Smartstore vs thirty bees
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted e-commerce platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Smartstore | thirty bees |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 83 · Excellent | 85 · Excellent |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known in 6.4.0 | None known in 1.7.0 |
| Category | E-commerce Platforms | E-commerce Platforms |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | OSL-3.0 |
| Language | C# | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | bare-metal, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,731 | ★ 769 |
| First released | 2010 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Shopify, Magento | Shopify |
What are Smartstore and thirty bees?
Smartstore
Smartstore is a free, open-source e-commerce platform built on ASP.NET Core. It provides a modern responsive storefront, modular plugin system, and a powerful admin for managing stores.
- Modern ASP.NET Core stack
- Modular architecture
- Responsive Bootstrap theme
- Built-in CMS pages
thirty bees
thirty bees is an open-source e-commerce platform forked from PrestaShop with a focus on stability, performance, and merchant-friendly features. It runs traditional online stores and is compatible with many PrestaShop modules.
- PrestaShop module compatibility
- Stability focus
- Multi-store support
- Theme system
Smartstore vs thirty bees: key differences
Smartstore is written in C#, while thirty bees is built with PHP. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Smartstore versus OSL-3.0 for thirty bees. Smartstore is the more established project (first released 2010), while thirty bees arrived in 2017. Smartstore has the considerably larger community, at 1,731 GitHub stars versus 769.
Why pick each one
Choose Smartstore if…
- Polished modern UI
- Good plugin model
Watch out for
- Requires .NET hosting
- Smaller community than competitors
Choose thirty bees if…
- Released under the OSL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in PHP
Watch out for
- Smaller community
- Slower release cadence
Frequently asked questions
Is Smartstore or thirty bees better?
Neither is universally better. Smartstore has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Smartstore and thirty bees free and open-source?
Yes. Smartstore is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and thirty bees under OSL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Smartstore and thirty bees with Docker?
Smartstore: yes. thirty bees: yes.