head to head · open source
Medusa vs reaction
Medusa has 36,356 GitHub stars, 5,260 forks, 194 open issues and last shipped yesterday. reaction has 12,399 stars, 2,176 forks, 96 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Medusa leads on adoption by 193% (36,356 vs 12,399 stars). Medusa is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; reaction is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0. Medusa has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, reaction 18%. Medusa was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (commerce, e-commerce, ecommerce, javascript), 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 | reaction | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 12K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-03-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.3K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| 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 reaction if
- You want the reaction feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and reaction 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 reaction
Mailchimp Open Commerce, formerly Reaction Commerce, is an API first, headless commerce platform built on Node.js, MongoDB, and GraphQL for development teams that want to run a custom storefront, marketplace, or multi shop operation on their own infrastructure — and the project has been discontinued.
read the full reaction overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Medusa or reaction more popular?
Medusa has 36,356 GitHub stars and reaction has 12,399. Medusa has the larger community by that measure.
Are Medusa and reaction free?
Both are open source. Medusa has no licence declared in this registry, and reaction is licensed under GPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Medusa and reaction?
Medusa is written in TypeScript and reaction in JavaScript. 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 reaction?
Choose Medusa if you want the larger community (36,356 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose reaction if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.