The Merchant Engine compared with EverShop
The nearest thing to a like-for-like on this list. Both are Node and TypeScript, both are modular monoliths rather than headless cores, both ship an admin and a storefront in the same install, and both ship cash on delivery. The differences are the licence, the languages, right to left, and how far the installer goes on a real server.
What EverShop does better
EverShop is GPL-3.0 with no commercial tier, ships Stripe and PayPal as core modules where this engine ships neither, and scaffolds a running store with a single npx command. If you want a free licence with card payments already wired, EverShop gets you there faster.
Row by row
Every claim about EverShop was read from its own documentation on 2026-09-09 and carries the page it came from. Every claim about The Merchant Engine links the documentation page that proves it. If a row is wrong, it is a bug: write to bbadii@pm.me and it gets corrected.
| Criterion | EverShop | The Merchant Engine |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A TypeScript-first ecommerce platform built with GraphQL and React. “EverShop is a modern, TypeScript-first eCommerce platform built with GraphQL and React.” Source: github.com | A self-hosted ecommerce platform: a REST API, an admin dashboard and a server-rendered storefront, installed together on your own server with one command. Read the page that proves it |
| Language and runtime | TypeScript on Node 20 or newer. “Required Version: Node.js 20.x or higher” Source: evershop.io | TypeScript on Node. NestJS and Prisma for the API, Angular for the admin, Analog.js for the storefront. Read the page that proves it |
| API | Both GraphQL and REST endpoints, in a modular monolith. “EverShop provides both GraphQL and RESTful endpoints.” Source: evershop.io | REST, one versioned surface under /v1, split by audience into a storefront and an admin OpenAPI document that are generated from the code, never hand-written. Read the page that proves it |
| Admin dashboard | Included in the core product, and documented as extensible. “designed to be extensible and customizable” Source: evershop.io | Included and installed with everything else. Angular, role-based permissions on every endpoint, light and dark, and one editing tab per locale on every text field. Read the page that proves it |
| Storefront | Included in the same install, customized through a theme system. “with highly extensible themes being the central customization mechanism” Source: evershop.io | Included and installed with everything else, server-rendered, and branded from the store configuration rather than forked: colours, fonts, logo, locales and money come from the database. Read the page that proves it |
| Install path | A single command scaffolds a running store, with a Docker Compose path as an alternative. “npx create-evershop-app my-evershop-app” Source: evershop.io | One command. ./setup.sh asks for the store’s values, verifies each third-party integration live, builds the images, creates the database, issues the certificates and creates the owner account. Read the page that proves it |
| License | GPL-3.0 for the whole product, with no separate commercial tier in the licence file. “GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 3, 29 June 2007” Source: raw.githubusercontent.com | Source available: PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0, free for personal, educational, research and nonprofit stores. A store that takes money buys a yearly commercial license in one of four tiers. Read the page that proves it |
| Hosting model | Self-hosted today. A cloud offering is announced as coming. “Coming soon! Discover optimized cloud modules designed to boost performance” Source: evershop.io | Self-hosted only. There is no vendor cloud, no hosted tier and nothing to sign up for; the install runs on your box and the licence check is an offline signed file. Read the page that proves it |
| Extension model | Extensions and themes, through hooks, processors, events and middleware. “Extensions and themes are the primary customization units in EverShop.” Source: evershop.io | You own the checkout: it is a modular monolith you change in place, with a documented recipe per kind of change and the gates that keep the change honest. Read the page that proves it |
| Payment providers | Stripe, PayPal and cash on delivery are all core. The payment-method API returns all three from a default install. “{ "code": "stripe", "name": "Credit Card" }” Source: evershop.io | Cash on delivery, manual bank transfer and gift cards ship and work. No card gateway ships in the first release; the payments module has the seams and a recipe for adding one. Read the page that proves it |
| Cash on delivery | Shipped as a core payment module, returned by the payment method API. “{ "code": "cod", "name": "Cash On Delivery" }” Source: evershop.io | Shipped. A payment method row the store owner switches on, published by the public checkout endpoint with its translated name, and snapshotted onto the order. Read the page that proves it |
| Content languages | A dictionary-based translation system with locale directories per language. “Each subdirectory is named with the locale code it translates.” Source: evershop.io | French, English and Arabic catalogues ship. A store enables the ones it serves and picks a default; every user-facing field holds one value per locale in one database. Read the page that proves it |
| Right to left | Right to left is not mentioned on the translation guide read on this date. Searched, not stated: evershop.io | The storefront mirrors: the store configuration names the RTL locales and the pages set dir and lang per locale. The admin edits Arabic in a right-to-left tab, but its own interface is English and is not mirrored. Read the page that proves it |
| Infrastructure | PostgreSQL 13 or newer, and a persistent server process; serverless is explicitly unsupported. “EverShop requires persistent server processes and is incompatible with serverless platforms.” Source: evershop.io | PostgreSQL and Redis, in Docker, on one Linux box. The installer sets both up; a second box for the storefront is optional. Read the page that proves it |
| Maturity | Version 1.0.0 was published in January 2024; the current major version is 2. “v1.0.0” Source: github.com | The youngest product on this page, and the page says so: the first public release is not tagged yet. What stands in for a version history is the gate set every push runs, published rather than described. Read the page that proves it |
Which one to pick
Pick EverShop when
- You want a GPL-3.0 licence with no commercial fee at any number of stores.
- You want Stripe and PayPal wired on day one rather than a recipe for adding a provider.
- A single npx command to a running store on your laptop is the whole requirement.
Pick The Merchant Engine when
- The store has to serve Arabic or French alongside English, with the pages mirrored for Arabic.
- You are installing on a client's server, and want the installer to verify the mail, storage and captcha integrations live, issue the certificates and create the owner account.
- You want the storefront branded from the store settings rather than by editing a theme per client.
- You want a documented recipe and a test gate for each kind of change you will make.
Questions
Both ship cash on delivery. What is different?
Not much at the checkout itself. The difference is around it: the tender name is translatable per locale here, it is snapshotted onto the order in the locale it was placed in, and the order creation carries an idempotency key.
EverShop is free. Why would I pay for this?
Because of what is in the box for the market this engine targets: three languages with right to left, money formatting including three-decimal currencies, an installer that provisions a real server end to end, and a documented storefront contract for building your own frontend.
Which is more mature?
EverShop. It reached 1.0 in January 2024 and is on version 2. This engine has not tagged its first public release yet.
See it for yourself
The fastest check on any row above is to run the thing: install it locally in one command, or read what an install puts on a box. The other comparisons are on the compare index.
Last updated . Every claim on this page is read from a published source and cited beside it.