Medusa vs Shopware (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Medusa and Shopware share a 2.4 GPA, both have a free plan, and Medusa starts cheaper, at $29 a month against about $670.32 a month.
Checked Nov 12, 2026 · graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
Medusa grades higher on value for money. Shopware grades higher on features and ease of use. They get the same grade on the free plan and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Shopware
Open-source commerce platform for B2B and B2C stores
Which one is for you
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
Pick Shopware if
- Fits if you have developers or an agency and want to own the code for a B2B or B2C store
- Works for sellers who start on the free Community Edition and move to a paid plan later
Look elsewhere if
- Pricey if you want hosted support, because Rise starts at EUR 600 a month
- Skip it if you have no developer or partner, as self-hosted stores pay for hosting and implementation separately
- Watch out: plan prices depend on sales volume, so the listed euro figures are only a starting point
- Watch out: linked shops past EUR 1 million in gross sales over 365 days need a paid plan for the Shopware Account
- Watch out: SaaS and PaaS plans go through sales; instant booking is for self-hosted stores only
How we grade them
| 2.4GPAMedusaFair | 2.4GPAShopwareFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | 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. | DRise, the first paid plan with support and AI content tools, starts at EUR 600 a month, against $29 in the middle of online-store builders. Evolve, with B2B quotes and approvals, is EUR 2,400. |
| Free plan and trial | BThe open-source software is free with no sales-volume fee, but you host it yourself. Cloud has no free plan or trial. | BThe Community Edition has no platform licence fee and includes the page builder and order management. You host it yourself, and Rise has a 30-day free trial. |
| Features | CProducts, carts, orders, payments, regions, multi-warehouse stock and promotions as building blocks. A store takes engineering work to assemble. | BPage builder, B2B tools, an extensions marketplace, AI content tools, multi-language and SEO. Multi-location inventory sits on the custom Beyond plan. |
| Ease of use | DNo store rating on record. It is a developer framework, set up with code and a PostgreSQL database. | CNo store rating on record. Choosing hosting, partners and extensions is part of the work, and self-hosted stores need developers. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb, with an admin and a Cloud hosting service, an MCP server and a CLI. No phone or desktop app. | BWeb only, but with an extensions marketplace and integrations such as Nosto and Shopware Payments, and SaaS, PaaS or self-hosted options. |
| Best for | custom stores built in JavaScript | B2B and B2C stores run on open-source Shopware |
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: Medusa and Shopware. How we grade
Price against what you get
Medusa starts at $29 a month and scores 2.0 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Shopware starts at about $670.32 a month and scores 2.7.
Shopware scores higher, and starts $641.32 a month higher: the question is whether the extra is worth that to you. Of the other online store builders on the chart, 4 score higher than Medusa for less, and 4 score higher than Shopware 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
At a glance
| Medusa | Shopware | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $29 per month and up, billed monthly (Cloud Develop) | €600 per month, excl. VAT (Rise plan) |
| Free plan | The open-source software is free to self-host; the Cloud plans start at $29 a month. | Community Edition: no platform license fee, with a visual page builder, product and order management and community support. |
| Free trial | None listed | Rise plan: first 30 days free. |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Medusa | Shopware |
| Price read from | medusajs.com | shopware.com |
| Checked | Nov 12, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
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.
Shopware
- Plan prices are set by sales volume (GMV) and other factors; the listed euro prices are the starting point.
- Shopware Account and Store access needs a paid plan once linked shops pass €1 million in gross sales over 365 days.
- Self-hosted stores pay for hosting and implementation separately; PaaS pricing depends on infrastructure needs.
- Instant Rise booking in the account is for self-hosted stores only; SaaS and PaaS go through sales.
Key features
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.
Shopware
- Visual page builder
- Drag-and-drop Shopping Experiences let non-developers build and change store layouts. The page builder is included in the free Community Edition.
- Choice of hosting
- A store can run on Shopware SaaS (hosting and updates included), on Shopware PaaS with more room for custom code, or be self-hosted.
- B2B tools
- Quotes and purchasing approvals arrive with Evolve; customer-specific pricing from external systems and Digital Sales Rooms with Beyond.
- Extensions and Nexus
- Apps and plugins come from the Shopware Store. Nexus connects other systems and runs workflows, with a free monthly execution allowance per shop.
- AI tools
- Rise adds AI-assisted product content and translation. Shopware Intelligence+ includes a Copilot that carries out multi-step tasks in the store.
- Multi-language and SEO
- Storefronts can be offered in several languages, with built-in management of meta tags, canonical URLs, breadcrumbs and structured data.
Plans
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.
Shopware
Community Edition€0
Open-source core with source access. You choose hosting and implementation partners; community support only.
Rise€600
per month and up, excl. VAT
Adds AI-assisted content creation, product customization, returns management and direct Shopware support. First 30 days free.
Evolve€2,400
per month and up, excl. VAT
Adds B2B quotes and purchasing approvals, advanced product search, customer-group content and phone support.
BeyondCustom
Adds customer-specific pricing, multi-location inventory, Digital Sales Rooms and 24/7 priority support. Sold through sales.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Medusa or Shopware?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Medusa is cheaper to start with: $29 a month, against about $670.32 a month for Shopware. Medusa starts at $29 per month and up, billed monthly (Cloud Develop), and Shopware starts at €600 per month, excl. VAT (Rise plan).
Which has a free plan, Medusa or Shopware?
As of Nov 12, 2026, both Medusa and Shopware 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.