Web |
| 3 | [Saleor](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/saleor.md) | 82 | BSD-3-Clause | Web |
| 4 | [Big Cartel](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/big-cartel.md) | 78 | Proprietary | Web, iOS, Android |
| 5 | [OpenCart](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/opencart.md) | 78 | GPL-3.0 | Web |
| 6 | [PrestaShop](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/prestashop.md) | 78 | OSL-3.0 | Web |
| 7 | [Shopify](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/shopify.md) | 78 | Proprietary | Web, iOS, Android |
| 8 | [Adobe Commerce](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/adobe-commerce.md) | 73 | OSL-3.0 | Web |

Alt Score = Verified coverage (90%) + Visibility (10%). See https://altcatalog.com/how-alt-score-works/

## Feature comparison

Legend: Yes / No / Partial / ? (not verified).

| E-commerce platforms checklist | Medusa | WooCommerce | BigCommerce | Saleor | Big Cartel | OpenCart |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | OSS + paid hosting | OSS + paid hosting | Subscription | OSS + paid hosting | Freemium | Free |
| Starts at | $29/mo (Medusa Cloud Develop plan) | ? | $29/month | $1,599/mo | $15/month | ? |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 | Proprietary | BSD-3-Clause | Proprietary | GPL-3.0 |
| Platforms | Web | Web | Web | Web | Web, iOS, Android | Web |
| Hosted vs self-hosted | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Transaction fees | No | No | No | Partial | No | No |
| Themes & storefront customization | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes |
| Payment gateways | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-currency & tax | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Inventory management | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Headless API | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Partial |
| App / plugin ecosystem | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Digital products | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| POS integration | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | ? |

## Sources

Sources for Medusa. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.

- **License**: MIT — <https://github.com/medusajs/medusa/blob/develop/LICENSE> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “The MIT License (MIT)”
- **Starts at**: $29/mo (Medusa Cloud Develop plan) — <https://medusajs.com/pricing/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Note: From $29 /mo" with zero-config infrastructure, GitHub deployment, and predictable pricing."
  - Quote: “Develop - ”
- **Pricing model**: OSS + paid hosting — <https://medusajs.com/pricing/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “Medusa offers both a free, open-source self-hosted option and a paid cloud hosting service.”
- **Platforms**: Web — <https://medusajs.com/pricing/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “Medusa offers both a free, open-source self-hosted option and a paid cloud hosting service.”
- **Status**: active — <https://github.com/medusajs/medusa> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “v2.17.2 Latest Jul 1, 2026”
- **Hosted vs self-hosted**: Yes — <https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/installation> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “open-source, so you can also install and run it locally on your machine.”
- **Transaction fees**: No — <https://medusajs.com/pricing/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “No additional fees on commerce features. Pay only for infrastructure.”
- **Themes & storefront customization**: Yes — <https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/nextjs-starter> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “use as-is or build on top of it to tailor it for the business's unique use case, design, and customer experience.”
- **Payment gateways**: Yes — <https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/integrations> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “A Payment Module Provider processes payments made in your Medusa store using a third-party service.”
- **Multi-currency & tax**: Yes — <https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/commerce-modules/pricing> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “Define prices for a single resource in multiple currencies and regions.”
- **Inventory management**: Yes — <https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/commerce-modules/inventory> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “Store and manage inventory of any stock-kept item, such as product variants”
- **Headless API**: Yes — <https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/recipes/pos> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “Any client or frontend can connect to the Medusa application using its headless REST APIs”
- **App / plugin ecosystem**: Yes — <https://docs.medusajs.com/learn/fundamentals/plugins> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “Plugins allow you to reuse your Medusa customizations across multiple projects or share them with the community. They can be published to npm and installed in any Medusa project.”
- **Digital products**: Yes — <https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/recipes/digital-products> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “Digital products are products that are stored and delivered electronically. Examples include e-books, software, and digital art.”
- **POS integration**: Yes — <https://docs.medusajs.com/resources/recipes/pos> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “Any client or frontend can connect to the Medusa application using its headless REST APIs”

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Ranked by verified data, never by who paid. https://altcatalog.com/trust/