About Vendure
Vendure is a headless commerce platform, released as open source and written in TypeScript. Its backend uses Node.js, NestJS and GraphQL, and its admin dashboard is built with React and TanStack, so a team works in one language across the stack. It is plugin-first, so most behavior can be changed without forking the core.
One backend models catalog, orders, pricing, promotions and customers, and serves any frontend through a GraphQL API for D2C, B2B, marketplace and omnichannel scenarios. Built-in building blocks cover the catalog, orders, customers, promotions, sales channels, tax, shipping, payments and stock levels. Stable plugin contracts and service overrides allow custom entities, pricing logic and workflows. The introspectable GraphQL schema is described as straightforward to connect to LLM tool-calling, MCP servers and agent frameworks.
New projects are scaffolded with a command that sets up the server, admin dashboard and GraphQL API, and they require a current Node.js release (20.19 or 22.12) plus a SQL database such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB or SQLite. The repository lists the licence as Other, so check the licence terms before commercial use.
Key features
- Headless commerce with GraphQL API
- TypeScript, NestJS and Node.js backend
- React admin dashboard
- Plugin contracts and service overrides
- Catalog, orders, tax, shipping and payments
- Support for multiple sales channels
- PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB or SQLite
Good fit for
- →Custom D2C and B2B storefronts
- →Marketplace and omnichannel commerce
- →TypeScript teams building headless shops
- Tags
- ecommerce
- headless-commerce
- typescript
- nestjs
- graphql
- nodejs
- react
- online-store
Vendure: questions and answers
- What is Vendure used for?
- Vendure is a headless commerce platform written in TypeScript on NestJS and GraphQL, with a React admin dashboard and a plugin-first architecture, released as open source. It is a good fit for custom D2C and B2B storefronts, marketplace and omnichannel commerce, and TypeScript teams building headless shops.
- Is Vendure open source?
- Yes. Vendure is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at vendurehq/vendure and is written mainly in TypeScript.
- Is Vendure free?
- Yes. Vendure is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.
- Can I self-host Vendure?
- Yes. Vendure can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
- What is Vendure an alternative to?
- Vendure is an open-source alternative to commercetools, BigCommerce, Shopify and Adobe Commerce. Other open-source alternatives to commercetools include Medusa, Saleor and Spree Commerce.
- Is Vendure actively maintained?
- Yes. The most recent commit to Vendure was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v3.7.3, published on 2 September 2026. The project has 8.5k stars on GitHub.
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