head to head · open source
Smartstore vs thelia
Smartstore has 1,740 GitHub stars, 608 forks, 530 open issues and last shipped yesterday. thelia has 882 stars, 320 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Smartstore leads on adoption by 97% (1,740 vs 882 stars). Smartstore is written in C# under AGPL-3.0; thelia is written in PHP under GPL-3.0. Smartstore has attracted 35% as many forks as stars, thelia 36%. Smartstore was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (cms), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Smartstore | thelia | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 1.7K | ★ 882 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C# | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 608 | ⑂ 320 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Smartstore if
- You weight community size — 1.7K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick thelia if
- You want the thelia feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and thelia fits your workflow better
About Smartstore
Ready. Sell. Grow. A modular, scalable, and ultra fast open source all in one eCommerce platform built on ASP.NET Core 10. Try Online & 8729; Developer Guide & 8729; Forum & 8729; Marketplace & 8729; Translations Smartstore is a cross platform, modular, scalable, and ultra fast open source all in one eCommerce platform built on ASP.NET Core 10 , Entity Framework Core 10 , Vue.js , Sass , Bootstrap , and more. Smartstore includes all the essential features to create multi language, multi store, and multi currency shops , with built in AI capabilities for text and image generation powered by the world's leading AI…
read the full Smartstore overview →
About thelia
Thelia This is the development repository of Thelia, the open source e commerce framework. Work on Thelia itself here. To create a shop, use the project skeleton instead: thelia/thelia project. About Thelia is an open source framework for building online stores and managing web content. Version 3 runs on: PHP 8.3, 8.4 or 8.5 Symfony 7.4 LTS API Platform 4.3 (standalone) Propel ORM A Twig front office (the Flexy theme) and a Twig back office (the default twig theme) Lexik JWT for API authentication The back office and front office are built with Twig, Symfony UX (Stimulus, Twig Components and Live Components) and…
read the full thelia overview →
More in Business Software
Related comparisons
More E-commerce Platforms projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the E-commerce Platforms field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Smartstore or thelia more popular?
Smartstore has 1,740 GitHub stars and thelia has 882. Smartstore has the larger community by that measure.
Are Smartstore and thelia free?
Both are open source. Smartstore is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and thelia under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Smartstore and thelia?
Smartstore is written in C# and thelia 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, Smartstore or thelia?
Choose Smartstore if you want the larger community (1,740 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose thelia if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.