Medusa vs WooCommerce
Medusa and WooCommerce are both E-commerce tools. Medusa is aimed at developers, while WooCommerce is aimed at small businesses and agencies. Both have a free plan.
Medusa
Open-source, headless commerce framework
WooCommerce
Open-source commerce for WordPress
| Pricing | Open source · $29 | Open source |
| Starting price | $29/mo | Not published |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Built for | Developers | Small businesses, Agencies |
| Platforms | web | web |
| Country | DK · 2021 | US · 2011 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose Medusa if
Developer teams building custom commerce.
- Open source
- Highly customizable
- Modern stack
Look elsewhere if: Non-technical merchants.
Choose WooCommerce if
Merchants with WordPress skills who want ownership and flexibility.
- Free and open source
- Unlimited customization
- Strong content and SEO with WordPress
Look elsewhere if: Non-technical merchants wanting a hosted, maintenance-free store (Shopify, ikas).
Medusa vs WooCommerce pricing
Medusa
- Open source$0MIT-licensed framework, self-hosted
- Developfrom $29/moMedusa Cloud; 1M edge requests, previews, 0% GMV fee
- Launchfrom $99/moAutoscaling, custom domains, 7-day backups
- Scalefrom $299/moBackground workers, priority support, semantic search
- EnterpriseCustomSLA, SSO, RBAC, BYOC, dedicated support engineer
WooCommerce
- WooCommerce plugin$0Free, open source, 0% revenue share
- Hosting$25–350/moThird-party host, typical store range
- Extensions$29–299/year eachOptional, bought à la carte
Medusa · Key features
- Modular commerce engine
- Multi-region and currency
- Admin dashboard
- Plugins
- Headless APIs
- Next.js starter
Cons
- Developer-required
- Hosting responsibility
- Smaller ecosystem than Shopify
WooCommerce · Key features
- Products, variations, inventory and orders
- Payments via Stripe, PayPal and local gateways
- Shipping zones, taxes and coupons
- Thousands of extensions and themes
- Block-based checkout and product editor
- Full ownership on WordPress
Cons
- You manage hosting, updates and security
- Extension costs add up
- Performance needs tuning at scale
Medusa vs WooCommerce: FAQ
Do Medusa and WooCommerce have a free plan?
Yes, both Medusa and WooCommerce have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.
Which is better for small businesses, Medusa or WooCommerce?
WooCommerce lists small businesses as a core audience, while Medusa is aimed more at developers.