head to head · open source
Sylius vs Shopware
Sylius has 8,538 GitHub stars, 2,157 forks, 225 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Shopware has 3,425 stars, 1,211 forks, 1,356 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Sylius leads on adoption by 149% (8,538 vs 3,425 stars). Sylius is written in PHP under MIT; Shopware is written in PHP under MIT. Sylius has attracted 25% as many forks as stars, Shopware 35%. Sylius 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
| Sylius | Shopware | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.5K | ★ 3.4K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Sylius if
- You weight community size — 8.5K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- 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 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 →
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 Sylius or Shopware more popular?
Sylius has 8,538 GitHub stars and Shopware has 3,425. Sylius has the larger community by that measure.
Are Sylius and Shopware free?
Both are open source. Sylius is licensed under MIT and Shopware under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Sylius and Shopware?
Sylius is written in PHP 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, Sylius or Shopware?
Choose Sylius if you want the larger community (8,538 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Shopware if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.