SHSelfHostIndex

Catalyst Storefront vs Reaction Commerce

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted e-commerce platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
CA Catalyst Storefront Composable storefront starter for BigCommerce-style backends VS RE Reaction Commerce Headless GraphQL commerce microservices platform
FeatureCatalyst StorefrontReaction Commerce
CategoryE-commerce PlatformsE-commerce Platforms
LicenseMITApache-2.0
LanguageTypeScriptJavaScript
Setup difficultyMediumHard
Min. RAM512 MB2,048 MB
Deploymentdocker, sourcedocker, kubernetes, source
GitHub stars★ 243★ 12,400
First released20242013
ReplacesShopify Hydrogen, Vue StorefrontShopify, commercetools

Why pick each one

Choose Catalyst Storefront if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Written in TypeScript
  • Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
Catalyst Storefront details

Choose Reaction Commerce if…

  • Cloud-native design
  • Highly scalable
Reaction Commerce details

Frequently asked questions

Is Catalyst Storefront or Reaction Commerce better?

Neither is universally better. Reaction Commerce has the larger community, while Catalyst Storefront is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Catalyst Storefront and Reaction Commerce free and open-source?

Yes. Catalyst Storefront is licensed under MIT and Reaction Commerce under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Catalyst Storefront and Reaction Commerce with Docker?

Catalyst Storefront: yes. Reaction Commerce: yes.

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