head to head · open source
Medusa vs SimplCommerce
Medusa has 37,059 GitHub stars, 5,487 forks, 194 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SimplCommerce has 4,412 stars, 1,669 forks, 172 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. Medusa leads on adoption by 740% (37,059 vs 4,412 stars). Medusa is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; SimplCommerce is written in C# under Apache-2.0. Medusa has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, SimplCommerce 38%. Medusa was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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 | SimplCommerce | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 37K | ★ 4.4K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | C# |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-06-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.5K | ⑂ 1.7K |
| 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 SimplCommerce if
- You want the SimplCommerce feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and SimplCommerce 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 SimplCommerce
A simple, cross platform, modulith ecommerce system built on .NET Core High level architecture Build Status Online demo (Azure Website) Store front: Administration: Email: admin@simplcommerce.com Password: 1qazZAQ! Docker For testing purpose only docker run p 5000:80 simplcommerce/ci build Continuous deployment: Visual Studio 2022 and SQL Server Prerequisites SQL Server Visual Studio 2022 and .NET 8 Steps to run Update the connection string: Open appsettings.json in src/SimplCommerce.WebHost. The default is configured for a local SQL Server If you are using Visual Studio LocalDB, change it to Ensure you have a…
read the full SimplCommerce overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Medusa or SimplCommerce more popular?
Medusa has 37,059 GitHub stars and SimplCommerce has 4,412. Medusa has the larger community by that measure.
Are Medusa and SimplCommerce free?
Both are open source. Medusa has no licence declared in this registry, and SimplCommerce is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Medusa and SimplCommerce?
Medusa is written in TypeScript and SimplCommerce 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 SimplCommerce?
Choose Medusa if you want the larger community (37,059 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose SimplCommerce if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.