head to head · open source
Medusa vs paylinks
Medusa has 36,356 GitHub stars, 5,260 forks, 194 open issues and last shipped yesterday. paylinks has 1,879 stars, 491 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. Medusa leads on adoption by 1,835% (36,356 vs 1,879 stars). Medusa is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; paylinks is written in C# under MIT. Medusa has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, paylinks 26%. Medusa was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | paylinks | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 1.9K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2025-11-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.3K | ⑂ 491 |
| 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 paylinks if
- You want the paylinks feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and paylinks 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 paylinks
Paylinks is an open source third party payment software development kit written in C and released under the MIT license. It lives in the .NET ecosystem, supports Alipay and WeChat Pay, and describes itself as a cross platform, multi merchant payment SDK. The repository reports 1879 stars, 491 forks, two open issues, a nine year history, and a last push on 2025 11 24.
read the full paylinks overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Medusa or paylinks more popular?
Medusa has 36,356 GitHub stars and paylinks has 1,879. Medusa has the larger community by that measure.
Are Medusa and paylinks free?
Both are open source. Medusa has no licence declared in this registry, and paylinks is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Medusa and paylinks?
Medusa is written in TypeScript and paylinks in C#. 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 paylinks?
Choose Medusa if you want the larger community (36,356 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose paylinks if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.