head to head · open source
Saleor vs reaction
Saleor has 23,503 GitHub stars, 6,170 forks, 263 open issues and last shipped yesterday. reaction has 12,400 stars, 2,169 forks, 96 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. Saleor leads on adoption by 90% (23,503 vs 12,400 stars). Saleor is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause; reaction is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0. Saleor has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, reaction 17%. Saleor was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 6 topic tags (cart, 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
| Saleor | reaction | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 12K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-03-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.2K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Saleor if
- You weight community size — 24K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick reaction if
- You want the reaction feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and reaction fits your workflow better
About Saleor
Commerce that works with your language and stack GraphQL native, API only platform for scalable composable commerce. Get to know Saleor: Talk to a human Talk to the API Join our community: Website Twitter Discord Blog Subscribe to newsletter Table of Contents What makes Saleor special? Why API only Architecture? Features Installation Documentation Saleor Platform Storefront Dashboard Contributing License What makes Saleor special? Technology agnostic no monolithic plugin architecture or technology lock in. GraphQL only Not afterthought API design or fragmentation across different styles of API. Headless and API…
read the full Saleor overview →
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…
read the full reaction overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Saleor or reaction more popular?
Saleor has 23,503 GitHub stars and reaction has 12,400. Saleor has the larger community by that measure.
Are Saleor and reaction free?
Both are open source. Saleor is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and reaction under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Saleor and reaction?
Saleor is written in Python and reaction in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Saleor or reaction?
Choose Saleor if you want the larger community (23,503 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose reaction if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.