head to head · open source
WooCommerce vs Shopware
WooCommerce has 10,579 GitHub stars, 10,656 forks, 1,638 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Shopware has 3,466 stars, 1,220 forks, 1,356 open issues and last shipped yesterday. WooCommerce leads on adoption by 205% (10,579 vs 3,466 stars). WooCommerce is written in PHP under GPL-2.0; Shopware is written in PHP under MIT. WooCommerce has attracted 101% 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 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
| WooCommerce | Shopware | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 11K | ★ 3.5K |
| License | GPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 11K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick WooCommerce if
- You weight community size — 11K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-2.0 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 WooCommerce
WooCommerce Monorepo Welcome to the WooCommerce monorepo on GitHub. Here you can find all of the plugins, packages, and tools used in the development of the core WooCommerce plugin as well as WooCommerce extensions. You can browse the source, look at open issues, contribute code, and keep track of ongoing development. We recommend all developers follow the WooCommerce development blog to stay up to date with everything happening in the project. You can also follow @DevelopWoo on X (formerly Twitter) for the latest development updates. Getting Started To get up and running within the WooCommerce Monorepo, you…
read the full WooCommerce overview →
About Shopware
Shopware Modern open source e Commerce Shopware 6 is an open headless commerce platform powered by Symfony 7 and Vue.js 3 that is used by thousands of shops and supported by a huge, worldwide community of developers, agencies, and merchants. If you like Shopware 6, give us a ⭐️ on GitHub! 🙋♂️ Be part of shopware! We are hiring! 🙋 🌎 Discover our website 🧩 Browse more than 3,100 extensions in our community store 📖 Learn how to develop extensions and everything else about the tech behind Shopware via our developer docs. 🉐 Translate Shopware or help by contributing to existing languages 🛠 Report bugs in…
read the full Shopware overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is WooCommerce or Shopware more popular?
WooCommerce has 10,579 GitHub stars and Shopware has 3,466. WooCommerce has the larger community by that measure.
Are WooCommerce and Shopware free?
Both are open source. WooCommerce is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Shopware under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between WooCommerce and Shopware?
WooCommerce 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, WooCommerce or Shopware?
Choose WooCommerce if you want the larger community (10,579 stars) or its GPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose Shopware if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.