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E-Commerce · head to head

Magento vs Medusa

Magento logo

Magento

E-Commerce

Open core commerce platform, free as Magento Open Source and licensed by revenue as Adobe Commerce

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Medusa logo

Medusa

E-Commerce

Open source Shopify alternative

From
$29/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Magento has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Magento it is open core rather than open source, so B2B, customer segmentation, content staging and the Adobe analytics and recommendation services sit behind the Adobe Commerce licence, and discovering that mid-project converts a free platform into a revenue-banded contract.; Medusa the managed cloud meters four separate resources: edge requests, emails, compute hours and database storage
  • They diverge on capability: Magento covers Two editions, Medusa covers Open source.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Magento and Medusa actually diverge.

Attributes where Magento and Medusa differ
AttributeMagentoMedusa
Starting priceFree$29/month
Pricing modelopen-sourcesubscription
Free tierYesNo
Founded20082020

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

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 Magento

  • Two editions
  • Complex catalogue handling
  • Multi-store and multi-website
  • Native B2B in the paid edition
  • Multi-currency and multi-region
  • Composer module system
  • GraphQL and REST APIs
  • Hyva and Mage-OS ecosystem

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.

Magento

  • A retailer with tens of thousands of SKUs and attribute-heavy catalogue logic that SaaS platforms restrictnot Medusa
  • A multi-brand or multi-region group needing separate websites, currencies and tax treatment from one back officenot Medusa
  • A B2B seller needing company accounts, negotiated pricing and quoting inside the storefrontnot Medusa
  • An enterprise with an in-house or retained development team that treats commerce as owned softwarenot Medusa

Medusa

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

Where each one falls short

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

Magento

  • It is open core rather than open source, so B2B, customer segmentation, content staging and the Adobe analytics and recommendation services sit behind the Adobe Commerce licence, and discovering that mid-project converts a free platform into a revenue-banded contract.
  • The Adobe Commerce licence is priced on bands of gross merchandise value, so the platform bill increases as the store succeeds and is largely unrelated to the infrastructure or support you consume.
  • A production installation needs a search engine, a cache, a reverse proxy, a message queue and a database tuned together, so hosting is a DevOps engagement rather than a plan, and the first serious traffic event is where under-sizing becomes visible.
  • Minor version upgrades regularly break third party modules, so staying current means a regression testing and remediation project several times a year, and merchants who skip upgrades to avoid that end up running software with unpatched vulnerabilities.
  • The specialist developer market is small and expensive relative to other platforms, so an agency retainer becomes a permanent operating cost and losing that agency is a genuine business continuity problem rather than a procurement inconvenience.

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

Magento

Free
  • Magento Open SourceFree
    • Unlimited products
    • Multiple storefronts
    • Advanced marketing
  • Adobe Commerce$20000/year
    • All Open Source features
    • 24/7 enterprise support
    • Managed cloud hosting

Medusa

$29/month
  • Develop$29/month
    • Base cloud hosting
    • Commerce features included
    • No GMV-tax
  • Launch$99/month
    • Enhanced features
    • No GMV-tax
  • Scale$299/month
    • Advanced features
    • No GMV-tax
  • Enterprise$null/custom
    • Custom configuration

Which should you pick?

Choose Magento if

  • You need two editions.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want complex catalogue handling.
Magento review

Choose Medusa if

  • You need open source.
  • You also want modular architecture.
Medusa review

Questions people ask

Is Magento or Medusa better?
Neither clearly leads. Magento starts at Free and Medusa at $29/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Magento or Medusa?
Magento has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Magento and $29/month for Medusa.
Does Magento or Medusa run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
Can I use Magento for free?
Yes. Magento has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Medusa starts at $29/month.
What is Magento best used for?
Magento is most often used for a retailer with tens of thousands of skus and attribute-heavy catalogue logic that saas platforms restrict, a multi-brand or multi-region group needing separate websites, currencies and tax treatment from one back office, a b2b seller needing company accounts, negotiated pricing and quoting inside the storefront, an enterprise with an in-house or retained development team that treats commerce as owned software. Of those, a retailer with tens of thousands of skus and attribute-heavy catalogue logic that saas platforms restrict and a multi-brand or multi-region group needing separate websites, currencies and tax treatment from one back office are not what Medusa is typically brought in for.
What can Magento do that Medusa cannot?
Magento covers Two editions, Complex catalogue handling, Multi-store and multi-website, Native B2B in the paid edition. Medusa covers Open source, Modular architecture, Multi-region support, Plugin system.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Magento: Is Magento free?

Magento Open Source is. Adobe Commerce is not, and it holds back B2B, segmentation, content staging and the Adobe analytics and recommendation layer. Establish which edition a requirement needs before you commit.

Medusa: What does Medusa charge for additional team members?

Additional seats on the Medusa Cloud development platform cost $30 per seat per month. Unlimited users can access the Medusa Admin Dashboard at no additional cost for commerce operations.

Source
Magento: How is Adobe Commerce priced?

On bands of gross merchandise value, so the licence grows with revenue rather than with usage. Model it against your three year forecast, not this year's turnover.

Medusa: Are there usage-based charges beyond the base Medusa plan price?

Yes. Beyond base plan costs, Medusa charges for edge request overages at $0.30 per 1M requests, email overages at $0.70 per 1,000 emails, data transfer at $0.125 per GB, and database storage at $0.50 per GB-month.

Source
Magento: What does it really cost to run?

Licence if applicable, plus tuned infrastructure, plus a specialist agency or in-house team. For most deployments the people and hosting exceed the licence.

Medusa: Can I cancel my Medusa subscription at any time?

Yes, users can cancel their Medusa subscription anytime. Plans are billed monthly in advance, with flex usage charges from the previous month added to the next invoice.

Source
Magento: Why do agencies keep mentioning Hyva?

The stock front end stack is slow to develop against, so Hyva, a commercially licensed replacement front end, has become a common default. It is another licence to budget for.

Magento: What happened with Magento 1?

It reached end of life and left merchants on unsupported, unpatched software facing a full replatform. It is the reference point for how long to assume support for any edition you adopt.

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