head to head · open source
reaction vs Sylius
reaction has 12,399 GitHub stars, 2,176 forks, 96 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Sylius has 8,535 stars, 2,158 forks, 225 open issues and last shipped yesterday. reaction leads on adoption by 45% (12,399 vs 8,535 stars). reaction is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0; Sylius is written in PHP under MIT. reaction has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, Sylius 25%. Sylius was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (ecommerce, ecommerce-platform, hacktoberfest, headless), 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 | Sylius | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 8.5K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-03-01 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| 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 Sylius if
- You want the Sylius feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Sylius 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 Sylius
Sylius is a headless, open source eCommerce platform built on top of PHP, the Symfony framework, and API Platform. It is distributed under the MIT license and has been developed for roughly fifteen years, with the current repository carrying about 8,500 stars, 2,100 forks, and 225 open issues. The project was originally created by Paweł Jędrzejewski and is maintained by a broad contributor base. It sits in the PHP and Symfony ecosystem, and it is positioned as a framework rather than a finished storefront: developers build the commerce application on top of it instead of configuring a hosted product.…
read the full Sylius overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is reaction or Sylius more popular?
reaction has 12,399 GitHub stars and Sylius has 8,535. reaction has the larger community by that measure.
Are reaction and Sylius free?
Both are open source. reaction is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Sylius under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between reaction and Sylius?
reaction is written in JavaScript and Sylius 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 Sylius?
Choose reaction if you want the larger community (12,399 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Sylius if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.