Medusa
Medusa is an open-source, MIT-licensed commerce engine for building fully custom storefronts and checkouts — an alternative to Shopify Plus with no platform or revenue-based fees. It is headless: the commerce backend is separate from the storefront, so B2B pricing, subscriptions, marketplaces, and unusual catalogs can be built in code rather than worked around.
- Replaces:
- Shopify Plus
- Open source:
- MIT (excluding Enterprise Edition materials)
Medusa in plain terms
Medusa provides the commerce building blocks — products, carts, orders, payments, fulfillment, regions, and an admin dashboard — as modules and workflows you can extend or replace. Its repository is MIT-licensed, excluding marked Enterprise Edition materials. The storefront is a separate application, typically built with Next.js.
A good fit when…
- Brands whose commerce logic doesn’t fit a standard platform: B2B pricing, bundles, subscriptions, marketplaces
- Businesses where revenue-linked platform fees have become a significant cost
- Teams that want full control of checkout, data, and integrations
- Companies with ongoing development capacity, in-house or through a partner
Choose something else when…
- Direct-to-consumer brands with standard needs that want to launch quickly — Shopify is usually the better choice
- Teams with no development resources to build and maintain a custom storefront
- Stores that depend on a large ecosystem of plug-and-play apps
What running it involves
- PostgreSQL database
- Redis (sessions, caching, events, and workflow engine in production)
- Two Medusa instances: a server (API and admin dashboard) and a worker (background jobs and subscribers)
- At least 2 GB of RAM, per Medusa’s deployment guide
- A separately deployed storefront, commonly Next.js
Database migrations run before each deploy, and the server and worker are deployed from the same codebase with different modes.
If you’d rather not self-host
Medusa Cloud lists plans from $29, $99, and $299 per month with a 0% GMV fee, as of September 2026. You still own the code and can export to your own infrastructure at any time.
Requirements and prices are from the project’s own docs and pricing pages as of September 2026 — see sources below.
Deploying and customizing Medusa
Custom storefront
A fast, SEO-ready storefront designed around your brand and Core Web Vitals.
Checkout logic
Bundles, subscriptions, tiered and customer-specific pricing implemented as Medusa modules and workflows.
B2B features
Company accounts, negotiated pricing, quotes, and wholesale portals alongside retail.
Payments and fulfillment
Stripe and other providers, plus shipping and 3PL integrations.
Back-office sync
Inventory, ERP, accounting, and CRM connected so orders flow without re-entry.
SEO-safe migration
Products, customers, and orders migrated with every old URL redirected to protect rankings.
Migrating to Medusa
Products, variants, customers, and order history export from Shopify and import into Medusa. The work is rebuilding the storefront and replacing what Shopify apps were doing — reviews, subscriptions, search — with plugins or custom modules, and mapping every URL to a permanent redirect so search rankings carry over.
Medusa vs Shopify Plus
Medusa vs Shopify Plus compared on cost, platform fees, customization, and speed to launch — with list prices and an honest verdict.
Custom Inventory & Order Management Software
Custom inventory and order management software for multi-location stock, purchasing, fulfillment, and reorder rules that fit how you operate.
Medusa — common questions
Is Medusa free?+
What does self-hosting Medusa require?+
Is Medusa better than Shopify?+
Does Medusa support B2B?+
Sources
Beyond Shopify: When E-commerce Brands Need Custom Development
When to move beyond Shopify or WooCommerce to custom and headless commerce — the signs, the options (Medusa, Saleor), and what you gain by owning your storefront.
Headless CMS vs WordPress: Which Should You Choose?
Headless CMS vs traditional WordPress — how they differ on performance, security, flexibility, and SEO, and which fits your project in 2026.
Integrating Stripe Into a Custom App: A Practical Guide
How to add Stripe payments to a custom application the right way — one-time payments vs subscriptions, webhooks, and the pitfalls that break billing.
Thinking about Medusa?
Tell us what you use today and what you need. We'll tell you honestly whether Medusa fits, and scope it if it does.