Solidus 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 | Solidus | thirty bees |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 90 · Excellent | 81 · Excellent |
| Category | E-commerce Platforms | E-commerce Platforms |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | OSL-3.0 |
| Language | Ruby | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | bare-metal, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 5,333 | ★ 767 |
| First released | 2015 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Shopify, Magento | Shopify |
What are Solidus and thirty bees?
Solidus
Solidus is a free, open-source e-commerce platform built with Ruby on Rails. It is a community-maintained fork of Spree focused on stability, security, and customization for high-volume stores.
- Stable Rails engine architecture
- Strong upgrade path
- Highly customizable
- Active community governance
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
Solidus vs thirty bees: key differences
Solidus is written in Ruby, while thirty bees is built with PHP. Licensing differs — BSD-3-Clause for Solidus versus OSL-3.0 for thirty bees. Solidus is the more established project (first released 2015), while thirty bees arrived in 2017. Solidus has the considerably larger community, at 5,333 GitHub stars versus 767.
Why pick each one
Choose Solidus if…
- Reliable for high-volume stores
- Good security focus
Watch out for
- Rails knowledge required
- No managed hosting option
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 Solidus or thirty bees better?
Neither is universally better. Solidus has the larger community, while thirty bees is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Solidus and thirty bees free and open-source?
Yes. Solidus is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and thirty bees under OSL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Solidus and thirty bees with Docker?
Solidus: yes. thirty bees: yes.