head to head · open source
Medusa vs Saleor
Medusa has 36,356 GitHub stars, 5,260 forks, 194 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Saleor has 23,339 stars, 6,122 forks, 263 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Medusa leads on adoption by 56% (36,356 vs 23,339 stars). Medusa is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Saleor is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause. Medusa has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, Saleor 26%. Medusa was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (commerce, e-commerce, ecommerce), 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 | Saleor | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 23K |
| License | Custom / other | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.3K | ⑂ 6.1K |
| 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 Saleor if
- You want the Saleor feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Saleor 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 Saleor
Saleor is an open source e commerce platform written in Python and released under the BSD 3 Clause license. It positions itself as an open alternative to Shopify and describes itself as a high performance, composable, headless commerce API. The project lives in the e commerce ecosystem, where teams separate the backend order and catalog logic from the storefront, CMS, and dashboards.
read the full Saleor overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Medusa or Saleor more popular?
Medusa has 36,356 GitHub stars and Saleor has 23,339. Medusa has the larger community by that measure.
Are Medusa and Saleor free?
Both are open source. Medusa has no licence declared in this registry, and Saleor is licensed under BSD-3-Clause. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Medusa and Saleor?
Medusa is written in TypeScript and Saleor in Python. 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 Saleor?
Choose Medusa if you want the larger community (36,356 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Saleor if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.