thirty bees 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 | thirty bees | Vendure |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 81 · Excellent | 92 · Excellent |
| Category | E-commerce Platforms | E-commerce Platforms |
| License | OSL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | PHP | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, docker | docker, bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 767 | ★ 8,468 |
| First released | 2017 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Shopify | Shopify, commercetools |
What are thirty bees and Vendure?
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
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
thirty bees vs Vendure: key differences
Thirty bees is written in PHP, while Vendure is built with TypeScript. Licensing differs — OSL-3.0 for thirty bees versus MIT for Vendure. Thirty bees is the more established project (first released 2017), while Vendure arrived in 2019. Vendure has the considerably larger community, at 8,468 GitHub stars versus 767.
Why pick each one
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
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 thirty bees 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 thirty bees and Vendure free and open-source?
Yes. thirty bees is licensed under OSL-3.0 and Vendure under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run thirty bees and Vendure with Docker?
thirty bees: yes. Vendure: yes.