E-Commerce Platforms & Shop Systems

Vendure

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Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: not determined

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Vendure · www.vendure.io

An AI-assisted analysis of public evidence — not a hands-on test.

Every score, rationale and verdict on this page is AI-generated. Every claim cites the source it was read from. Nothing here is a human star review — and no score can be bought. How scores are made →

Method and versions

The Merchant v1.0 · The B2B Seller v1.0 · The Developer v1.0 · The Operations Lead v1.0 · The Data Protection Officer v1.0 · The Skeptic v1.0 · rubric v2 · evaluated 3 Nov 2026

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Markdown

[![Vendure: AI-assisted analysis on whats-best.ai](https://whats-best.ai/badge/e-commerce/vendure.svg)](https://whats-best.ai/software/e-commerce/vendure)

Add ?theme=dark to the image address for dark backgrounds. The badge shows the category and the month of the latest evaluation, and EU-Made where that is the product’s provenance. It never shows a score.

Vendure at a glance

Vendor: Vendure
Headquarters: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 3 Nov 2026
Data hosting: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 3 Nov 2026
Free plan: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 3 Nov 2026
Starting price: “Plans start at €199 a month, with no fee on order value, orders or users.” (vendor’s words) source, captured 3 Nov 2026
Panel verdict: The AI panel rates Vendure 3/5, the mean of 6 judges. Vendure, an open-source commerce framework from Elevantiq GmbH in Austria, positions itself for complex B2B. how scores are made
As of: Vendor pages captured 3 Nov 2026; evaluated by the panel 3 Nov 2026. all sources

Vendure alternatives, European ones first →

Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The B2B Seller

Weighted verdict

Sells to businesses across the EU: net prices, VAT-ID validation, reverse charge, customer-specific price lists and payment on account. Reads a shop that shows gross prices to a trade customer as one that has not met a trade customer.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The B2B Seller

Panel median The B2B Seller This judge’s scores over the panel median. Each label opens its reasoning below.

Scores per criterion, in stars out of 5
Criterion	Panel median	The B2B Seller
Catalogue & checkout	3.5 of 5	3.5 of 5
Tax & German legal correctness	2.5 of 5	2.5 of 5
Extensibility & developer surface	4.5 of 5	4.5 of 5
Order operations & back office	2.5 of 5	2.5 of 5
Data ownership & exit	4 of 5	4 of 5
European sovereignty	3.5 of 5	3.5 of 5
Pricing transparency	3.5 of 5	3.5 of 5

Catalogue & checkout

How this is scored

Products, variants, pricing rules and the path to payment — the part that either converts or does not.

0 — Not a shop: no product catalogue and no checkout of its own.

3 — A product catalogue with categories and a checkout that takes payment through at least one provider.

5 — Products with variants, discounts or vouchers, guest checkout, and several payment methods including those German buyers expect (PayPal, invoice or direct debit) through named providers.

8 — Tiered and customer-group pricing, bundles or configurable products, rule-based promotions, per-channel or per-market pricing, abandoned-cart recovery, a checkout customisable without a rebuild, and 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.

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The B2B Seller

Products with variants, promotions and coupon codes are built in, and the trade side I care about is genuinely there: customer-specific and contract pricing, quotes, quick order by pasting SKUs and quantities, approval limits before an order is placed, and orders placed on invoice terms — payment on account, in other words. Checkout runs headless with guest carts, cart merge on login and community payment plugins for Stripe, Braintree and Mollie; we found no public information on abandoned-cart recovery, bundles or buy-now-pay-later. 1 5 6 7 12

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Tax & German legal correctness

How this is scored

VAT determination, OSS, B2B reverse charge, invoicing, and the checkout requirements German law imposes (Button-Lösung, Widerrufsrecht, Preisangabenverordnung) — judged on what the platform documents it does or ships as a maintained extension.

0 — No tax handling at all; prices carry no VAT logic and the merchant calculates tax outside the platform.

3 — VAT rates configurable per country or product, with prices shown gross or net and legal texts placed as pages in the checkout.

5 — VAT by destination country with gross and net display per customer group, B2B with VAT ID and reverse charge, and the German checkout requirements (order button wording, withdrawal policy, price indications) handled by the platform or a named official extension.

8 — VIES validation of VAT IDs, OSS thresholds tracked or OSS reporting data provided, invoices issued from orders with correct content 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.

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The B2B Seller

Tax is a configurable subsystem rather than an afterthought: tax rates and zones are part of core setup, order lines carry net and gross amounts, a replaceable calculation strategy can call a third-party tax engine, and the paid plans include company accounts with tax ID validation alongside a European reverse-charge exemption strategy — whose documentation page requires a Console sign-in to read. The vendor itself validates EU VAT numbers against the European Commission's VIES service and keeps the VAT location evidence and One-Stop-Shop records EU law requires; we found no public information on invoices issued from orders, OSS reporting data, e-invoicing, or the German checkout requirements such as order-button wording and price-indication rules. 3 5 8 9

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Extensibility & developer surface

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 — A closed shop builder: no themes to edit, no apps or plugins and no API.

3 — Themes adjustable in an editor and a set of apps or plugins to add features.

5 — Custom themes with a template language or code access, an app or plugin ecosystem, and a documented API with webhooks for order events.

8 — A storefront API for headless builds, an extension framework with its own lifecycle, staging or development 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.

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The B2B Seller

This is a platform a development team can own: the core is open source under GPLv3 with a plugin exception, plugins are NestJS modules with full lifecycle hooks and semver-based framework compatibility, publishable to npm and a plugin hub, with the shop and admin GraphQL APIs extended independently and custom fields and entities first-class. A team self-hosts on its own Node.js and PostgreSQL stack with CLI scaffolding and database migrations, and upgrades are stated to be fork-free; we found no published API rate limits. 4 5 10 11

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Order operations & back office

How this is scored

What happens after checkout: order management, stock, returns, shipping, and the link to ERP or accounting.

0 — No order handling in the product; orders leave as emails or exports to be processed elsewhere.

3 — An order list with statuses, stock counts per product, and shipping rates set up in the shop.

5 — Order management with status emails, stock tracking, named carrier integrations or label printing, and refunds or returns handled in the system.

8 — Partial shipments and partial refunds, multi-warehouse or multi-location stock, multi-channel or marketplace order intake, fulfilment routing, dropshipping, and maintained interfaces to named ERP and accounting systems (DATEV among them for German merchants).

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.

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The B2B Seller

The dashboard covers catalogue, orders, customers and settings, and the order service handles modification with a dry-run option, surcharges, notes, draft orders for phone sales, refunds with custom destinations, cancellation that corrects stock, and fulfilments created per order item. Stock, payments, promotions and tax are core modules; we found no public information on partial refunds, returns handling, carrier label printing, multi-warehouse stock, or maintained connectors to named ERP and accounting systems such as DATEV — ERP links are presented as integration categories and APIs, with one customer story mentioning a Microsoft ERP. 1 5 12 13

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Data ownership & exit

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 — The terms state that the merchant's data cannot be exported or is not returned on cancellation.

3 — CSV export of products and customers, or of orders, from the admin.

5 — Export of catalogue, customers and orders documented (CSV, API or dump), with data deletion or return on cancellation stated in the terms or help centre.

8 — Full-fidelity export including media and order documents, a documented migration path in and out, 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.

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The B2B Seller

Ownership here is structural: the framework is free under GPLv3 and runs on the merchant's own PostgreSQL, MySQL or MariaDB on AWS, Azure, GCP, on-premises or a single machine, so catalogue, customers and orders sit in the merchant's database, and moving to or from the planned Cloud is documented as a data and configuration cutover rather than a re-platform. Migration in is well documented — CSV import of products, variants, assets and custom fields, plus scripted customer and order import and a migration path from other platforms; we found no public information on a documented export out of the system or on contractual data return on cancellation. 4 5 14

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European sovereignty

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. Dimensions the evidence does not establish are unknown, not non-EU.

0 — Proven non-EU on every dimension the evidence covers: non-EU vendor and contracting entity and non-EU hosting, with no EU option stated.

3 — One European element proven — an EU hosting option, an EU contracting entity or EU representative, or a published DPA — with the rest of the chain unstated.

5 — EU hosting stated as standard or selectable and an EU contracting entity or EU representative, with a DPA offered; the subprocessor chain (CDN, analytics, payment routing, support tooling) is unstated or partly non-EU.

8 — EU hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, subprocessor list published with locations, 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.

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The B2B Seller

The contracting entity is Elevantiq GmbH, registered in Oberndorf in Tirol, Austria, with the register number, Austrian VAT ID and Austrian jurisdiction published, the Austrian Data Protection Authority named as supervisory authority, and a data processing agreement covering support access and future Cloud hosting. Subprocessors are published with locations and legal bases — United States processors under the Data Privacy Framework or standard contractual clauses, Northflank in the UK under adequacy — and the self-hosted model keeps shop and checkout data wherever the merchant hosts them; a vendor-operated hosting option is not yet generally available, with general availability of Cloud planned for the first quarter of 2027. 2 3 4 5

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Pricing transparency

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 public "from" price or one priced tier.

5 — Prices for the main tiers public with the billing period stated and the main inclusions per tier listed.

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.

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The B2B Seller

Three tiers carry public prices with billing period, term and VAT treatment stated: €199/mo, €599/mo and €2,499/mo, each a 12-month term billed monthly and excluding VAT, with no fee on order value, orders or users and a plainly stated free self-hosted framework. The Enterprise tier is named but carries no public price, and Cloud usage above a plan's included base is billed on top with no public rates, so a full annual Cloud cost is not computable from the public pages. 1 4 5

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European sovereignty — proven facts

0 of 6 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Legal entity	Not determined ⚠ unverified	—	uncited Report an error
Hosting location	Not determined	—	uncited Report an error
Hosting options	Not determined ⚠ unverified	—	uncited Report an error
Open source	Not determined ⚠ unverified	—	uncited Report an error
Data processing agreement	Not determined	—	uncited Report an error
Transfer impact assessment	Not determined	—	uncited Report an error

Questions about Vendure

Is Vendure European?

Not determined: the vendor’s pages as captured do not say where Vendure is based.

Where does Vendure store data?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 3 Nov 2026.

Does Vendure have a free plan?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 3 Nov 2026.

What are the best alternatives to Vendure?

As of 3 Nov 2026, the panel rates Shopify (3/5), Sylius (3/5) and OpenCart (3/5) highest among the other 27 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 OXID eSales (EU-Made). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made. The full list, with European products first: Vendure alternatives.

Where this could be wrong

Evidence ages. The oldest capture behind this page is from 3 Nov 2026. Vendors change pricing and policies without notice; every fact reflects its source as of the capture date shown in the registry.
Weak sourcing — Open source, Legal entity, Hosting options. Not confirmed on the vendor’s own pages as captured.
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.

11 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
4 legal 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
2 pricing 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 sovereignty dimensions could not be confirmed on the vendor’s own pages and are shown as unknown. Know more? Tell us

Do you know more about Vendure? Tell us Report an error on this page

Sources (15)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

1 Vendor page www.vendure.io Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
2 Legal notice — found from the homepage vendure.io Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
3 Privacy policy — found from the homepage vendure.io Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
4 Self-hosting / on-premises installation docs — found from the homepage vendure.io Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
5 Open-source licence page — found from the homepage vendure.io Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
6 Catalogue & checkout — found from sitemap docs.vendure.io Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
7 Catalogue & checkout — found from sitemap docs.vendure.io Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
8 Tax & German legal correctness — found from sitemap docs.vendure.io Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
9 Tax & German legal correctness — found from sitemap docs.vendure.io Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
10 Extensibility & developer surface — found from sitemap docs.vendure.io Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
11 Extensibility & developer surface — found from sitemap docs.vendure.io Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
12 Order operations & back office — found from sitemap docs.vendure.io Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
13 Order operations & back office — found from sitemap docs.vendure.io Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
14 Data ownership & exit — found from sitemap docs.vendure.io Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
15 Data ownership & exit — found from sitemap docs.vendure.io Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →