Spree Commerce 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 | Spree Commerce | thirty bees |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 95 · Excellent | 81 · Excellent |
| Category | E-commerce Platforms | E-commerce Platforms |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | OSL-3.0 |
| Language | Ruby | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | bare-metal, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 15,718 | ★ 767 |
| First released | 2008 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Shopify, BigCommerce | Shopify |
What are Spree Commerce and thirty bees?
Spree Commerce
Spree Commerce is a complete open-source e-commerce platform built with Ruby on Rails. It supports multi-vendor marketplaces, multi-store, and headless API-driven storefronts.
- Modular Rails engine architecture
- Multi-store and multi-vendor
- Headless storefront API
- Admin dashboard included
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
Spree Commerce vs thirty bees: key differences
Spree Commerce is written in Ruby, while thirty bees is built with PHP. Licensing differs — BSD-3-Clause for Spree Commerce versus OSL-3.0 for thirty bees. Spree Commerce is the more established project (first released 2008), while thirty bees arrived in 2017. Spree Commerce has the considerably larger community, at 15,718 GitHub stars versus 767.
Why pick each one
Choose Spree Commerce if…
- Mature and battle-tested
- Flexible Rails ecosystem
Watch out for
- Ruby expertise needed for customization
- Setup can be involved
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 Spree Commerce or thirty bees better?
Neither is universally better. Spree Commerce has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Spree Commerce and thirty bees free and open-source?
Yes. Spree Commerce 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 Spree Commerce and thirty bees with Docker?
Spree Commerce: yes. thirty bees: yes.