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E-commerce & Retail · head to head

commercetools vs Medusa

commercetools logo

commercetools

E-commerce & Retail

The Digital Commerce AI Company

From
On request
Rated
-
Medusa logo

Medusa

E-commerce & Retail

Open source Shopify alternative

From
Free
Rated
-

The short version

  • Only Medusa has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: commercetools no pricing plans or figures are published; the pricing page states specific pricing details require contacting sales and offers only a Talk to sales link; Medusa the managed cloud meters four separate resources: edge requests, emails, compute hours and database storage

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which commercetools and Medusa actually diverge.

Attributes where commercetools and Medusa differ
AttributecommercetoolsMedusa
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquotefreemium
Free tierNoYes
FoundedUnknown2020

Identical on both: platforms (Web), user rating (Not yet rated), category (E-commerce & Retail).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in commercetools

Nothing recorded that Medusa does not also cover.

Only in Medusa

  • Open source
  • Modular architecture
  • Multi-region support
  • Plugin system
  • Admin dashboard
  • Order management
  • Inventory tracking
  • Payment integrations

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

commercetools

No use cases recorded yet. See the commercetools review.

Medusa

  • Building a custom ecommerce backend on an open source headless platformnot commercetools
  • Running a self hosted or managed commerce API with a custom storefrontnot commercetools

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

commercetools

  • No pricing plans or figures are published; the pricing page states specific pricing details require contacting sales and offers only a Talk to sales link
  • Premium Support, Audit Log Premium, Advanced B2B APIs and additional regions are sold as separate paid add-ons rather than included in the base order-based price

Medusa

  • The managed cloud meters four separate resources: edge requests, emails, compute hours and database storage
  • The Develop plan at $29 a month applies a hard limit of 1,000 emails, so it stops rather than bills
  • Compute hours are capped at 600 on Develop and 800 on Launch
  • Edge request overage is $0.3 per million and storage $0.5 per GB month above the plan allowance
  • Background workers and priority support require the Scale plan at $299 a month

Pricing, plan by plan

commercetools

On request

No published plan breakdown. See the commercetools review.

Medusa

Free
  • Open SourceFree
    • Full source code
    • Self-hosted
    • Community support
  • Cloud$50/month
    • Managed hosting
    • Automatic updates
    • Priority support

Which should you pick?

Choose commercetools if

Nothing in the data separates commercetools from Medusa on the points above - pick on price and on how each one feels to use.

Choose Medusa if

  • You need open source.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want modular architecture.

Questions people ask

Is commercetools or Medusa better?
Neither clearly leads. commercetools starts at On request and Medusa at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, commercetools or Medusa?
Medusa has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for commercetools and Free for Medusa.
Does commercetools or Medusa run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
Can I use Medusa for free?
Yes. Medusa has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. commercetools starts at On request.
What can commercetools do that Medusa cannot?
Medusa covers Open source, Modular architecture, Multi-region support, Plugin system.

Related pages

Other head to heads