head to head · open source
Medusa vs Payum
Medusa has 37,059 GitHub stars, 5,487 forks, 194 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Payum has 1,926 stars, 347 forks, 99 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Medusa leads on adoption by 1,824% (37,059 vs 1,926 stars). Medusa is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Payum is written in PHP under MIT. Medusa has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, Payum 18%. 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 | Payum | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 37K | ★ 1.9K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.5K | ⑂ 347 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Medusa if
- You weight community size — 37K 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 Payum if
- You want the Payum feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Payum fits your workflow better
About Medusa
Medusa Documentation Website Building blocks for digital commerce Getting Started The fastest way to get started is with Medusa Cloud. It provides a managed environment optimized for Medusa applications, with automated deployments, scaling, and maintenance. Get started on Medusa Cloud To set up a Medusa application locally, visit the Documentation. About Medusa Medusa is a commerce platform with a built in framework for customization that allows you to build custom commerce applications without reinventing core commerce logic. The framework and modules can be used to support advanced B2B or DTC commerce stores…
read the full Medusa overview →
About Payum
Supporting Payum Payum is an MIT licensed open source project with its ongoing development made possible entirely by the support of community and our customers. If you'd like to join them, please consider: Become a sponsor Payum Reduce Your Development Time with Payum integrating more than 50 payment services simultaneously. Payum is one of the most popular bug free solution that has over 1 000 000 downloads already. It is friendly for all top PHP frameworks and was successfully installed and tested by thousands of developers worldwide Sponsors Payum is supported by: GitBook — hosts our documentation If you'd…
read the full Payum overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Medusa or Payum more popular?
Medusa has 37,059 GitHub stars and Payum has 1,926. Medusa has the larger community by that measure.
Are Medusa and Payum free?
Both are open source. Medusa has no licence declared in this registry, and Payum is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Medusa and Payum?
Medusa is written in TypeScript and Payum in PHP. 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 Payum?
Choose Medusa if you want the larger community (37,059 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Payum if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.