Shopware appeals to merchants with tangled catalogues and B2B rules, and the people who leave it usually do so for one of three reasons: the price rises with turnover, the B2B tooling sits on the upper plans, or the team lacks developers who know the stack. Destinations run from a lighter hosted shop to a code framework you shape yourself.
Sebastiaan SmitsFounderShort answer: Looking for a replacement for Shopware? Sylius, OXID eShop and Medusa come first in our ecommerce platform ranking. Ranking order favours the challenger over the household name, so the best-known vendors begin at place 4 where the category allows it. Start with Sylius if your agency writes PHP and wants a framework rather than a finished product. Below are 10 alternatives, each taken from the Best Ecommerce Platform in 2026 ranking, with its main difference from Shopware.
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Shopware's pricing page starts the paid plans at 600 euros a month for Rise and 2,400 euros a month for Evolve, excluding VAT, and says pricing rests on gross merchandise value and other factors. Beyond is on request. A shop that grows will see the bill move with it, which is the point where fixed-price or free software looks different.
The B2B components page lists quick order, employee management, quotes, approval rules, budgets and organisation units, and states they come with Evolve and Beyond. The pricing page puts customer-specific pricing and multi-location inventory on Beyond. A trade shop on Rise or the free edition would be paying to unlock rules it needs on day one.
The Community Edition costs nothing and you choose your own hosting and partners, but the page says stores above 1 million euros of GMV in the preceding 365 days need a paid plan to keep Account and Store access. Support there is community support only, so growing shops either pay Shopware or look for a different base.
| Alternative | Headquarters | Free option | Pricing model | Switch if | Our rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sylius | Poland | Yes | Published | your agency writes PHP and wants a framework rather than a finished product | #10 |
| OXID eShop | Germany | No free tier | Published | you sell in the German market and want a price that does not follow revenue | #2 |
| Medusa | Denmark | Yes | Published | your developers write TypeScript and find PHP a hindrance | #1 |
| Saleor | Poland | Yes | Published | you want to build your own front end on a headless commerce service | #9 |
| PrestaShop | France | Yes | Published | you want a cheaper self-hosted shop with a large module market | #5 |
| WooCommerce | United States | Yes | Published | your content already lives in WordPress and a developer looks after it | #4 |
| BigCommerce | United States | No free tier | Published | you want a hosted platform with more built in than Shopify, without running servers | #3 |
| Shopify | Canada | No free tier | Published | you sell mainly to consumers and want the simplest hosted route | #8 |
| Ecwid by Lightspeed | United States | No free tier | Published | you want to cut the platform down to a small shop inside an existing site | #7 |
| Adobe Commerce | United States | No free tier | On request | your complexity has outgrown mid-market software and budget is not the constraint | #13 |
Poland · Published
Sylius is a Symfony codebase from Poland, free to use, with Sylius Plus from 800 euros a year on a published price that also depends on GMV. Everything beyond the core is built by a developer, and the admin is plainer than Shopware's. You keep code and database, so leaving it later is easy.
Switch from Shopware if your agency writes PHP and wants a framework rather than a finished product.
Check Sylius in the ranked list (10 out of 14, ecommerce platform) →
Germany · Published
OXID eShop comes from Germany and sells editions at a fixed price, from 121 euros a month on subscription or as a purchased licence, with no share of turnover. Multi-shop starts at the Enterprise B2C edition. Customer-specific price lists sit in Enterprise B2B, from 1,583 euros a month on a 48-month term.
Switch from Shopware if you sell in the German market and want a price that does not follow revenue.
Read our review of OXID eShop (position 2 of 14 on the ecommerce platform list) →
Denmark · Published
Medusa, from Denmark, is open source and assembles commerce from Node modules that read like ordinary TypeScript. A managed cloud is published for teams who do not want to run it. It is the youngest option on this page, so extensions and operating history are thinner than Shopware's.
Switch from Shopware if your developers write TypeScript and find PHP a hindrance.
Where Medusa stands: place 1 of 14 in the ecommerce platform ranking →
Poland · Published
Saleor is a Polish GraphQL commerce API with an open source core. Saleor Cloud starts at 1,599 dollars a month and is capped by GMV. It has no storefront you configure in the admin, and its small app store of payment, tax and search apps is for the hosted cloud only.
Switch from Shopware if you want to build your own front end on a headless commerce service.
Open the Saleor profile, 9th of 14 in the ecommerce platform guide →
France · Published
PrestaShop is a French open source shop you download free, with a hosted plan from 24 euros a month on the published figure. Payment and invoicing modules for Europe are plentiful, though modules are paid and their quality varies. Upgrades between versions can be painful.
Switch from Shopware if you want a cheaper self-hosted shop with a large module market.
Our ecommerce platform guide puts PrestaShop at 5 of 14; read why →
United States · Published
WooCommerce is a free plugin that turns a WordPress site into a shop. You pay hosting and extensions, and you own updates and security. It suits a business that already runs WordPress with a technical person on hand, and it is a poor way to cut cost if nobody maintains it.
Switch from Shopware if your content already lives in WordPress and a developer looks after it.
#4 out of 14 ecommerce platform products: read the WooCommerce review →
United States · Published
BigCommerce is a hosted American platform priced per month by plan, with multi-currency on every plan. Customer groups start at Growth, product filtering at Scale and price lists at Performance. Orders outside its embedded payment providers carry a fee of 0.6% to 2%, and plans move up with trailing annual sales.
Switch from Shopware if you want a hosted platform with more built in than Shopify, without running servers.
Open the BigCommerce profile, 3rd of 14 in the ecommerce platform guide →
Canada · Published
Shopify, from Canada, gets a working store live fastest and relies on apps to fill gaps. It charges a fee of 0.6% to 2% on orders that bypass Shopify Payments. B2B and complex catalogue rules are handled less well than at Shopware, and the monthly cost grows with the app stack.
Switch from Shopware if you sell mainly to consumers and want the simplest hosted route.
Check Shopify in the ranked list (8 out of 14, ecommerce platform) →
United States · Published
Ecwid by Lightspeed is a shop widget you paste into a site you already have, priced from 5 dollars a month with no transaction fees. It needs no migration of the website. As the shop becomes the business, limits arrive fast, so it fits small catalogues and not the shops that outgrew Shopware's free tier.
Switch from Shopware if you want to cut the platform down to a small shop inside an existing site.
Ecwid by Lightspeed holds rank 7 among 14 entries in our ecommerce platform guide →
United States · On request
Adobe Commerce is quoted per organisation and is where very large retailers go when promotions, catalogue and B2B pricing exceed other products. Licence and implementation together run into six figures, so it is a step up in cost from Shopware, not a saving.
Switch from Shopware if your complexity has outgrown mid-market software and budget is not the constraint.
Open the Adobe Commerce profile, 13rd of 14 in the ecommerce platform guide →
OXID eShop: Editions start at 121 euros a month with no share of revenue; customer-specific price lists need Enterprise B2B.
Sylius: A free Symfony framework where you hold code and database; Sylius Plus starts at 800 euros a year.
Medusa: Open source commerce modules that read like application code, with a managed cloud published.
Shopify: Hosted, quick to launch, with a 0.6% to 2% fee on orders outside Shopify Payments.
WooCommerce: A free plugin; you pay hosting and extensions and carry updates and security yourself.
Shopware remains the stronger choice when the catalogue, tax rules and wholesale logic are complicated and you want access to the source. The core is open and free to run, you pick your own hosting and partners, and the paid plans add support, B2B components and customer-specific pricing as you scale. If the issue is only the price of Rise or Evolve, ask Shopware for a quote at your actual GMV before changing platform.
Shopware stores often carry custom plugins, theme work and B2B rules written for its stack. None of that moves. List each extension and what business rule it carries, then check whether the destination offers it natively, as a module, or only through custom code.
Products, variants, customer groups, prices and order history have to be mapped field by field. Customer-specific prices and approval rules are the hardest part, since few platforms model them the same way. Run a trial import of a slice of the catalogue before fixing a date.
Old product and category URLs should redirect to the new ones so search traffic survives. Agree how open orders and payment tokens are handled on the cutover day, and keep the old shop readable for returns and invoices.
The pricing page lists the Community Edition at 0 euros, Rise from 600 euros a month, Evolve from 2,400 euros a month, all excluding VAT, and Beyond on request.
Pricing for paid plans depends on GMV and other factors, and Rise advertises its first 30 days free.
Its pricing page describes an open-source core with no licence fee on the Community Edition. You pay for your own hosting and any paid extensions, and you choose the hosting and implementation partners.
Sylius, Medusa, Saleor, PrestaShop and WooCommerce are open source or free to install. Each still costs money for hosting, developers or modules, and managed versions are priced separately.
OXID eShop has customer-specific price lists in its Enterprise B2B edition. BigCommerce offers price lists at Performance, and Adobe Commerce models B2B pricing for large retailers. Sylius can be built to B2B needs by a developer.
The B2B components page says they are included in Evolve and Beyond. The pricing page lists quotes and purchasing approvals under Evolve, and customer-specific pricing, multi-location inventory and Digital Sales Rooms under Beyond.
Yes. The pricing FAQ describes SaaS with hosting and updates included, PaaS with managed infrastructure priced on requirements, and self-hosted, where you budget for hosting separately.
Founder of The Knowledge Engineers and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page on this site; research and drafting are AI-assisted.
Checked and edited by Sebastiaan Smits, last on 4 November 2026. The editorial process explains the method.
