LiteCart vs Medusa
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?
LiteCart
Lightweight free shopping cart built with PHP
VS
Medusa
Composable commerce engine for developers
| Feature | LiteCart | Medusa |
|---|---|---|
| Category | E-commerce Platforms | E-commerce Platforms |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | PHP | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, source | docker, bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 236 | ★ 35,640 |
| First released | 2013 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Shopify, Ecwid | Shopify, commercetools |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is LiteCart or Medusa better?
Neither is universally better. Medusa has the larger community, while LiteCart is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are LiteCart and Medusa free and open-source?
Yes. LiteCart is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Medusa under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run LiteCart and Medusa with Docker?
LiteCart: check the project docs for container support. Medusa: yes.