LiteCart 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?
LiteCart
Lightweight free shopping cart built with PHP
VS
Reaction Commerce
Headless GraphQL commerce microservices platform
| Feature | LiteCart | Reaction Commerce |
|---|---|---|
| Category | E-commerce Platforms | E-commerce Platforms |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | PHP | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 2,048 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, source | docker, kubernetes, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 236 | ★ 12,400 |
| First released | 2013 | 2013 |
| Replaces | Shopify, Ecwid | Shopify, commercetools |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is LiteCart or Reaction Commerce better?
Neither is universally better. Reaction Commerce 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 Reaction Commerce free and open-source?
Yes. LiteCart is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Reaction Commerce under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run LiteCart and Reaction Commerce with Docker?
LiteCart: check the project docs for container support. Reaction Commerce: yes.