head to head · open source
Spree Commerce vs SimplCommerce
Spree Commerce has 15,699 GitHub stars, 5,301 forks, 143 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SimplCommerce has 4,415 stars, 1,670 forks, 172 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Spree Commerce leads on adoption by 256% (15,699 vs 4,415 stars). Spree Commerce is written in Ruby under BSD-3-Clause; SimplCommerce is written in C# under Apache-2.0. Spree Commerce has attracted 34% as many forks as stars, SimplCommerce 38%. Spree Commerce was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ecommerce), 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
| Spree Commerce | SimplCommerce | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 4.4K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-06-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.3K | ⑂ 1.7K |
| 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 SimplCommerce if
- You want the SimplCommerce feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and SimplCommerce 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 SimplCommerce
SimplCommerce is an open source, cross platform, modulith ecommerce system built on .NET that targets .NET developers and teams who want to own and extend a storefront rather than rent one.
read the full SimplCommerce overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Spree Commerce or SimplCommerce more popular?
Spree Commerce has 15,699 GitHub stars and SimplCommerce has 4,415. Spree Commerce has the larger community by that measure.
Are Spree Commerce and SimplCommerce free?
Both are open source. Spree Commerce is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and SimplCommerce under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Spree Commerce and SimplCommerce?
Spree Commerce is written in Ruby and SimplCommerce 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 SimplCommerce?
Choose Spree Commerce if you want the larger community (15,699 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose SimplCommerce if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.