SHSelfHostIndex

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.

Not the right match-up?
SM Smartstore Modern open-source .NET commerce platform VS TH thirty bees Stable e-commerce platform forked from PrestaShop
FeatureSmartstorethirty bees
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score83 · Excellent81 · Excellent
CategoryE-commerce PlatformsE-commerce Platforms
LicenseAGPL-3.0OSL-3.0
LanguageC#PHP
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM1,024 MB1,024 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, sourcebare-metal, docker
GitHub stars★ 1,521★ 767
First released20102017
ReplacesShopify, MagentoShopify

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

Read the full Smartstore guide →

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.

Why pick each one

Choose Smartstore if…

  • Polished modern UI
  • Good plugin model

Watch out for

  • Requires .NET hosting
  • Smaller community than competitors
Smartstore details

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
thirty bees details

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.

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