Open-source Gumroad alternatives

WooCommerce is a customizable ecommerce platform that runs on WordPress, written mainly in PHP. The GitHub repository is a monorepo with the plugins, packages and tooling for developing the core WooCommerce plugin together with its extensions, so it is where the project's code, issues and development discussions live.

Developers working on it need Node.js, PNPM, PHP 7.4 or higher and Composer, and a POSIX-compliant operating system is assumed, with WSL recommended on Windows. The project maintains a development blog and a developer account on X for updates, and the topics reference React, since parts of its admin interface use it.

Because it is built on WordPress, merchants typically run WooCommerce on their own hosting, adding products, payments and shipping through extensions. The repository lists the license as Other, so check the licence terms in the repository. It suits small and mid-sized shops, agencies and developers who already work in the WordPress ecosystem.

Polar is an open-source billing platform aimed at AI startups and other software businesses that need to charge for tokens, agents and compute without building billing infrastructure themselves. It positions itself as the financial layer for intelligent software and acts as the merchant of record.

It supports many pricing models, including usage billing, subscriptions, seats, credits, trials and discounts, which can be combined. Metering can track tokens, API calls, agent runs, GPU seconds and storage at the level of individual events. Checkouts, real-time metrics and worldwide tax handling are included, and as merchant of record Polar takes on receipts, customer accounts, dunning, sales tax and VAT.

Polar is built with Python and FastAPI on the backend and Next.js, React and TypeScript on the frontend, in a Turborepo monorepo, and is licensed under Apache-2.0. An API and SDKs let you integrate it into docs, sites and services. Pricing is per transaction, and an application-based Startup Program is available for eligible startups.

Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is a WordPress plugin for selling digital downloads. Its authors argue that the large WordPress e-commerce plugins have never handled digital goods well, so EDD concentrates on the features sellers actually need rather than every possible option, and aims to make selling downloads easy and complete.

Installed into an existing WordPress site, it adds a store for digital products with payment support, with Stripe among the topics listed by the repository. The codebase has build scripts that prepare installable packages, translations can be contributed in other languages, and the repository serves as a developer portal while customer support is handled through the vendor's support page.

EDD is written in PHP and released under the GPL-2.0 license. Because it runs inside WordPress, you host it with your own WordPress hosting. Documentation, extensions and support are provided on easydigitaldownloads.com, and contributors can raise issues or send pull requests on GitHub.

Paid Memberships Pro is a membership plugin for WordPress that lets a site owner define membership levels, charge for them and control who can see which content. It is aimed at premium content sites, clubs and associations, subscription products and newsletters.

Visitors choose a level, complete checkout and become members straight away. Members can log in, look at their payment history, update billing details or cancel from the site itself. Recurring subscriptions are processed through gateways such as Stripe and PayPal, and the site owner decides what each level unlocks.

The project is fully open source under the GPL and runs inside your own WordPress installation, so you keep control of your data and hosting. Its documentation also links to guides comparing WordPress plugins with hosted SaaS membership platforms such as Kajabi and Podia, which is the decision many site owners weigh before adopting it.