head to head · open source
Spree Commerce vs Shopware
Spree Commerce has 15,712 GitHub stars, 5,303 forks, 143 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Shopware has 3,425 stars, 1,211 forks, 1,356 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Spree Commerce leads on adoption by 359% (15,712 vs 3,425 stars). Spree Commerce is written in Ruby under BSD-3-Clause; Shopware is written in PHP under MIT. Spree Commerce has attracted 34% as many forks as stars, Shopware 35%. Spree Commerce was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ecommerce, ecommerce-platform), 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
| Spree Commerce | Shopware | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 3.4K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | Ruby | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.3K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Spree Commerce if
- You weight community size — 16K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- 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 Spree Commerce
Spree Commerce is an open source headless commerce platform written in Ruby and released under the BSD 3 Clause license. It lives in the open source e commerce ecosystem and is described as a platform for B2B, marketplaces, and enterprise use, with a REST API, a TypeScript SDK, and a Next.js storefront. It targets teams that want to self host their commerce stack, keep ownership of code, data, and infrastructure, and avoid platform fees or vendor lock in.
read the full Spree Commerce 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 Spree Commerce or Shopware more popular?
Spree Commerce has 15,712 GitHub stars and Shopware has 3,425. Spree Commerce has the larger community by that measure.
Are Spree Commerce and Shopware free?
Both are open source. Spree Commerce is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and Shopware under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Spree Commerce and Shopware?
Spree Commerce is written in Ruby 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, Spree Commerce or Shopware?
Choose Spree Commerce if you want the larger community (15,712 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose Shopware if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.