head to head · open source
Saleor vs Shopware
Saleor has 23,339 GitHub stars, 6,122 forks, 263 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Shopware has 3,425 stars, 1,212 forks, 1,356 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Saleor leads on adoption by 581% (23,339 vs 3,425 stars). Saleor is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause; Shopware is written in PHP under MIT. Saleor has attracted 26% 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 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
| Saleor | Shopware | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 3.4K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | Python | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.1K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Saleor if
- You weight community size — 23K 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 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 Saleor
Saleor is an open source e commerce platform written in Python and released under the BSD 3 Clause license. It positions itself as an open alternative to Shopify and describes itself as a high performance, composable, headless commerce API. The project lives in the e commerce ecosystem, where teams separate the backend order and catalog logic from the storefront, CMS, and dashboards.
read the full Saleor overview →
About Shopware
Shopware 6 is an open source ecommerce platform for modern businesses. It lives in the PHP ecosystem, is based on Symfony 7 and Vue.js 3, and is described as an open headless commerce platform used by thousands of shops. The project is not only a ready to use shop application; it is also presented as an ecommerce framework that teams can extend or reuse.
read the full Shopware overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Saleor or Shopware more popular?
Saleor has 23,339 GitHub stars and Shopware has 3,425. Saleor has the larger community by that measure.
Are Saleor and Shopware free?
Both are open source. Saleor is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and Shopware under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Saleor and Shopware?
Saleor is written in Python 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, Saleor or Shopware?
Choose Saleor if you want the larger community (23,339 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose Shopware if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.