Is Medusa an Open-Source Shopify Alternative?

In this episode of the Rigby Podcast, Jacob Zbąski (CEO) and Greg Tomaka (CTO) talk about a question that comes up again and again: how Medusa and Shopify really compare?

Shopify and Medusa both support eCommerce basics like products, carts, and checkout. Still, they are built for very different types of businesses.

They also talk about real commerce projects: companies that outgrew Shopify over time, cases where Shopify and Medusa work together, gradual migrations instead of switching everything at once, and using Medusa to add marketplace features next to an existing store.

Watch other episodes where we're sharing internal discussions, lessons learned, and practical insights from years of building custom eCommerce and marketplace platforms.

Key insights

Jacob and Greg explain:

• How Shopify works as an all-in-one SaaS platform?
• How Medusa works as a framework for custom builds?
• Why deep customization on Shopify often leads to workarounds?
• How costs change when order volume grows in both platforms?
• What ownership of code and logic looks like in Medusa vs Shopify?

You can find the podcast transcription below.

Transcription

Jacob: Hello everyone and welcome to the second Rigby podcast. First of all, I would like to thank everyone for your feedback regarding our first episode. There were also some nice words, some things that we can improve. So yeah, we're really glad that you liked it in general and you can see, you can show us some room to improve it. And with me is Greg today as well.

Greg: Hey everyone, great to have you with us.

Jacob: And we would like to discuss a really interesting topic, I think, because back in 2025, I believe, if you were to look on the Medusa website, you could see this in H1, this banner, which was called the open-source Shopify alternative. And I believe that sometimes people still think of Medusa in such terms, and today we would like to discuss whether it's relevant, whether something has changed, and if it's not harmful for both of the environments to compare them.

Greg: Great topic to discuss, actually. This topic is coming back all the time. So I see it in real conversations with our clients, and yeah, hopefully we will help them make this choice easier.

Jacob: Definitely, definitely. So Greg, maybe we can start with you. What do you think in general if you were to compare those two platforms?

Greg: Yeah, so let me start with what you mentioned that I remember these days: when you opened the Medusa website, there was this headline, "Open Source Shopify," and I think it was great at the time because no one knew about Medusa in the early days, so it was the easiest to explain, like, "That's the platform. What are their ambitions behind this product?" So I think at that time it was actually great, especially for investors. But today Medusa has evolved. So saying that open-source Shopify does more harm than good, in my opinion. And why is that? Because for me it would suggest like a simple choice between something paid or versus free, right? Because it's the same one as open source, the second is just paid. SaaS solution, so like, the choice should be simple, right? I prefer this free version, but I don't think it's valid anymore because Shopify is like an all-in-one platform, and Medusa is something like a tool that allows you to build what you want, so I can compare it to an all-in-one Swiss army knife compared to high-quality raw steel. So maybe it's not the best analogy, but you got my point that Shopify is like this: still, you can build your own knife, which is optimized for a specific purpose, like a knife for sushi. So Medusa here is the tool framework which allows you to build product for a specific purpose. It's not like for everything at once, but for this unique needs might be the best positioning on the website is much better, much more accurate. That is the most flexible eCommerce platform. I think that's a good start here to give our listeners an overview about what the differences are between these two platforms.

Jacob: Yeah, I fully agree. However, to be, like, you know, totally transparent, maybe we should get a little bit beforehand and also think about what are, like, the common parts for both platforms because both of them are eCommerce platforms, right? Both of them have some core features like, you know, add to cart, checkout, customers, et cetera, et cetera. And both of them are headless. So if you would like to plug in, I don't know, some front end like a website or some mobile application, it's possible for both of them. Both of them have plugins and it's great. However, the amount of the plugins on Shopify, it's a little bit bigger to say the least. It's much bigger actually, if you compare it to Medusa. However, those that are on Medusa are easier to customize, right? Because often there is, this code is open source as well, and you can modify it or align it to your needs. If you go with some plugin for Shopify, often it's already packaged over there, and reverse engineering it is quite hard to, like, you know, change some behavior of that given feature or anything like that. And both of them are inclined to developer. If you would like to maybe tweak Shopify a little bit, it's possible. Obviously if you'd like to change the Medusa however you want, it's also possible. But if you're a little bit tech savvy, I think that it's quite possible to make some changes on both of those platforms.

Greg: Yeah, there are similarities, of course. Both are for eCommerce, so like eCommerce journeys, user journeys in eCommerce are in general similar, so there are products, there are orders, inventory, etc. However, I think this platform works on completely different levels. Honestly, I think we could say that we can build with Medusa Shopify, our own Shopify. Why not? It can be like our own SaaS solution. So it shows that Medusa is one level deeper, right? And someone can say he can build in Shopify the same complex logic like in Medusa, but for sure it will be more hacky with workarounds. But of course, there might be some magicians like that, and I respect that. However, I think that if you want to invest in custom development. So we need to ask ourselves, does it actually make sense to be still on Shopify? Because you can pay a lot for custom development for many, a hundred hours or even more. But at the end, you will still be on a SaaS platform where you need to pay for subscriptions, for transaction fees and other small payments because of plugins, et cetera. So it depends on your needs. If you want simple store Shopify will be great, but if you need customizations, then Medusa might be the best choice for you.

Jacob: Yeah, definitely. I would compare it to building your own house on someone else's field. So it's not really the best approach. And also, if we are talking about this whole business side, we need to think about that because obviously the time to market on Shopify is quicker. You can spin up in a couple of hours a pretty working shop. So definitely that's the plus for Shopify. However, this intellectual property, if you decided to customize it, everything what you do in Medusa, it's fully yours. The code will be yours. You are the owner of the whole intellectual property. However, on the Shopify, everything what you are doing, you are building on someone else's garden and it's not like the best approach. if you think about, for example, maybe selling your product or anything like that. you need to have it in mind that it's not fully yours like to discuss about the total cost of ownership because often when people are thinking about it, they are thinking about implementation, hosting, maintenance. And true, Medusa will be more expensive here. However, we also need to remember about the transaction fees. And that's a crucial point for a lot of businesses, especially if the margin is quite small. And we have this great example that if you go with Shopify, you need to pay the transaction fee and it can grow hugely. We had this one lead back in a couple of months ago or something like that. It had like 200,000 annually orders with average order value between 600 to 700 euros. and they paid like 0.4% per transaction, only the fee to the Shopify. And it translates annually to 560,000 euros. So, you know, it's a lot. And if you compare that, you can build at least maybe two projects on Medusa with that budget.

Greg: Yeah, this cost can be really high in the case of large-scale projects. So I think you mentioned really good points here about this commercial side of Shopify versus Medusa. So I would summarize these points that from commercial and technical sides, that's actually two completely opposite worlds, right?

Jacob: Yeah, exactly. Maybe we should think about it, whether those solutions should be even compared, whether they should fight for that given customer, or maybe they're talking in some different niches.

Greg: In general, I would say no. I think that Medusa and Shopify are simply better suited for different types of projects. So Shopify is good for retailers and B2C projects, where these companies want to focus more on branding and marketing. to worry about technology. and they don't feel that technology actually is their competitive advantage. They just need it because it's a tool to sell online, but they have other important factors that make their companies unique and win the market. So, on the other hand, Medusa is for businesses that win through technology. So it's a completely different game. It allows you to build custom cases, which is not possible to build from something out of the box. Maybe you can customize Shopify a lot to achieve it, but as we discussed, it may not make any sense to do this. So yeah, two different types of projects. Maybe there are some small, like common parts, but usually we can easily differentiate which, if the projects use Medusa or not.

Jacob: So if I get you right, the choice between Medusa and Shopify kind of depends on the customer because the different customers suit Shopify and the different customers suit Medusa. Am I correct?

Greg: Yeah, you're mainly correct. Sometimes there might be cases of companies who just need to be on a completely different stage of their business. Shopify was great for them at the beginning, but now because they grew a lot and they have large scale, they see new needs for customization and an example today. So for such a client it might be a good idea to migrate.

Jacob: I get you. And sometimes if we get the request from some customer or potential customer, we are declining that given project because we think that it might be more suitable for Shopify. What are those factors that we think that, hey, maybe Medusa is not for you?

Greg: Yeah, definitely this strategy of their business. Like, do they want to win through technology, or do they want to focus more on marketing and branding and other tools to win the market but not worry too much about technology? So that's for these types of companies for sure. For typical simple retail companies or when you don't have a scale. Usually it doesn't make sense to build a custom solution when you are starting. or when you do not really see a strong need for customization.

Jacob: Yeah, maybe I'll add it on top of that if, like, the online business is like a side hustle for you. So maybe you have some offline stream, which is going great, and you want to just check if the online would be like an additional leg with, let's say, your business. So that would be the one case, and maybe the other, if you are not really a technical person or you don't have anyone technical near you, and maybe Medusa wouldn't be, like, the best approach to go with. However, we would recommend the Medusa.

Greg: In opposite cases, like when you need full ownership and technology and you want it to be your competitive advantage, not just an implementation detail. When you are aware of building custom solutions and where your business model is really unique and you know that it's only way to be online to build your custom product.

Jacob: Also, it's worth having someone on board with some technical competencies, like a full-stack developer or someone who feels confident coding with some Bloom AI, like the Medusa tool for some vibe coding or eCommerce vibe coding or also some other tool. So that's also worth having someone on board. However, maybe it's worth.

Greg: And when you are in partnership with Rigby. But we need to remember there are also cases where these solutions can cooperate, right? Can complement each other. And yeah, in those situations using both Shopify and Medusa sometimes using them at the same time can make a lot of sense, right?

Jacob: Okay, so I believe that now we have lost our audience, and you need to, like, really explain how it may work and why it even may work like this.

Greg: So few examples. First one is when you migrate your product and sometimes you are happy with fulfillment on Shopify site and you want to just move some elements of your eCommerce outside and then Medusa might add these new elements there. So we've had these cases; we've had cases like this, but usually it was a temporary approach. So it was like easier version of migration, not with Big Bang that one day you switch everything from Shopify to Medusa, But we recommended to these clients to migrate their products step by step. So it was marketplace might be also an example, right?

Jacob: Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, often we get those requests when someone would like to expand with their Shopify to go with the marketplace. However, they don't feel fully confident to switch from Shopify fully to Medusa or the marketplace. And what we created is like this connector, right? That you can take your Shopify store at the Mercur or Medusa open-source marketplace platform and put it next to your Shopify and integrate it together. And you will still have the possibilities from the Shopify and the Shopify will still be working as it was. But now this platform is extended with the marketplace features. So you have the vendors, you have the split orders, you have the split payments. So everything is there in combined ecosystem.

Greg: Yeah, that's what I meant. Really great example. Also, sometimes when we have a standalone marketplace, we want to allow our vendors to connect to their own stores. So it might also be integration with Shopify. We have it in Mercur, in Mercur Connect. It allows to supply products from Shopify to Mercur Marketplace.

Jacob: So like if I were a marketplace owner or marketplace operator, I can have my store on both Shopify plus Mercur or only Mercur. And then my vendors can be the other platforms, their platforms, which are on the Shopify, if I get you right.

Greg: Yeah, exactly. it's just easier approach because it allows vendor to manage their store just from one place. It might be Shopify or the vendor panel in Mercur.

Jacob: Yeah, 100%. Okay, so that's a cool thing. And maybe we can talk a little bit about this migration thing, because you mentioned that a little bit. However, from our experience, we know that the migration process is huge and really needs to be thought process. a little bit more on the whole migration.

Greg: I mean, yeah, I can add something here, but if you want to discuss the whole migration process, I think it needs a new episode dedicated to this topic. But when you think about migration, first you need to assess if it's really needed. Sometimes when we talk with our potential clients, they are excited about Medusa because read Medusa website and they think it's great. But, and they think about the cost, they see, okay, it's free, it makes sense. But there is much more to take into account to decide if migration makes sense. So we need to assess if you actually really outgrown SaaS solution. If you have a need for customizations, if you want to switch your strategy to a technology-focused strategy, or if you need full ownership because, I don't know, you want to acquire investors and you want to distribute your real asset in your company. So there might be different reasons why to migrate, but you need to really define what your goal is. And if this goal really needs migration to an open-source solution like Medusa, then that's the first thing, and if the answer is yes, the next step is to prepare migration properly. So I like to spend more time on this stage because I think it's crucial when you map everything exactly like all integrations, plugins, all logic that currently is in your platform then you will minimize risk and you will eliminate costly surprises. And when you have it mapped, you need to think how to rebuild it in Medusa. There might be some challenges because not everything you have in Shopify, you can really rebuild it in Medusa. What I meant here is that you need to sometimes find alternative tool because some plugins and it's often actually plugins for Shopify are dedicated only for Shopify so you need to really plan well how each part of the logic will be migrated in Medusa and then when you have a good plan you can start execution So it's a simplified description

Jacob: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Also, you know, this data migration and cleaning up the data and making sure that every like, you know, fits other appropriate field to Medusa. It's like really crucial. And we need to also remember about the SEO, right? Because often it is forgotten that maybe those links can work in such a way. Maybe the heading should be this or this. And it can be like really costly because if you have some traffic, it may drop because of the SEO. So it's really good to have someone who is an expert in that field and who can guide you through the whole process, not with some big bang approach and pray that everything will work since the release of the new version of the platform. So yeah, that's also the crucial part. Cool. So maybe to conclude a little bit. Answering the main question, what do you think, Greg? Is Medusa the Shopify open-source alternative or not really?

Greg: Not really. It's a different approach for eCommerce when you have, like, full power to change everything and build as you want, but it's a completely different paradigm. You need to be aware of how to build a custom solution. You need to have a plan to build it all the time. Actually, you need to have a roadmap and update it because that's the point of having open-source technology. to constantly build it as you want. You do not wait for the SaaS roadmap. You build it on your own.

Jacob: Yeah, totally agree. So thanks for today's conversation. Thank you to everyone who's listening to us. In the next episode, there will be some changes; mainly, I won't be here, but Greg will be conducting some interviews. But yeah, you will know a little bit more in some thumbnail or some, you know, coming soon videos and next. So thank you very much, Greg, for the conversation.

Greg: Thank you, see you soon.

Jacob: See ya, bye-bye.