EverShop vs Medusa (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Medusa grades higher than EverShop: 2.4 against 2.0 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 platforms. They get the same grade on the free plan, features and ease of use.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Which one is for you
Pick EverShop if
- Fits if you write TypeScript and want to own your store
- Makes sense if you want a free start and can run a server
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you don't want to run deployment and updates yourself
- Tight if you need support: the free edition has community help only
- Watch out: EverShop Cloud at $19 a month is Coming Soon and can't be bought
- Watch out: extensions and themes are sold separately in the marketplace
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
| 2.0GPAEverShopFair | 2.4GPAMedusaFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | CFree only if you host it. The pricing page estimates $10 to $30 a month for hosting, so it sits in the middle. | 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 | BThe full platform is free with no caps, but you pay for hosting, a domain and email. The hosted Cloud plan can't be bought yet. | 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, checkout, orders, widgets, a developer toolkit and a marketplace of extensions. Extensions and themes cost extra. | 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. You manage deployment, email and updates yourself. | DNo store rating on record. It is a developer framework, set up with code and a PostgreSQL database. |
| Platforms and integrations | CWeb only. Stripe, PayPal, Klarna, Mailchimp and Algolia links exist, but no apps. | BWeb, with an admin and a Cloud hosting service, an MCP server and a CLI. No phone or desktop app. |
| Best for | TypeScript developers who want a free store they host | 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: EverShop and Medusa. How we grade
Price against what you get
EverShop has no paid plan and scores 1.7 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Medusa starts at $29 a month and scores 2.0.
Medusa scores higher, and starts $29 a month higher: the question is whether the extra is worth that to you. Of the other online store builders on the chart, none scores higher than EverShop 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
- EverShop also covers templates.
At a glance
| EverShop | Medusa | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free | Free plan |
| Starts at | Free | $29 per month and up, billed monthly (Cloud Develop) |
| Free plan | The self-hosted software is free; you pay for your own hosting, domain and any marketplace extensions or themes. | 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 | EverShop | Medusa |
| Price read from | evershop.io | medusajs.com |
| Checked | Nov 13, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
EverShop
- Self-hosting means managing your own hosting (the pricing page estimates $10 to $30 a month), deployment, email service and updates.
- Support for the free edition comes from the community.
- EverShop Cloud, listed at $19 per month with email support, is marked Coming Soon and cannot be bought yet.
- Extensions and themes are bought separately from the marketplace.
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
EverShop
- Catalog management
- Products with variants, categories and collections for groupings such as new arrivals or promotions.
- Checkout and orders
- A checkout flow and an order management area, with payment integrations shown for Stripe, PayPal and Klarna.
- Dynamic widgets
- Content blocks such as hero banners, menus and article lists that can be arranged on the storefront.
- Developer toolkit
- Built with GraphQL and a REST API, with automatic bundling, fast refresh and file-based middleware.
- Marketplace
- Extensions and themes sold through the EverShop marketplace; the pricing page gives typical prices of about $99 per extension and $149 per theme, one-time.
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
EverShop
Self-hosted$0
The full open-source platform on your own servers, with community support. You run deployment, email and updates yourself.
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, EverShop or Medusa?
As of Nov 13, 2026, EverShop is cheaper to start with: it is free, against $29 a month for Medusa. EverShop is free, and Medusa starts at $29 per month and up, billed monthly (Cloud Develop).
Which has a free plan, EverShop or Medusa?
As of Nov 13, 2026, both EverShop 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.