commercetools vs Medusa (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Medusa grades higher than commercetools: 2.4 against 2.0 out of 4.0.
Checked Nov 12, 2026 · graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
Medusa grades higher on value for money and the free plan. They get the same grade on features, ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
commercetools
API-first headless commerce platform for large retailers
Free trial
Which one is for you
Pick commercetools if
- Fits if you're an enterprise with engineers replatforming a large multi-market shop
- Works for B2B sellers who need buyer roles, quotes and approval flows
Look elsewhere if
- Not for you if you want a store builder, as there is no built-in storefront editor
- Skip it if you want a price before talking to sales, since none is published
- Watch out: premium support, advanced B2B APIs, checkout and extra regions are add-ons
- Skip it if you are a small shop that just wants to sell, as this is built for engineering teams
Pick Medusa if
- Fits if your team writes JavaScript and wants a custom or headless store
- Works for builders who don't want a platform fee on sales
Look elsewhere if
- Not for you if you want a store without developers, as setup takes engineering work
- Skip it if you can't host a server, because the free version means doing that yourself
- Watch out: Cloud costs grow with usage, with edge requests past the allowance at $0.30 per 1M
- Watch out: Medusa Cloud can't accept cards issued by banks registered in India
How we grade them
| 2.0GPAcommercetoolsFair | 2.4GPAMedusaFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | CNo price is published. The pricing page sends buyers to sales and says pricing is order-based, so there is nothing to set against the category's $29 to $49 a month. | BCloud Develop is $29 a month, in the category's cheaper quarter, and the open-source version is free. Higher Cloud tiers are $99 and $299, and costs grow with usage. |
| Free plan and trial | CA 60-day free trial with no credit card that doesn't convert automatically. There is no free plan, and the trial excludes InStore, Frontend and agentic features. | BThe open-source software is free with no sales-volume fee, but you host it yourself. Cloud has no free plan or trial. |
| Features | CCatalog, cart, order, pricing and promotion APIs, B2C and B2B models and a Merchant Center. There's no storefront theme editor, so a front end has to be built or bought. | CProducts, carts, orders, payments, regions, multi-warehouse stock and promotions as building blocks. A store takes engineering work to assemble. |
| Ease of use | DNo store rating on record. Using it means engineers assembling APIs into a storefront, not a merchant clicking through a builder. | DNo store rating on record. It is a developer framework, set up with code and a PostgreSQL database. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb admin and a managed runtime for custom integrations, with MCP servers for AI agents. Not a store builder you can use from a phone or desktop app. | BWeb, with an admin and a Cloud hosting service, an MCP server and a CLI. No phone or desktop app. |
| Best for | enterprise headless commerce APIs | custom stores built in JavaScript |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: commercetools and Medusa. How we grade
Where they differ
- Medusa is open source and self-hostable, according to its own site.
In commonWebPublic APIAI featuresOnline store
At a glance
| commercetools | Medusa | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free trial | Free plan |
| Starts at | Not published | $29 per month and up, billed monthly (Cloud Develop) |
| Free plan | None | The open-source software is free to self-host; the Cloud plans start at $29 a month. |
| Free trial | 60-day free trial, no credit card, does not convert automatically. | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | commercetools GmbH | Medusa |
| Price read from | Not confirmed | medusajs.com |
| Checked | Nov 12, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
commercetools
- No prices are published; the pricing page sends buyers to sales and says pricing is order-based rather than based on sales volume.
- There is no built-in storefront theme editor; a team has to build or buy the front end, and Frontend is a separate product.
- Premium Support, advanced B2B APIs, checkout, HIPAA compliance and extra regions are listed as add-ons.
- The 60-day trial covers the core commerce APIs and Merchant Center, but not InStore, Frontend or agentic capabilities.
Medusa
- It is a developer framework: the admin and a starter storefront exist, but a store takes engineering work to set up.
- Cloud prices start at the listed figure and grow with infrastructure and usage; edge requests beyond the allowance cost $0.30 per 1M.
- Cloud development access is billed per seat, and log drains are a $50 per month add-on on some plans.
- Medusa Cloud cannot accept cards issued by banks registered in India.
Key features
commercetools
- Headless commerce APIs
- Each capability, such as catalog, cart and order management, inventory, promotions and pricing, is exposed as its own versioned API that teams assemble into a custom storefront.
- B2C, B2B and hybrid models
- The page lists B2C, B2B, D2C, marketplaces and subscriptions as supported models. Business units, buyer roles, approval flows and quotes are sold as an Advanced B2B APIs add-on.
- Merchant Center
- A business tool for managing catalog and orders, included in the 60-day trial next to the APIs, with preloaded B2C or B2B sample data.
- Connect hosting
- Connect is a managed runtime for deploying custom integrations and back-office applications inside a commercetools environment, with templates to start from.
- AI and agent commerce
- AI Hub and AgenticLift are products for selling through ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot, and the platform exposes MCP servers for agents. The trial excludes agentic capabilities.
- InStore point of sale
- A separate product that gives store staff the same catalog, cart and orders that serve the online shop. It is not part of the free trial.
Medusa
- Commerce building blocks
- Products, carts, orders and payments are provided as primitives inside a framework, so developers customize behavior instead of working around a fixed storefront.
- Sales channels and regions
- Several sales channels with their own rules and products, plus multiple currencies, local tax rules and region-specific shipping and payment settings.
- Inventory and promotions
- Multi-warehouse inventory with order reservations, and a promotion engine for campaigns, free shipping and customer or B2B pricing.
- Medusa Admin
- A merchant dashboard for daily operations. The Cloud FAQ says Admin users are free and unlimited, and only development seats are billed.
- Cloud hosting
- Medusa Cloud deploys from GitHub and hosts the backend, admin and storefront on a CDN, with previews, logs, backups and autoscaling on higher plans.
- AI tooling
- A Medusa MCP server, a development agent and a Cloud CLI are included on every Cloud plan; custom workflow agents are Enterprise only.
Plans
commercetools
Pricing could not be confirmed. See commercetools.com.
Medusa
Open source$0
The open-source platform from GitHub, which you host and run yourself on your own PostgreSQL database.
Cloud Develop$29
per month and up, billed monthly
Hosted backend, admin and storefront, GitHub deploys, previews on pull requests, Medusa Search and Emails, with 1M edge requests.
Cloud Launch$99
per month and up, billed monthly
Adds autoscaling, custom storefront domains, automatic backups, webhook events, a Redis-backed store and 5M edge requests.
Cloud Scale$299
per month and up, billed monthly
Adds background workers, priority support, semantic search, longer backup retention, a custom backend domain and 10M edge requests.
Cloud EnterpriseCustom
Adds SLA-backed support, RBAC, SSO and audit logs, a dedicated support engineer and a 99.99% uptime guarantee. Sold through sales.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, commercetools or Medusa?
As of Nov 12, 2026, commercetools has no price we could confirm, and Medusa starts at $29 per month and up, billed monthly (Cloud Develop).
Which has a free plan, commercetools or Medusa?
As of Nov 12, 2026, only Medusa has a free plan. commercetools does not, though it has a free trial.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.