head to head · open source
Spree Commerce vs SimplCommerce
Spree Commerce has 15,806 GitHub stars, 5,319 forks, 143 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SimplCommerce has 4,412 stars, 1,669 forks, 172 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. Spree Commerce leads on adoption by 258% (15,806 vs 4,412 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 | 2026-11-02 | 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
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 SimplCommerce
A simple, cross platform, modulith ecommerce system built on .NET Core High level architecture Build Status Online demo (Azure Website) Store front: Administration: Email: admin@simplcommerce.com Password: 1qazZAQ! Docker For testing purpose only docker run p 5000:80 simplcommerce/ci build Continuous deployment: Visual Studio 2022 and SQL Server Prerequisites SQL Server Visual Studio 2022 and .NET 8 Steps to run Update the connection string: Open appsettings.json in src/SimplCommerce.WebHost. The default is configured for a local SQL Server If you are using Visual Studio LocalDB, change it to Ensure you have a…
read the full SimplCommerce overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Spree Commerce or SimplCommerce more popular?
Spree Commerce has 15,806 GitHub stars and SimplCommerce has 4,412. 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 (15,806 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.