head to head · open source
reaction vs Solidus
reaction has 12,399 GitHub stars, 2,176 forks, 96 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Solidus has 5,328 stars, 1,403 forks, 92 open issues and last shipped yesterday. reaction leads on adoption by 133% (12,399 vs 5,328 stars). reaction is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0; Solidus is written in Ruby under BSD-3-Clause. reaction has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, Solidus 26%. Solidus 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 | Solidus | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 5.3K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | JavaScript | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-03-01 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| 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 Solidus if
- You want the Solidus feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and Solidus fits your workflow better
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 →
About Solidus
Solidus is a free, BSD 3 Clause licensed e commerce platform built with Ruby on Rails, aimed at developers and merchants who want to own and modify their entire storefront rather than rent one from a hosted provider.
read the full Solidus overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is reaction or Solidus more popular?
reaction has 12,399 GitHub stars and Solidus has 5,328. reaction has the larger community by that measure.
Are reaction and Solidus free?
Both are open source. reaction is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Solidus under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between reaction and Solidus?
reaction is written in JavaScript and Solidus in Ruby. 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 Solidus?
Choose reaction if you want the larger community (12,399 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Solidus if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.