head to head · open source
reaction vs Shopware
reaction has 12,400 GitHub stars, 2,169 forks, 96 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. Shopware has 3,465 stars, 1,217 forks, 1,356 open issues and last shipped yesterday. reaction leads on adoption by 258% (12,400 vs 3,465 stars). reaction is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0; Shopware is written in PHP under MIT. reaction has attracted 17% as many forks as stars, Shopware 35%. Shopware was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (ecommerce, ecommerce-platform, hacktoberfest), 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
| reaction | Shopware | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 3.5K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-03-01 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick reaction if
- You weight community size — 12K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Shopware if
- You want the Shopware feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Shopware fits your workflow better
About reaction
Mailchimp Open Commerce (formerly Reaction Commerce) Open Commerce Website Twitter Documentation Discord Discussions Mailchimp Open Commerce is an API first, headless commerce platform built using Node.js, MongoDB, and GraphQL. It plays nicely with npm, Docker and Kubernetes. Features Fast Returns data in split seconds, and faster queries mean faster web pages Proven Open Commerce fuels sites doing 10's of thousands of orders per day with 100's of thousands of products Composable A flexible plugin system allows you to pick and choose which integrations work best for you Multi tenant Host multiple shops in the…
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About Shopware
Shopware Modern open source e Commerce Shopware 6 is an open headless commerce platform powered by Symfony 7 and Vue.js 3 that is used by thousands of shops and supported by a huge, worldwide community of developers, agencies, and merchants. If you like Shopware 6, give us a ⭐️ on GitHub! 🙋♂️ Be part of shopware! We are hiring! 🙋 🌎 Discover our website 🧩 Browse more than 3,100 extensions in our community store 📖 Learn how to develop extensions and everything else about the tech behind Shopware via our developer docs. 🉐 Translate Shopware or help by contributing to existing languages 🛠 Report bugs in…
read the full Shopware overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is reaction or Shopware more popular?
reaction has 12,400 GitHub stars and Shopware has 3,465. reaction has the larger community by that measure.
Are reaction and Shopware free?
Both are open source. reaction is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Shopware under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between reaction and Shopware?
reaction is written in JavaScript and Shopware 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, reaction or Shopware?
Choose reaction if you want the larger community (12,400 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Shopware if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.