head to head · open source
Spree Commerce vs Smartstore
Spree Commerce has 15,712 GitHub stars, 5,303 forks, 143 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Smartstore has 1,521 stars, 587 forks, 530 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Spree Commerce leads on adoption by 933% (15,712 vs 1,521 stars). Spree Commerce is written in Ruby under BSD-3-Clause; Smartstore is written in C# under AGPL-3.0. Spree Commerce has attracted 34% as many forks as stars, Smartstore 39%. Spree Commerce was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | Smartstore | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.3K | ⑂ 587 |
| 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 Smartstore if
- You want the Smartstore feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and Smartstore 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 Smartstore
Smartstore is an open source, all in one eCommerce platform built on the ASP.NET Core ecosystem. It uses ASP.NET Core 10, Entity Framework Core 10, Vue.js, Sass, and Bootstrap to provide a modular storefront, product catalog, content tools, and shop management interface.
read the full Smartstore overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Spree Commerce or Smartstore more popular?
Spree Commerce has 15,712 GitHub stars and Smartstore has 1,521. Spree Commerce has the larger community by that measure.
Are Spree Commerce and Smartstore free?
Both are open source. Spree Commerce is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and Smartstore under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Spree Commerce and Smartstore?
Spree Commerce is written in Ruby and Smartstore in C#. 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 Smartstore?
Choose Spree Commerce if you want the larger community (15,712 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose Smartstore if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.