head to head · open source
Spree Commerce vs Shopware
Spree Commerce has 15,806 GitHub stars, 5,319 forks, 143 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Shopware has 3,465 stars, 1,217 forks, 1,356 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Spree Commerce leads on adoption by 356% (15,806 vs 3,465 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%. Shopware 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Spree Commerce | Shopware | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 3.5K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | Ruby | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| 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
Website · Free Sandbox · Next.js Storefront · Documentation · API · Roadmap · Discord Open source headless eCommerce platform with a complete REST API, TypeScript SDK, and a production ready Next.js storefront. BSD 3 Clause licensed — keep full ownership of your code, data, and infrastructure. Everything you need to launch cross border storefronts, B2B wholesale, or a custom commerce backend. Getting Started The fastest way to try Spree is to create a free sandbox — a hosted Spree store with the Admin Dashboard and storefront, nothing to install. To run Spree locally instead, copy and paste the following command…
read the full Spree Commerce 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 →
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 Spree Commerce or Shopware more popular?
Spree Commerce has 15,806 GitHub stars and Shopware has 3,465. 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 (15,806 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose Shopware if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.