Smartstore vs Vendure
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 | Vendure |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 83 · Excellent | 92 · Excellent |
| Category | E-commerce Platforms | E-commerce Platforms |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | C# | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | docker, bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,521 | ★ 8,468 |
| First released | 2010 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Shopify, Magento | Shopify, commercetools |
What are Smartstore and Vendure?
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
Vendure
Vendure is an open-source, headless commerce framework written in TypeScript on top of NestJS and GraphQL. It is designed to be highly extensible for building custom B2B and B2C storefronts.
- GraphQL-based headless API
- Plugin-driven extensibility
- Admin UI included
- Multi-vendor marketplace support
Smartstore vs Vendure: key differences
Smartstore is written in C#, while Vendure is built with TypeScript. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Smartstore versus MIT for Vendure. Smartstore is the more established project (first released 2010), while Vendure arrived in 2019. Vendure has the considerably larger community, at 8,468 GitHub stars versus 1,521.
Why pick each one
Choose Smartstore if…
- Polished modern UI
- Good plugin model
Watch out for
- Requires .NET hosting
- Smaller community than competitors
Choose Vendure if…
- Strong TypeScript developer experience
- Well-documented plugin system
Watch out for
- Requires building your own storefront
- Less out-of-the-box than hosted SaaS
Frequently asked questions
Is Smartstore or Vendure better?
Neither is universally better. Vendure has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Smartstore and Vendure free and open-source?
Yes. Smartstore is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Vendure under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Smartstore and Vendure with Docker?
Smartstore: yes. Vendure: yes.