Crystallize vs Medusa (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Medusa grades higher than Crystallize: 2.4 against 1.8 out of 4.0.
Checked Nov 12, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 · graded Nov 12, 2026 and Nov 13, 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.
Crystallize
Headless commerce, product information and content in one GraphQL API
Which one is for you
Pick Crystallize if
- Fits if you have developers and want your own front end
- Makes sense if product data has to feed several channels
Look elsewhere if
- Not for you if you want a ready-made storefront, as none ships
- Tight if you stay on the free plan: 25 orders and 100 items a month
- Pricey if you grow, with $949 a month per tenant plus overages
- Watch out: SAML/SSO and invoice billing need the sales-quoted Crystal plan, and prices can change on 12 months' notice
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
| 1.8GPACrystallizeWeak | 2.4GPAMedusaFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | DAtom is $949 a month per tenant, in the category's dearest tenth, plus metered orders, items, bandwidth and API calls. | 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 | CThe free Particle plan allows 25 orders, 100 items and 25,000 API calls a month. A real shop passes that quickly. | BThe open-source software is free with no sales-volume fee, but you host it yourself. Cloud has no free plan or trial. |
| Features | CProduct information, commerce, content and subscriptions in one API. There's no storefront, so the front end is yours to build. | CProducts, carts, orders, payments, regions, multi-warehouse stock and promotions as building blocks. A store takes engineering work to assemble. |
| Ease of use | DNo rating on record. It's a developer tool: you build against GraphQL APIs. | DNo store rating on record. It is a developer framework, set up with code and a PostgreSQL database. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb API platform that fits Next.js, Astro, Remix, Nuxt and other frameworks. No phone or desktop apps. | BWeb, with an admin and a Cloud hosting service, an MCP server and a CLI. No phone or desktop app. |
| Best for | developers building headless stores on a GraphQL API | 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: Crystallize and Medusa. How we grade
Price against what you get
Crystallize starts at $949 a month and scores 2.0 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Medusa starts at $29 a month and scores 2.0.
They score the same, and Medusa starts $920 a month lower. Of the other online store builders on the chart, 32 score higher than Crystallize for less, and 15 score higher than Medusa for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- Medusa is open source and self-hostable, according to its own site.
- Crystallize also covers inventory.
At a glance
| Crystallize | Medusa | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $949 per month, plus metered usage | $29 per month and up, billed monthly (Cloud Develop) |
| Free plan | Particle plan: free base price, 25 orders, 100 items, 5 GB bandwidth and 25,000 API calls a month, then metered. | The open-source software is free to self-host; the Cloud plans start at $29 a month. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Crystallize AS | Medusa |
| Price read from | crystallize.com | medusajs.com |
| Checked | Nov 13, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Crystallize
- There is no ready-made storefront; a developer has to build the front end.
- The $949 Atom base price is per tenant, with overages for orders, items, bandwidth and API calls beyond the included amounts.
- SAML/SSO, tenant cloning and invoice billing are limited to the sales-quoted Crystal plan.
- Prices can change on 12 months' notice; Particle and Atom can be ended at any time, with that month's usage billed.
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
Crystallize
- PIM, commerce and CMS together
- Product information, orders and rich content live in one data model, which Crystallize describes as breaking down the usual silos between three tools.
- GraphQL APIs
- Content and catalog are delivered through GraphQL APIs, with guides for Next.js, Astro, Remix, Svelte, React, TanStack and Nuxt storefronts.
- Subscription and bookable commerce
- The product pages cover recurring subscription products and selling time or access slots, alongside standard physical products.
- AI and MCP tooling
- Pages cover AI commerce and an MCP server; Crystal plans meter AI tokens used by Flare, the platform's AI assistant.
- Multi-tenant environments
- Crystal includes three tenants for production, staging and development, with a copy-tenant utility; Particle and Atom allow one tenant per project.
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
Crystallize
Particle$0
One tenant per project, unlimited users and languages, full features. Extra orders $2.50, items $0.10 each.
Atom$949
per month, plus metered usage
Per tenant; includes 500 orders, 5,000 items, 50 GB and 500,000 API calls. Extra orders $1.00, items $0.02.
CrystalCustom
3 tenants, SAML/SSO, tenant cloning, invoice billing, enterprise SLA and a dedicated engineering Slack channel.
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, Crystallize or Medusa?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Medusa is cheaper to start with: $29 a month, against $949 a month for Crystallize. Crystallize starts at $949 per month, plus metered usage, and Medusa starts at $29 per month and up, billed monthly (Cloud Develop).
Which has a free plan, Crystallize or Medusa?
As of Nov 13, 2026, both Crystallize and Medusa have a free plan.
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.