Shopify vs Medusa, two philosophies rather than two tools
Comparing Shopify and Medusa as if they were direct competitors is a little like comparing renting a furnished apartment with buying land to build your own house. Both give you somewhere to live, yet the long-term consequences of each choice are entirely different.
Shopify is a SaaS platform. You pay a subscription, hosting is included, the interface is ready to use, and you customise within the framework Shopify provides. Medusa, on the other hand, is an open-source headless commerce framework written in Node.js and TypeScript. Nothing is hosted for you and nothing is visually ready out of the box, but nothing limits you either.
The real cost of each platform
Cost is often what tips the decision, and it is also the point on which online comparisons tend to be the least candid.
Shopify, a subscription with variable costs on top
In 2026, Shopify offers four main plans.
- Basic at $39 per month, to get started
- Grow at $105 per month, for growing stores
- Advanced at $399 per month, for advanced reporting and international selling
- Plus from around $2,300 to $2,500 per month, with a variable fee model above $1 million in monthly sales volume
Transaction fees are added if you do not use Shopify Payments as your payment provider, as is the cost of third-party apps once your needs go beyond the core features. A store with a reasonable sales volume therefore often ends up paying a good deal more than the price shown on the pricing page.
Medusa, where the cost moves elsewhere
Medusa itself costs nothing. It is free, open-source software with no licence fee and no commission on your sales. Free software still has costs, however, and with Medusa you pay for the following.
- The initial development, since the store has to be built rather than configured from a list of options
- Hosting, which generally runs from a few dollars to a few tens of dollars per month depending on traffic, far below Shopify's subscriptions
- Ongoing technical maintenance, handled either in-house or by an external provider
Over several years and with substantial sales volume, Medusa often becomes the more economical option. Over the first few months the reverse is true, and Shopify is almost always cheaper to start with.
Time to launch, where Shopify has a clear lead
Speed is the area in which Shopify is hardest to match. A working store can be online within a few days, with a theme, a product catalogue and a payment system already in place. You do not need a developer to get started, although deeper customisation will call for one fairly soon.
Medusa requires a genuine development project. An official Next.js starter speeds things up, but a store that is truly functional and stable takes weeks to build rather than days.
Customisation and code ownership
On this point the two platforms are exact opposites.
What Shopify lets you do
Shopify remains, by design, a closed platform. You customise it through themes, apps from the App Store, and its API if you go headless with Hydrogen. The core of the system, including the database and the business logic, nevertheless belongs to Shopify, and if you decide to leave one day you start again from scratch on another platform.
What Medusa gives you
With Medusa, the code is yours. Each module (cart, orders, payments, promotions) can be modified, extended or replaced without asking anyone's permission. You choose your frontend (most often Next.js), your hosting and your payment integrations. This is the architecture we recommend to clients with complex B2B requirements or specific pricing rules, and to those who simply want to avoid ever being held back by the limits of an app store.
Maintenance and technical workload
Shopify takes care of infrastructure, security, updates and PCI DSS compliance for you. All of this is included in the subscription, which is a real argument for a business without in-house technical staff.
Medusa, by contrast, needs active maintenance, from updates and hosting monitoring to managing the PostgreSQL database and Redis. None of this is insurmountable, but it does take time, even when it costs no money.
When to choose Shopify
- You want to start selling quickly, without dedicated technical staff
- Your model stays close to classic e-commerce, with no highly specific business requirements
- You would rather pay to avoid managing infrastructure
When to choose Medusa
- Your business requirements go beyond the standard framework (B2B, marketplace, complex pricing)
- Owning your code and your data matters to you as a real concern
- You are aiming for a sales volume at which Shopify's fees would become costly over time
- You want a site designed for performance and SEO from the outset, without the extra layer of a generic theme
This is typically the kind of project we work on at Nualt. We build on Next.js with Payload or Medusa depending on the project, deliver proprietary code in a repository that belongs to you, and set up hosting whose cost and workings you understand. We have nothing against Shopify as such. For some projects, however, dependence on a platform ends up costing more than the freedom to leave it.
What if your store stays small? The case for Payload CMS
Medusa is not the only alternative to Shopify, and it is not always the right one. If your catalogue stays simple, with no B2B logic, no marketplace and no complex promotion rules, deploying a full commerce engine means paying for an architecture of which you will leave 80% unused.
Payload CMS, which we already use as an open-source CMS in many of our projects, offers an official e-commerce plugin. It natively handles the following.
- Products and their variants
- The cart
- Orders and transactions
- Payment through Stripe
Shipping, taxes and subscriptions are not handled natively and have to be implemented separately.
For a small catalogue, this is often the right balance, since your code belongs to you just as it would with Medusa, without the weight of a commerce engine designed for needs you do not have. It is typically the option we suggest at Nualt for this kind of project, a Next.js site with Payload, rather than imposing an oversized architecture out of habit.
Shopify vs Medusa, your questions
The questions we are asked most often when a client is weighing a SaaS solution such as Shopify against a headless architecture such as Medusa.
Is Medusa really free?
The software is, under the MIT licence, with no licence fee and no commission on sales. What is not free is the initial development and the hosting, although over time these generally remain lighter than a Shopify subscription.
Is Shopify easier than Medusa to get started with?
Yes, clearly. Shopify lets you launch a store within a few days without a developer. Medusa requires a genuine development project, generally several weeks, even with the official Next.js starter.
Can you migrate from Shopify to Medusa?
Yes, and it is a common scenario. The migration involves rebuilding the frontend and transferring the product catalogue, orders and customers to the new architecture. It is a project in its own right and takes far longer than a quick export and import.
Is Medusa suitable for a small store?
Not necessarily. For a simple catalogue, with no B2B needs and no advanced promotion logic, the effort of setting up Medusa is often disproportionate. An alternative is to build the site on Next.js with the Payload CMS e-commerce plugin, which natively covers products, cart, orders and Stripe payments.
Can Payload CMS replace Medusa for e-commerce?
For simple use cases, yes, thanks to its official plugin covering products, cart, orders and Stripe payments. Medusa remains more complete as soon as requirements become advanced, such as B2B, marketplaces, complex promotion rules, or fine-grained management of shipping and taxes. The choice depends on how complex your catalogue really is.
