head to head · open source
Spree Commerce vs WooCommerce
Spree Commerce has 15,699 GitHub stars, 5,301 forks, 143 open issues and last shipped yesterday. WooCommerce has 10,514 stars, 10,675 forks, 1,638 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Spree Commerce leads on adoption by 49% (15,699 vs 10,514 stars). Spree Commerce is written in Ruby under BSD-3-Clause; WooCommerce is written in PHP under a custom or non-standard licence. Spree Commerce has attracted 34% as many forks as stars, WooCommerce 102%. WooCommerce 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.
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Side by side
| Spree Commerce | WooCommerce | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 11K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | Custom / other |
| Written in | Ruby | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.3K | ⑂ 11K |
| 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 WooCommerce if
- You want the WooCommerce feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and WooCommerce 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 WooCommerce
WooCommerce is an open source ecommerce platform built on WordPress. It lives in the WordPress ecosystem, where a website owner can add commerce functionality through a plugin. The project is described as customizable and positioned as an open alternative to Shopify.
read the full WooCommerce overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Spree Commerce or WooCommerce more popular?
Spree Commerce has 15,699 GitHub stars and WooCommerce has 10,514. Spree Commerce has the larger community by that measure.
Are Spree Commerce and WooCommerce free?
Both are open source. Spree Commerce is licensed under BSD-3-Clause, and WooCommerce has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Spree Commerce and WooCommerce?
Spree Commerce is written in Ruby and WooCommerce 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 WooCommerce?
Choose Spree Commerce if you want the larger community (15,699 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose WooCommerce if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.