Is Katana or Saleor better?

Neither clearly leads. Katana starts at $99/month and Saleor at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Katana or Saleor?

Saleor has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $99/month for Katana and Free for Saleor.

Does Katana or Saleor run on more platforms?

Katana runs on Web. Saleor runs on web, api.

Can I use Saleor for free?

Yes. Saleor has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Katana starts at $99/month.

What is Katana best used for?

Katana is most often used for production scheduling, material planning, work order management, inventory optimization. Of those, production scheduling and material planning are not what Saleor is typically brought in for.

What can Katana do that Saleor cannot?

Katana covers Production planning, Real-time inventory, BOM management, Shop floor control. Saleor covers GraphQL API, Admin dashboard, Webhooks and apps, Omnichannel order processing.

Inventory Management · head to head

Katana vs Saleor

Katana

Inventory Management

Smart manufacturing ERP for scaling businesses

From: $99/month
Rated: -

Full review Website

Saleor

E-commerce

Open-source, headless e-commerce platform with a GraphQL API

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Only Saleor has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
Each has a real cost: Katana limited BOM explosion and lead-time offset planning requiring manual work that should be automated; Saleor saleor requires development resources to build a storefront, since it ships as an API-only backend without a front-end store out of the box.
They diverge on capability: Katana covers Production planning, Saleor covers GraphQL API.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Katana and Saleor actually diverge.

Attributes where Katana and Saleor differ
Attribute	Katana	Saleor
Starting price	$99/month	Free
Pricing model	Unknown	open-source
Free tier	No	Yes
Platforms	Web	web, api
Category	Inventory Management	E-commerce
Founded	2015	2019

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

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 Katana

Production planning
Real-time inventory
BOM management
Shop floor control
Shopify
WooCommerce
QuickBooks
Xero

Only in Saleor

GraphQL API
Admin dashboard
Webhooks and apps
Omnichannel order processing
Configurator CLI
OpenTelemetry tracing
OpenID Connect support

What people use each for

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

Katana

Production schedulingnot Saleor
Material planningnot Saleor
Work order managementnot Saleor
Inventory optimizationnot Saleor

Saleor

Custom headless storefrontsnot Katana
Composable commerce architecturesnot Katana
Omnichannel retail and B2B commercenot Katana
Developer-built e-commerce requiring deep API accessnot Katana

Where each one falls short

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

Katana

Limited BOM explosion and lead-time offset planning requiring manual work that should be automated
No native invoicing capability, making it standalone without accounting system integration
Limited native integrations, with heavy reliance on Zapier for non-core tools
Slow performance with large datasets and high SKU counts

Saleor

Saleor requires development resources to build a storefront, since it ships as an API-only backend without a front-end store out of the box.
Self-hosting requires managing infrastructure, scaling, and updates, which adds operational overhead compared to fully managed platforms.
Saleor Cloud's paid tiers start at $1,599/month, making the managed offering costly for small merchants compared to typical SaaS store builders.
The GraphQL-first, code-driven approach has a steeper learning curve for non-technical users than drag-and-drop e-commerce builders.

Pricing, plan by plan

Katana

$99/month

Essential$99/month
- Core inventory management
- Production scheduling
- Stock tracking
Pro$299/month
- Shop floor control
- API access
- Advanced reporting

Saleor

Free

Sandboxes (Cloud)Free
- Free forever tier for prototyping and development
Select (Cloud)$1599/month
- Up to $200,000 GMV monthly
- 0.8% fee on orders exceeding GMV limit
- Dedicated Slack channel
Volume (Cloud)$3999/month
- Up to $1,000,000 GMV monthly
- 0.4% fee on orders exceeding GMV limit
- Dedicated Slack channel
Enterprise (Cloud)$undefined/mo
- Custom GMV limits
- Fees negotiable as low as 0.2%
- Project delivery lead

Which should you pick?

Choose Katana if

You need production planning.
You also want real-time inventory.

Katana review

Choose Saleor if

You need graphql api.
You want to start without paying.
You work on web, api.
You also want admin dashboard.

Saleor review

Questions people ask

Is Katana or Saleor better?: Neither clearly leads. Katana starts at $99/month and Saleor at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Katana or Saleor?: Saleor has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $99/month for Katana and Free for Saleor.
Does Katana or Saleor run on more platforms?: Katana runs on Web. Saleor runs on web, api.
Can I use Saleor for free?: Yes. Saleor has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Katana starts at $99/month.
What is Katana best used for?: Katana is most often used for production scheduling, material planning, work order management, inventory optimization. Of those, production scheduling and material planning are not what Saleor is typically brought in for.
What can Katana do that Saleor cannot?: Katana covers Production planning, Real-time inventory, BOM management, Shop floor control. Saleor covers GraphQL API, Admin dashboard, Webhooks and apps, Omnichannel order processing.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Katana: What is Katana's pricing structure?

Katana starts at $99/month for the Essential plan with core MRP features. The Pro plan costs $299/month and adds shop floor control and API access. Add-ons for traceability, manufacturing, and warehouse management cost extra and can reach $747-$1,095 total.

Source

Saleor: Is Saleor free to use?

Yes. Saleor is open source under the BSD-3-Clause license and can be self-hosted for free. Saleor Cloud also offers a free Sandboxes tier for prototyping and development.

Source

Katana: Does Katana support multi-level bills of materials?

Katana has limited BOM explosion and lead-time offset planning capabilities. Complex multi-level BOMs with sub-assemblies require manual workarounds, which becomes increasingly problematic as SKU count grows.

Source

Saleor: How much does Saleor Cloud cost?

Saleor Cloud paid plans start at $1,599/month for the Select plan (up to $200,000 monthly GMV), with Volume at $3,999/month and custom Enterprise pricing for larger merchants.

Source

Katana: Can Katana integrate with my accounting software?

Katana has no native invoicing capability and limited integrations with accounting systems. It is essentially standalone and requires manual data export or Zapier integration for most accounting workflows.

Source

Saleor: Does Saleor provide a storefront out of the box?

No. Saleor is an API-only, headless commerce backend built on GraphQL; storefronts must be built separately using the API and are not bundled with the platform.

Source

Katana: Does Katana have an offline mode?

No, Katana is a cloud-only solution requiring internet connectivity. There is no built-in offline mode for production floor access without internet.

Source

Katana vs Saleor

Katana

Saleor

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Katana

Only in Saleor

What people use each for

Katana

Saleor

Where each one falls short

Katana

Saleor

Pricing, plan by plan

Katana

Saleor

Which should you pick?

Choose Katana if

Choose Saleor if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Katana

More on Saleor

Keep looking

Other head to heads