head to head · open source
Medusa vs mercur
Medusa has 36,356 GitHub stars, 5,260 forks, 194 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mercur has 1,768 stars, 444 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Medusa leads on adoption by 1,956% (36,356 vs 1,768 stars). Medusa is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; mercur is written in TypeScript under MIT. Medusa has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, mercur 25%. Medusa was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (ecommerce, medusa, typescript), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Medusa | mercur | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.3K | ⑂ 444 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Medusa if
- You weight community size — 36K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick mercur if
- You want the mercur feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and mercur fits your workflow better
About Medusa
Medusa is an open source e commerce framework built with Node.js and TypeScript that enables developers to construct custom commerce applications without rebuilding core commerce logic. It provides modular, pluggable backend services for products, orders, inventory, payments, and customer management, all exposed via REST and GraphQL APIs. Medusa lives in the JavaScript/Node.js ecosystem and targets developers who need full control over their storefronts and business logic while relying on battle tested, open source primitives.
read the full Medusa overview →
About mercur
Mercur is an open source, headless marketplace platform written in TypeScript and built on Medusa.js. It provides a storefront, vendor panel, admin console, and integrations as modular applications that communicate with a commerce core over APIs. The project targets multi vendor commerce, where several sellers list offers on one marketplace, and it positions itself as an alternative to Mirakl.
read the full mercur overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Medusa or mercur more popular?
Medusa has 36,356 GitHub stars and mercur has 1,768. Medusa has the larger community by that measure.
Are Medusa and mercur free?
Both are open source. Medusa has no licence declared in this registry, and mercur is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Medusa and mercur?
Medusa is written in TypeScript and mercur in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Medusa or mercur?
Choose Medusa if you want the larger community (36,356 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose mercur if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.