E-Commerce Platforms & Shop Systems
Medusa
Provenance unknown Report an error0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.
by Medusa · medusajs.com
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Medusa at a glance
- Vendor
- Medusa
- Headquarters
- Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026
- Data hosting
- Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026
- Free plan
- Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026
- Panel verdict
- The AI panel rates Medusa 3/5, the mean of 6 judges. Medusa, an open-source commerce platform, scored highest on extensibility, 8 to 9, and data control and exit, 7 to 8, resting on an open-source npm core, documented REST APIs with downloadable OpenAPI files, and CSV exports of orders and products. how scores are made
- As of
- Vendor pages captured 20 Oct 2026; evaluated by the panel 21 Oct 2026. all sources
Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The panel's verdict
Medusa, an open-source commerce platform, scored highest on extensibility, 8 to 9, and data control and exit, 7 to 8, resting on an open-source npm core, documented REST APIs with downloadable OpenAPI files, and CSV exports of orders and products. Its lowest scores are sovereignty, 2 to 3, with no sovereignty attributes on record and no public information on Medusa Cloud hosting or subprocessors, and tax and legal, flat at 4, where the merchant sets every rate and no public information on VAT-ID validation, reverse charge, OSS reporting, or German checkout legal texts. Operations sits at 6 to 7 and pricing transparency at 4 to 6: the pages state "Starts from $29. Cancel anytime." with no extra licenses or GMV tax, but no public information on tier contents or usage limits. The split is catalog and checkout, 4 to 7: the skeptic and the B2B seller scored 7 for variant and pricing machinery, the data protection officer 4, since without public information on payment providers or guest checkout the path to payment cannot be judged beyond the cart.
Speaks for it
- Extensibility scores run 8 to 9, on a fully open-source core shipped as a standalone npm package with documented REST APIs and downloadable OpenAPI specifications
- Data control and exit scores run 7 to 8, with standalone operation, "no extra licenses or GMV tax", and CSV exports of orders and products with filtered subsets
- Operations scores run 6 to 7, covering returns, claims, exchanges, order edits, draft orders, payment collections, and multi-location stock
- The pricing pages state "Starts from $29. Cancel anytime." with "Only pay for the infrastructure, no extra licenses or GMV tax."
Held against it
- Sovereignty scores run 2 to 3, with no sovereignty attributes on record and no public information on hosting region, contracting entity, or subprocessors
- Tax and legal is flat at 4, with the merchant setting and maintaining all rates and no public information on VAT-ID validation, reverse charge, OSS, e-invoicing, or German checkout legal texts
- Catalog and checkout scores split 4 to 7, with no public information on named payment providers, guest checkout, invoice, or direct debit
- Pricing transparency scores run 4 to 6, with no public information on tier contents, order or usage limits, VAT treatment, or payment and extension costs
- ERP, WMS, carrier, and label-printing connections are documented as custom workflows the merchant builds, with no public information on maintained interfaces to named systems
Best for
- You have a development team that wants to own the platform code and storefront — extensibility scored 8 to 9 on the open-source npm core and documented APIs
- You want a structural exit path — data control and exit scored 7 to 8, on standalone operation and CSV exports of orders and products
- You run large or B2B catalogues — unlimited variants, bulk editing, catalogues at millions of SKUs, and customer-based pricing are documented
- You take orders across channels — omnichannel intake, POS and buy-online-pickup-in-store, and draft and manual B2B orders are documented, with operations at 6 to 7
Avoid if
- You need German tax and checkout compliance handled by the platform — tax and legal is flat at 4, and the merchant sets and maintains every tax rate
- You require a documented hosting region, contracting entity, or subprocessor chain — ask the vendor: the public pages we read do not show it
- You need the vendor to maintain named payment, carrier, or ERP integrations — the documented route is building custom workflows yourself
- You must compute your annual invoice from public pricing — pricing transparency scored 4 to 6, with no public information on tier contents or usage limits
The scores
| Criterion | Panel median |
|---|---|
| Catalogue & checkout | 3 of 5 |
| Tax & German legal correctness | 2 of 5 |
| Extensibility & developer surface | 4 of 5 |
| Order operations & back office | 3.5 of 5 |
| Data ownership & exit | 4 of 5 |
| European sovereignty | 1 of 5 |
| Pricing transparency | 2 of 5 |
Catalogue & checkout
panel disagrees
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How this is scored
Products, variants, pricing rules and the path to payment — the part that either converts or does not.
0 — Flat product list with one price and no variants; checkout is a form and one payment method.
3 — Variants and categories with a standard checkout and two or three payment methods, but no bundles, no tiered pricing and no guest checkout worth the name.
5 — Full variant matrix, product bundles, tiered and customer-group pricing, guest checkout, and the payment methods a German shop needs including invoice and direct debit.
8 — Configurable products, per-channel pricing, promotions and vouchers with rules, a checkout that can be customised without a rebuild, and payment via the major providers plus buy-now-pay-later where offered.
10 — Merchandising and checkout are the product: rule-driven pricing and promotions, A/B-testable checkout, multi-currency and multi-language as standard, and conversion features (abandoned cart, one-page checkout) shipped rather than bolted on.
The Merchant
The merchandising core converts — unlimited variants, product bundles, regional and customer-group pricing, carts that persist and auto-retrieve when a shopper returns — and a headless checkout built on REST Store APIs can be changed without a vendor rebuild. But I sell to German shoppers, and I found no public information on named payment providers, invoice, direct debit or buy-now-pay-later, on guest checkout, or on promotion rules beyond custom promotions on line items. 1 2 3 8
The B2B Seller
Unlimited variants, bundles, regional prices and currencies, and customer-based pricing for B2B buyers are all documented, and checkout actions can be added via workflows — a composable checkout a trade seller can shape. What holds it back for me is the payment path itself: we found no public information on which payment providers run on it, on invoice or direct debit for business customers, or on guest checkout and tiered pricing. 1 2 3 8
The Developer
Unlimited variants, product bundles, regional prices and currencies, and customer- and channel-specific pricing are all documented for catalogues at millions of SKUs, and the cart material covers persisted, retrievable carts, line-item adjustments and custom promotions on line items, with the checkout itself built on the documented Store APIs. I found no public information on named payment providers — invoice and direct debit for a German shop, or any gateway at all — nor on guest checkout or tiered pricing, which the higher descriptions of this criterion require. 1 2 3
The Operations Lead
The catalogue side is industrial — unlimited variants, bundles, millions of SKUs via CSV import, regional prices and customer- and channel-specific pricing — and carts are persisted, shareable and recoverable, with the checkout being whatever you build on the storefront APIs. But I found no public information on payment providers beyond tailored payment methods per region, nothing on invoice or direct debit for a German shop, and nothing on guest checkout, so I cannot confirm the path to payment actually converts. 1 2 3
The Data Protection Officer
Bundles, unlimited variants, regional prices with currencies, customer-based pricing, and persistent retrievable carts are all documented on the vendor's own pages. We found no public information on which payment providers are integrated — the third parties my checkout questions always land on — nor on guest checkout, so the path to payment cannot be judged beyond the cart. 1 2 3 8
The Skeptic
The variant and pricing machinery is real: unlimited variants, bulk editing for millions of SKUs, bundles, regional prices and currencies, customer-group pricing, and a checkout customised through workflows and custom data models rather than a rebuild. But the pages stop at "tailored payment and shipping methods" — we found no public information naming payment providers, guest checkout, or abandoned-cart conversion features beyond retrievable carts. 1 2 3
Tax & German legal correctness
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How this is scored
VAT determination, OSS, B2B reverse charge, and the checkout requirements German law actually imposes — judged on what the platform does, not on a plugin someone could buy.
0 — A single VAT rate applied everywhere; no B2B handling, no country logic, no legal-text handling in checkout.
3 — Per-country VAT rates configurable by hand, net prices for B2B possible with effort, and legal texts as free-form pages.
5 — Automatic VAT by destination and customer type, VAT-ID validation with reverse charge, gross and net display per customer group, and the mandatory checkout elements (order button wording, withdrawal policy, price indications) handled.
8 — OSS thresholds tracked and reported, correct invoicing per case including reverse-charge notes, small-business and third-country handling, and e-invoicing (XRechnung/ZUGFeRD) for B2B orders.
10 — Tax and legal correctness are maintained by the vendor rather than the merchant: rates and thresholds updated as the law moves, OSS reporting produced, every invoice case correct out of the box, and documented conformity a lawyer could review.
The Merchant
Tax regions per country with sublevel state and province rates, combinable overrides for products, product types and shipping options, and tax-inclusive pricing give me the machinery to configure German VAT by hand, with external tax providers available via Workflows. For everything German law imposes at the checkout — reverse charge and VAT-ID validation, OSS, the mandatory legal texts and button wording, e-invoicing — I found no public information. 4 5
The B2B Seller
The machinery is real — tax regions per country with sublevel rates, overrides by product, product type and shipping option, tax-inclusive pricing, and delegation to external tax providers. But every piece a German trade shop lives or dies by is unevidenced: we found no public information on VAT-ID validation, reverse charge, OSS, e-invoicing or the mandatory checkout legal texts, and the merchant sets and maintains the rates themselves in the admin. 4 5
The Developer
The tax machinery is genuinely deep: country-level tax regions with state and province sublevels, default rates with tax codes, overrides for products, product types and shipping options, combinable sublevel rates, inclusive pricing, and delegation to external tax providers via Workflows. But that is destination rate configuration, and I found no public information on VAT-ID validation with reverse charge, OSS, the mandatory German checkout elements, or XRechnung and ZUGFeRD e-invoicing — the parts that make a shop legally correct rather than just configurable. 4 5
The Operations Lead
The tax engine is real — country tax regions with state and province sublevels, default rates and combinable overrides per product, product type or shipping method, tax-inclusive pricing, and delegation to external tax providers — but the merchant configures all of it themselves. We found no public information on VAT-ID validation with reverse charge, OSS reporting, e-invoicing, or the checkout legal texts German law demands, and in a build-your-own storefront those obligations land on the merchant. 4 5 8
The Data Protection Officer
Tax regions per country with sublevel state or province rates, combinable overrides on products, product types and shipping options, tax-inclusive pricing, and delegation to external tax providers are well evidenced. We found no public information on VAT-ID validation, reverse charge, OSS reporting, e-invoicing, or the German checkout legal texts such as order-button wording and withdrawal policy, so every German-law outcome rests on merchant configuration rather than the platform. 4 5
The Skeptic
The tax engine is genuinely configurable — country-level regions with sublevel overrides for products, product types and shipping options, combinable rates, tax-inclusive pricing — but every rate is set by the merchant, not maintained by the vendor. We found no public information on VAT-ID validation with reverse charge, OSS thresholds and reporting, XRechnung/ZUGFeRD e-invoicing, or the checkout legal texts German law imposes. 4 5
Extensibility & developer surface
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How this is scored
Themes, apps, APIs and headless — whether the shop can be shaped to the business, and at what cost in lock-in.
0 — Fixed templates, no app ecosystem, no API.
3 — Theme editing within limits and a small app store; a read-mostly API and no local development story.
5 — Custom themes with a template language, an app or plugin ecosystem, a documented REST API, and webhooks for the core order events.
8 — Full storefront API for headless builds, an extension framework with its own lifecycle, staging environments, version control for themes, and documented rate limits.
10 — A platform a team can own: headless-first APIs, open-source or source-available core, plugin architecture with a real dependency model, local development and CI supported, and upgrade paths that do not orphan customisations.
The Merchant
The open-source core ships as npm, the documented REST Store and Admin APIs come with an OpenAPI download, a Next.js starter, workflows with hooks, custom data models, admin widgets, preview environments and a local development base URL in the docs — as a merchant I can shape the checkout myself. I found no public information on documented rate limits or a stated dependency model for plugins. 1 3 6 7
The B2B Seller
Open-source and shipped as a standalone npm package, with REST store and admin APIs, downloadable OpenAPI specifications, workflows with hooks, admin widgets and UI routes, preview environments and GitHub deployments — a platform a development team can genuinely own. We found no public information on documented rate limits or a plugin dependency model, which is what keeps it short of the top. 1 3 6 7
The Developer
This is a platform a team can actually own: fully open-source and shipped as a standalone npm package, documented REST Store and Admin APIs with downloadable OpenAPI specs, Workflows with hooks behind the API routes, Widgets and UI routes for the admin, preview environments, GitHub push deployments, and a development story that runs at localhost:9000 — the storefront is a Next.js codebase you hold, not a closed template editor. I found no public information on a plugin dependency model, documented rate limits, or a stated upgrade path that preserves customisations, which is exactly the gap that would worry me over five years of maintenance. 1 3 6 7
The Operations Lead
This is the strongest part: an open-source core shipped as npm, documented REST store and admin APIs with downloadable OpenAPI specs, workflows with hooks, custom data models, and modules replaceable wholesale — a team can own this and run it standalone. Preview environments and GitHub deployments cover staging and delivery; the one gap is that I found no published rate limits. 1 3 6 7
The Data Protection Officer
Documented REST storefront and admin APIs with a downloadable OpenAPI specification, a Next.js starter for headless builds, custom data models, workflows with hooks, preview environments, and an open-source core shipped as an npm package make this a developer surface a team can own. We found no public information on documented rate limits or on upgrade-path guarantees for customisations. 1 3 6 7
The Skeptic
Headless-first REST store and admin APIs with downloadable OpenAPI specs, published as a fully open-source npm core you can run standalone and extend with custom data models, widgets and workflow hooks, deployed from GitHub with preview environments. The open-source core is the strongest anti-lock-in signal in the captured pages; we found no published rate limits and no stated upgrade-path commitment for customisations. 1 3 6 7
Order operations & back office
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How this is scored
What happens after checkout: order management, stock, returns, shipping, and the link to ERP or accounting.
0 — An order list and an email; stock is a number nobody trusts, returns are manual.
3 — Order statuses and basic stock, one shipping integration, and returns handled by hand.
5 — Order workflow with partial shipments, multi-warehouse stock, named carrier integrations with label printing, and a returns process in the system.
8 — Multi-channel order intake, automated fulfilment routing, supplier and dropshipping flows, and maintained interfaces to named ERP and accounting systems.
10 — The shop is the front of an operation: real-time stock across channels and warehouses, returns and refunds fully worked including partials, ERP integration the vendor maintains, and operational reporting a merchant runs the business from.
The Merchant
The back office is real: omnichannel order intake, order lifecycle from placement to post-delivery, draft orders, order edits, returns, claims and exchanges handled in the admin with automated RMA flows, payment collections and buy-online-pickup-in-store. What I found no public information on is named carrier integrations or label printing, automated fulfilment routing, dropshipping, and maintained interfaces to named ERP or accounting systems — the pages offer Workflows to build those links myself. 3 8 9
The B2B Seller
Order lifecycle across channels, draft orders and manual orders for sales reps, order edits, returns, claims, exchanges, payment collections for outstanding amounts and multi-location stock are documented — a serious back office for a B2B operation. But we found no public information on carrier integrations with label printing, automated fulfilment routing or dropshipping, and the ERP connection is build-your-own via workflows rather than maintained interfaces to named systems. 3 8 9
The Developer
The order domain is documented end to end: draft orders, order edits, returns, claims, exchanges, payment collections for outstanding payments, payment and fulfilment overviews, omnichannel intake across sales channels including POS and buy-online-pickup-in-store, multi-location inventory, B2B manual orders and even a subscription-orders recipe. ERP and WMS connectivity is documented as building custom workflows with Workflows; I found no public information on maintained interfaces to named ERP or accounting systems, on carrier integrations, or on label printing. 3 8 9
The Operations Lead
The order lifecycle is genuinely worked — returns, claims and exchanges handled in the system, order edits, draft orders, B2B manual orders, multi-location stock and omnichannel intake from different sales channels. But ERP and WMS sync is only via workflows you build and maintain yourself, and I found no public information on carrier integrations with label printing, automated fulfilment routing, supplier or dropshipping flows, or partial shipments and partial refunds — and a shop that cannot do a partial refund is a shop that has never had December. 3 8 9
The Data Protection Officer
Order lifecycle management across channels, draft orders, edits, returns, claims, exchanges, automated return flows, multi-location stock, in-store pickup, payment collections, and ERP or WMS sync via workflows are all evidenced. We found no public information on named carrier integrations with label printing, supplier or dropshipping flows, or maintained interfaces to named ERP and accounting systems. 3 8 9
The Skeptic
Returns, claims, exchanges, order edits, draft orders and payment collections are all handled in the admin, with multi-location stock tracking and omnichannel intake across sales channels. But the shipping and ERP side is verbs without names: we found no public information on named carrier integrations or label printing, and ERP/WMS connectivity is "build custom workflows" — the merchant builds and pays for what other platforms maintain. 3 8 9
Data ownership & exit
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How this is scored
Whether the catalogue, customers and order history remain the merchant's: export completeness, hosting choice, and what leaving actually costs.
0 — Export is a partial CSV; order history and customer records cannot leave intact, and hosting is the vendor's alone.
3 — CSV export of products and customers, order history partial, no self-hosting, no documented migration path.
5 — Complete export of catalogue, customers and orders via API or dump, documented deletion, and a stated data-return commitment.
8 — Full-fidelity export including media and order documents, self-hosting or a choice of hosting partner, and no metering that prices a migration out of reach.
10 — Ownership is structural rather than promised: open-source or source-available platform the merchant can run anywhere, database-level access, documented migration in both directions, and contractual data return.
The Merchant
Ownership is structural rather than promised: the platform is open-source, ships as a standalone npm package, runs standalone with my own systems, and Cloud pricing charges only infrastructure with no licences or GMV tax, so walking away is not metered. The documented export surface is CSV for products and orders with filtered subsets, and I found no public information on customer-record export, media and order documents, or a stated data-return commitment. 1 3 10 11
The B2B Seller
Ownership here is structural rather than promised: the platform is open-source and ships as a standalone npm package a merchant can run anywhere, and CSV exports of orders and products with filtered subsets are documented for backups and imports into external systems. We found no public information on customer-record export, on media and order-document export, or on a contractual data-return commitment. 1 3 10 11
The Developer
Ownership here is structural rather than promised: the platform is fully open-source, ships as a standalone npm package and can run standalone with your own systems, so leaving their Cloud means running the same code yourself, and with no extra licences or GMV tax there is no metering that prices an exit. The documented exports are CSV downloads of order details and products with filtered subsets; I found no public information on customer export, media and order documents, documented deletion, or a contractual data-return commitment. 1 3 8 10 11
The Operations Lead
Ownership here is structural rather than promised — fully open-source, shipped as npm, usable standalone with your own systems, and no GMV-based fees — and the admin exports orders and products as CSV, filtered subsets included. But export is CSV only: we found no public information on customer export, media and order documents, a documented deletion process, or importing orders back in, so leaving is possible yet not fully documented. 1 3 8 10 11
The Data Protection Officer
Ownership is partly structural: the platform is open-source, ships as a standalone package, can run with the merchant's own systems, and filtered CSV exports of orders and products are documented. We found no public information on customer-record export, documented deletion of customer data against order history, media or document export, or a contractual data-return commitment. 3 8 10 11
The Skeptic
Ownership here is structural rather than promised: a fully open-source platform shipped as npm that runs standalone, so the catalogue and orders sit in infrastructure the merchant operates, with documented CSV exports for orders and products including filtered subsets, "no extra licenses or GMV tax" and "Cancel anytime". We found no public information on customer-record export, media and document export, or a contractual data-return commitment. 1 3 10 11
European sovereignty
panel opinion
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How this is scored
Where customer and order data live, who the contracting entity is, and which subprocessors sit in the checkout path. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline.
0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting unstated or non-EU, subprocessors unnamed.
3 — EU hosting offered as an option while the contracting entity is non-EU, or the subprocessor list is absent.
5 — EU hosting as standard and an EU contracting entity, but parts of the chain — CDN, analytics, payment routing, support tooling — are non-EU without an explained safeguard.
8 — EU hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, complete subprocessor list published, any non-EU processing named with its legal basis.
10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: vendor, entity, hosting and every subprocessor European, certification published, and a self-hosted option that puts the shop entirely under the merchant's control.
The Merchant
The sovereignty record carries no attributes at all: the vendor page offers "Medusa Cloud infrastructure" with no stated location, and I found no public information on the contracting entity, hosting region or any subprocessor. The only evidenced sovereignty lever is the open-source core, which I could run entirely on my own infrastructure. 1 4
The B2B Seller
No sovereignty attributes are on record: we found no public information on where the cloud infrastructure is hosted, on the seat of the contracting entity, or on any subprocessor sitting in the checkout path. The one sovereignty-relevant fact is that the open-source platform can be self-hosted, which puts hosting under the merchant's own control if they choose to operate it themselves. 1 3
The Developer
No sovereignty attributes are on record: the captured pages name no hosting region for Medusa Cloud, no contracting entity, no subprocessor list and no certification. The open-source npm distribution is the one lever the evidence does support — a merchant can run the shop entirely under their own control — but nothing on the vendor side of the chain is published. 1 3
The Operations Lead
The sovereignty record came back empty: we found no public information on where Medusa Cloud hosts, on the contracting entity, or on any subprocessor list. The one mitigating fact is that the open-source stack can be self-hosted on infrastructure of the merchant's choosing. 1 3
The Data Protection Officer
No sovereignty attributes are on record, and we found no public information on where the cloud infrastructure sits, the contracting entity, a subprocessor list, or where CDN, analytics and payment routing sit in the checkout path. The only evidenced control is the open-source option to self-host, which puts hosting in the merchant's own hands. 1 3 4
The Skeptic
No sovereignty attributes are on record: we found no public information on where Medusa Cloud hosts, the contracting entity behind it, or any subprocessor in the checkout path. The one lever evidenced is the open-source self-hosted option, which puts the shop under the merchant's own control, but the managed offering's data chain is undocumented in the captured pages. 1 3 4
Pricing transparency
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How this is scored
Whether a merchant can compute the real annual cost — licence, transaction fees, apps, hosting — from public pages alone. The category where the headline price is least often the invoice.
0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.
3 — A monthly headline exists, but transaction fees, mandatory apps or hosting costs are unstated — the invoice is unknowable from the page.
5 — Tier prices public with billing period stated and transaction fees given, but at least one commonly needed piece (a required app, hosting, payment gateway rate) is unpriced.
8 — Every tier priced publicly including transaction or revenue-share rates, order or GMV limits, and the cost of the extensions most shops need; VAT treatment and minimum term stated.
10 — Complete price computability: annual cost derivable for a given order volume and GMV including licence, transaction fees, hosting and typical extensions — and for open-source platforms, an honest statement that the licence is free and where the money actually goes.
The Merchant
The headline is unusually clean — an open-source licence, "Starts from $29. Cancel anytime." and "no extra licenses or GMV tax" — so there is no revenue share or minimum term to model. But "starts from" gives me neither what that tier includes nor the price of compute, storage or the extensions a real shop needs, and I found no public information on VAT treatment, so the annual invoice for my order volume is not computable from the pages. 1 3
The B2B Seller
The public pages state "Starts from $29. Cancel anytime." and "Only pay for the infrastructure, no extra licenses or GMV tax.", and the licence itself is free in open-source — more cost honesty than most in this category. But no tier details, usage or order limits, payment or transaction costs, or VAT treatment are published, so a merchant cannot compute the annual invoice at a given order volume from the pages alone. 1 3
The Developer
The headline is public — "Starts from $29. Cancel anytime." with "no extra licenses or GMV tax" — and the combination of a free open-source licence with paying only for infrastructure is an honest statement of where the money actually goes. But I found no public information on what the $29 tier includes in order or usage limits, on further tiers, on VAT treatment, or on payment and extension costs, so a real annual cost for a given order volume is not derivable from the pages. 1 3
The Operations Lead
The public page is unusually honest for this category — "Starts from $29. Cancel anytime." with no extra licenses or GMV tax, and the open-source licence itself is free, so I can see where the money goes. But that is a floor, not a schedule: we found no public information on what the tiers above it cost, on order or usage limits, or on VAT treatment, so the real annual bill for a busy shop cannot be computed from the page. 1 3
The Data Protection Officer
A public headline exists — "Starts from $29. Cancel anytime." — together with the statement of "no extra licenses or GMV tax", and the licence itself is free and open-source. We found no public information on what the $29 covers, order or usage limits, billing period, VAT treatment, or typical extension costs, so an annual invoice is not computable from public pages. 1 3
The Skeptic
The headline is unusually clean — "Starts from $29. Cancel anytime." with "Only pay for the infrastructure, no extra licenses or GMV tax" — so the revenue-share surprise is publicly disclaimed. But the real annual invoice is not computable from the pages: what "Starts from $29" includes in order or traffic limits is unstated, and we found no public information on payment gateway rates or the hosting and development cost of running the open-source core yourself. 1
Questions about Medusa
Is Medusa European?
Not determined: the vendor’s pages as captured do not say where Medusa is based.
Where does Medusa store data?
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026.
Does Medusa have a free plan?
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 20 Oct 2026.
What are the best alternatives to Medusa?
As of 21 Oct 2026, the panel rates JTL-Shop (3/5), Shopify (3/5) and OXID eSales (3/5) highest among the other 25 E-Commerce Platforms & Shop Systems products evaluated. Ratings that look equal are rounded to half stars; the order uses the unrounded rating, then the name. The highest-rated European alternative is JTL-Shop (EU-Made). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made. The full list, with European products first: Medusa alternatives.
Where this could be wrong
- Evidence ages. The oldest capture behind this page is from 20 Oct 2026. Vendors change pricing and policies without notice; every fact reflects its source as of the capture date shown in the registry.
- AI can misread a source. Extraction and judgement are automated; a citation guarantees traceability, not infallibility. If something here is wrong, say so — no account needed, every report is decided within 5 business days, and accepted corrections are published.
What we left out
A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.
- We found no public information on compliance on the pages we read (medusajs.com, medusajs.com/cart-module, medusajs.com/product-module, medusajs.com/tax-module, docs.medusajs.com/user-guide/settings/tax-regions, docs.medusajs.com/api/store and 5 more). If the vendor publishes it somewhere else, send us the page. Know more? Tell us
- 24 product facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
- 6 integrations facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
- 3 data facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material. Know more? Tell us
Sources (11)
The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.
- 1 Vendor page medusajs.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
- 2 Catalogue & checkout — found from sitemap medusajs.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
- 3 Catalogue & checkout — found from sitemap medusajs.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
- 4 Tax & German legal correctness — found from sitemap medusajs.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
- 5 Tax & German legal correctness — found from sitemap docs.medusajs.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
- 6 Extensibility & developer surface — found from sitemap docs.medusajs.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
- 7 Extensibility & developer surface — found from sitemap docs.medusajs.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
- 8 Order operations & back office — found from sitemap medusajs.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
- 9 Order operations & back office — found from sitemap docs.medusajs.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
- 10 Data ownership & exit — found from sitemap docs.medusajs.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →
- 11 Data ownership & exit — found from sitemap docs.medusajs.com Checked 20 Oct 2026 Details →