Medusa vs Saleor: Headless Commerce 2026

The two leading open source headless commerce platforms. Medusa is built on Node.js with a modular architecture and REST API. Saleor is built on Python/Django with a GraphQL-first design. Both replace Shopify for teams wanting full control over their commerce stack. Here's how they compare.

TL;DR

Choose Medusa for developer simplicity — JavaScript/TypeScript ecosystem, modular architecture, REST API, and faster initial setup. Choose Saleor for enterprise power — GraphQL-first API, multi-channel commerce, advanced warehouse management, and a more polished admin dashboard. For most new headless commerce projects, Medusa's larger community and Node.js ecosystem give it the edge.

Key Takeaways

Medusa uses TypeScript/Node.js with REST API; Saleor uses Python/Django with GraphQL
Both offer complete e-commerce functionality: products, carts, orders, payments, shipping, tax
Saleor's GraphQL API provides stronger typing and schema-driven development
Medusa's modular v2 architecture lets you install only the commerce features you need
Saleor has more mature multi-warehouse and multi-channel (B2B) capabilities
Medusa: 26K+ GitHub stars, MIT license; Saleor: 21K+ stars, BSD-3-Clause

The Comparison

Feature	Medusa	Saleor
Language	TypeScript/Node.js	Python/Django
API style	REST + JS SDK	GraphQL (primary)
Products	✅	✅
Variants	✅	✅
Categories/Collections	✅	✅
Cart & Checkout	✅	✅
Orders	✅	✅
Payments	✅ (Stripe, PayPal, etc.)	✅ (Stripe, PayPal, etc.)
Shipping	✅ (fulfillment providers)	✅
Tax calculation	✅	✅
Multi-currency	✅	✅
Multi-region	✅	✅ (multi-channel)
Multi-warehouse	✅ (basic)	✅ (advanced)
Inventory	✅	✅ (warehouse-level)
Discounts/Promotions	✅	✅ (vouchers, sales)
Gift cards	✅	✅
Customer accounts	✅	✅
Admin dashboard	✅	✅ (polished)
Plugins/Extensions	✅ (modules)	✅ (apps)
Subscriptions	Plugin	Plugin
Digital products	✅	✅
B2B commerce	Basic	✅ (better)
Webhooks	✅	✅
GitHub Stars	26K+	21K+
License	MIT	BSD-3-Clause

Architecture Deep Dive

Medusa: Modular and REST-First

Medusa v2 (the current major version) is built around a module system. The core is minimal, and you install modules for the features you need:

// medusa-config.ts
import { defineConfig } from '@medusajs/framework/utils';

export default defineConfig({
  modules: {
    payment: {
      resolve: "@medusajs/payment-stripe",
      options: { apiKey: process.env.STRIPE_API_KEY },
    },
    fulfillment: {
      resolve: "@medusajs/fulfillment-manual",
    },
    // Only include what you need
  },
});

This modularity is Medusa's primary advantage for teams building focused commerce applications. A DTC brand needs products, cart, checkout, payments, and shipping — Medusa gives you exactly that without the overhead of features you'll never use. The modular design also makes it easier to integrate Medusa with an existing tech stack: swap in a different payment provider, replace the fulfillment module, or add a custom module for business-specific logic.

The REST API covers all commerce operations with a predictable endpoint structure. Medusa also ships a JavaScript SDK that wraps the REST API with TypeScript types — this is the recommended client for Next.js and React storefronts:

import Medusa from "@medusajs/js-sdk";

const medusa = new Medusa({ baseUrl: "https://api.yourdomain.com" });

// All operations are type-safe
const { products } = await medusa.store.products.list({ limit: 20 });
const { cart } = await medusa.store.cart.create({ region_id: "reg_01" });

Medusa's admin dashboard is a React application that connects to the API. It handles products, orders, customers, promotions, and more. The dashboard is functional but less polished than Saleor's.

Saleor: GraphQL-First Enterprise Commerce

Saleor's architecture is built around a GraphQL API as the primary interface. Everything — storefront, admin dashboard, third-party integrations — goes through GraphQL. This means strong typing with code generation, predictable query shapes, and the ability to request exactly the fields you need:

# Get products with specific fields
query GetProducts {
  products(first: 20, channel: "default-channel") {
    edges {
      node {
        id
        name
        slug
        pricing {
          priceRange {
            start { gross { amount currency } }
          }
        }
        thumbnail { url alt }
        category { name }
      }
    }
  }
}

The GraphQL schema is the source of truth for Saleor's capabilities. TypeScript storefronts use generated types from the schema, eliminating an entire class of type mismatch bugs. Changes to the API are reflected in the schema — updates to your generated types catch breaking changes at compile time rather than runtime.

Saleor's multi-channel architecture is its most distinctive enterprise feature. A "channel" in Saleor is a commerce context — a storefront, a B2B portal, a specific market or region — with its own currency, pricing rules, shipping methods, and customer segment. A single Saleor instance can serve a consumer website in USD, a B2B portal in EUR with volume pricing, and an internal wholesale portal simultaneously, all from one admin and one database.

Performance Considerations

Medusa runs as a Node.js application. Performance characteristics are similar to any Express-based Node service: fast for I/O-bound operations, efficient for handling many concurrent requests. The modular design means you're not loading code paths you don't use. For storefronts with Next.js, the Medusa API handles tens of thousands of requests per day on modest hardware.

Saleor runs on Python/Django with a GraphQL server (graphene-django). Python is generally slower than Node.js for raw throughput, but Saleor compensates with aggressive caching and database query optimization. The Django ORM's select_related and prefetch_related are used extensively to minimize N+1 queries on complex GraphQL resolves. For large catalogs with complex pricing, Saleor's performance is production-tested at enterprise scale.

Saleor offers a Redis-backed caching layer and supports horizontal scaling via Kubernetes. Medusa also scales horizontally — the stateless application layer scales behind a load balancer, with Redis for session data and PostgreSQL for persistence.

Developer Experience

Medusa wins on time-to-first-deployment. Creating a Medusa app takes one command:

npx create-medusa-app@latest my-store

The development server starts immediately. The REST API is explorable via standard tools — curl, Postman, Bruno — without any query builder. For JavaScript developers, the mental model is familiar: Express-style handlers, standard Node.js patterns, and TypeScript types throughout.

Saleor requires more upfront setup. Django's configuration system, the GraphQL playground, and the Python virtual environment add initial friction for developers who don't already know the Django ecosystem. However, once set up, Saleor's GraphQL playground makes API exploration excellent — autocomplete, documentation, and query validation are built into the interface.

Community and Ecosystem

Medusa has grown faster recently, with 26K+ GitHub stars and a large plugin ecosystem. The community is active on Discord, and the official documentation covers the modular v2 architecture thoroughly. Third-party storefronts, payment integrations, and deployment guides are widely available.

Saleor has 21K+ GitHub stars and a more established enterprise community. Saleor Commerce (the company) provides Saleor Cloud as a managed hosting option, which gives the project sustainable funding and enterprise support contracts. The GraphQL-first approach has attracted developers who prefer schema-driven development.

For comparison, see Shopify alternatives for self-hosted commerce and the how to migrate from Shopify to Medusa guide.

Hosting and Infrastructure

Both platforms require PostgreSQL as the primary database and support containerized deployment with Docker or Docker Compose. Redis is optional in Medusa v2 (used for caching and worker queues) and recommended in Saleor (caching, Celery task queue).

Medusa hosting:

# Minimal production docker-compose.yml
services:
  backend:
    image: node:20
    command: npm start
    environment:
      DATABASE_URL: postgresql://...
      REDIS_URL: redis://...
  db:
    image: postgres:15
  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine

Saleor hosting:

services:
  api:
    image: ghcr.io/saleor/saleor:latest
    environment:
      DATABASE_URL: postgresql://...
      REDIS_URL: redis://...
      CELERY_BROKER_URL: redis://...
  worker:
    image: ghcr.io/saleor/saleor:latest
    command: celery -A saleor worker
  db:
    image: postgres:15
  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine

Saleor requires a Celery worker for background processing (email, webhooks, async tasks). Medusa v2 can run without a separate worker for basic use cases, adding one for more demanding async operations.

When to Choose Medusa

Your team uses JavaScript/TypeScript and prefers the Node.js ecosystem
REST API is preferred or your stack doesn't support GraphQL clients natively
You're building a focused DTC brand, marketplace, or subscription box storefront
Faster initial setup and simpler local development matter more than long-term feature depth
Modular architecture lets you pick exactly the commerce features you need
MIT license is preferred over BSD-3-Clause for internal or commercial projects

When to Choose Saleor

GraphQL-first API design is a priority — you want schema-driven development with code generation
Enterprise features: multi-warehouse inventory, multi-channel commerce, advanced B2B pricing
Your team knows Python/Django and prefers the backend ecosystem
Polished admin dashboard out of the box reduces internal tooling investment
Complex inventory management across multiple geographic warehouses
Strong typing via GraphQL schema catches bugs at compile time rather than runtime

Storefront Development

Both Medusa and Saleor ship official storefront starter templates to reduce the front-end scaffolding needed to launch a headless commerce store.

Medusa Storefront: The official Next.js Starter is the most commonly used starting point. It implements the Medusa JS SDK and handles product listing, product detail pages, cart, checkout, and order management. Tailwind CSS is the default styling layer — the template is designed to be forked and customized rather than used as a component library. The Medusa Storefront Starter covers ~80% of typical DTC storefront requirements; expect 1–3 weeks of front-end work to apply brand identity, handle edge cases in checkout, and customize the product browsing experience.

Saleor Storefront: Saleor provides a Next.js Storefront template built around the generated GraphQL client. It uses React Server Components and takes advantage of Saleor's schema-driven type safety throughout the checkout flow. Because Saleor's API is GraphQL-first, the storefront template benefits from static typing across every API call — GraphQL code generation catches type mismatches at compile time rather than runtime.

Both starters are reasonably production-ready for DTC storefronts after customization. For B2B or multi-channel storefronts, more significant customization is required in both cases, though Saleor's multi-channel architecture means more of that complexity is handled server-side rather than in the storefront layer.

Payment Integration

Stripe is the dominant payment processor for both platforms, but neither Medusa nor Saleor requires it. Both support PayPal, Klarna, Adyen, and Braintree through official or community integrations.

Medusa's payment module architecture makes alternative processor integration straightforward. The module interface is well-documented, and the community has built integrations for most major processors. If you want to reduce Stripe dependency — whether for regulatory reasons, processing fee optimization, or regional payment method requirements — Medusa's modular system makes this a manageable project without touching core application logic.

Saleor's payment integration flows through the GraphQL API and the official Saleor Apps framework. The app model provides a clean integration surface but requires slightly more configuration work for custom processors outside the official list. For European merchants, Saleor's more mature multi-channel support pairs well with region-specific payment methods (SEPA, iDEAL, Sofort) through the Adyen integration.

For a broader evaluation of payment infrastructure options alongside both platforms, see the open source billing and subscription alternatives guide — which covers both processor alternatives and self-hosted billing infrastructure for subscription commerce.

Cost Comparison (Self-Hosted)

Both platforms are free to self-host. Operational costs depend on your scale:

Scale	Medusa VPS	Saleor VPS
Small ($10K/month revenue)	$20-30/month	$30-40/month
Medium ($100K/month)	$50-80/month	$60-100/month
Large ($1M/month)	$200-400/month	$300-500/month

Saleor's higher resource usage (Python vs Node.js) typically requires slightly larger servers. Both platforms support horizontal scaling beyond these single-VPS estimates.

The Bottom Line

Medusa is the developer's choice for new commerce projects — modular, JavaScript-native, REST-first, and easier to get started. Its growing ecosystem and MIT license make it the default recommendation for most teams moving away from Shopify.

Saleor is the enterprise choice when you need GraphQL, multi-warehouse inventory, multi-channel B2B commerce, or a team that's already invested in Python/Django. The GraphQL API's type safety advantages become significant at the scale where schema-driven code generation saves development time.

For most new open source headless commerce projects in 2026, Medusa's momentum, larger community, and simpler developer experience give it the edge. For complex enterprise commerce — especially B2B with advanced inventory — Saleor's depth makes it worth the steeper onboarding investment.

Compare e-commerce platforms on OSSAlt — features, API design, and community health side by side.

See open source alternatives to Shopify on OSSAlt.

The SaaS-to-Self-Hosted Migration Guide (Free PDF)