Open source by industry / E-commerce & retail
Saleor
An API-only commerce backend with a GraphQL interface, written in Python; the dashboard and storefront live in two separate repositories.
Does it fit your team?
- Consider it if
- You have an engineering team that can operate several services, you will build the storefront yourself, and you want an API-only commerce backend that comes in a single version with no commercial limitations.
- Look elsewhere if
- You are one or two developers with a small business: the README itself says this setup is more complex than the WordPress style in that case, and the commercial hosted plans start at $1,599 a month.
- Can you use it commercially?
- Yes
BSD-3-Clause. Commercial use, modification and closed-source use are all allowed; keep the copyright notice, and do not use the project’s or contributors’ names to endorse your product. The README says there is a single version, with no feature fragmentation or commercial limitations.
- Is it still maintained?
- Active
Last push on 2026-10-12. The repository is not archived.
- How hard is it to deploy?
- Hard
To try it locally you clone saleor-platform and start everything with Docker Compose, giving Docker at least 5 GB of memory; that repository is stated to be for local development only, not for production. For production the recommended route is the official Docker image, and you assemble the API service, background workers, a task scheduler, PostgreSQL, Redis and object storage yourself, then deploy the dashboard and storefront separately. Installing on Linux without Docker relies on community-maintained scripts that Saleor does not vouch for.
Docker Compose setupArchitectureDocker imagesDeploying to Linux
- What does it cost?
- No sizing for self-hosting; hosted from $1,599 a month
The software is free. The docs give no server sizing for production; the only figure is the 5 GB of memory Docker needs to run the full stack locally. On the managed Saleor Cloud, sandboxes are free but for non-commercial use only; the lowest commercial plan is $1,599 a month covering $200,000 in monthly sales, with 0.8% on orders beyond that, and the next plan is $3,999 a month.
- What to watch out for
- By its own account, heavier than a small team may want
The README has a section on tradeoffs: if you are a single developer working with a small business without high traffic or a need for round-the-clock availability, this service-oriented approach may feel more complex than the WordPress style. It is API-only, so you extend it with separately deployed apps and webhooks rather than plugins. Self-hosted instances also send anonymous usage telemetry by default (version, counts of products and similar entities, configured currencies); set SEND_USAGE_TELEMETRY=false to turn it off.
Last checked: .
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Your industry is not here?
Tell me the industry and what you need solved. I will look at it next.