35,982 stars · MIT (read from /blob/develop/LICENSE, unmodified, 'Copyright (c) 2021 Medusajs') plus a separate ENTERPRISE-LICENSE.md in the repository — open core · v2.21.2 (28 Sep 2026, read from /releases/latest; npm create-medusa-app 2.21.2 confirms the version) · Track this in Scout
The order and payment machinery of an online shop, with the customer-facing pages left to you.
▶Repo detailsthe review · specs · pros & cons · install
What it is
A commerce platform written in TypeScript that exposes everything through an API, which means other programs talk to it over the web rather than it drawing pages itself. It ships an administration interface for staff and leaves the storefront as a separate project you choose.
What it is good for. Anyone selling something whose rules do not fit a hosted shop service: unusual pricing, several currencies, a subscription, a marketplace, or a sales process with its own steps. It suits a team that already builds web front ends and wants the commerce rules to be code they can read.
- Plain MIT licence, read from the LICENSE file, "Copyright (c) 2021 Medusajs".
- One command starts a working project, which is unusual for something this large.
- A real release schedule. Version v2.21.2 is dated 28 September 2026, four days before this edition.
- There is an enterprise licence file beside the MIT one. The repository carries
ENTERPRISE-LICENSE.md, so some part of what the company publishes needs a commercial agreement. The MIT core is genuinely MIT; read the second file before assuming everything is. - No storefront is included. Budget for designing and building the pages customers actually see, or for buying a ready-made one.
- One figure disagrees with itself and we are printing it rather than choosing. The GitHub page showed 36,500 stars while the mirror we use for exact counts gives 35,982. We have used the exact figure, following the same decision made for pikepdf in Edition 35.
- saleor/saleor
23,223 stars, the same API-first idea in Python with GraphQL, more mature in some areas and a heavier thing to run.
Track this in Scout - vendurehq/vendure
8,332 stars and the closest match in shape and language, and it has been renamed from vendure-ecommerce/vendure.
Track this in Scout - spree/spree
15,686 stars and the oldest of the four, built in Ruby on Rails, which is the better fit if that is the language your team already knows.
Track this in Scout
npx create-medusa-app@latest my-shop
