The Merchant Engine compared with Vendure
The closest neighbour on this list: both are TypeScript, both are built on NestJS, and both can be run on your own server. Vendure is headless and GraphQL, with storefront starters you build on and a plugin ecosystem behind it. The Merchant Engine is REST, ships the storefront and the admin in the same install, and puts three languages, right-to-left and cash on delivery in the box.
What Vendure does better
Vendure has been public since 2018, its core is GPLv3, and its plugin system and B2B feature set are more mature than anything here. If your team prefers GraphQL, or you need the B2B modelling Vendure is built around, it is the better tool and this page will not argue otherwise.
Row by row
Every claim about Vendure 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 | Vendure | The Merchant Engine |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A headless commerce platform: the API is the product and the frontend is yours. “Vendure gives you one adaptable, headless ecommerce platform to build the buying experience your customers expect” Source: vendure.io | 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, built with NestJS, with a React admin. “Open-source headless commerce platform built with TypeScript, NestJS, React, and GraphQL” Source: github.com | 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 | GraphQL is the API layer. “built with TypeScript, NestJS, React, and GraphQL” Source: github.com | 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, now a React dashboard that replaces the older Angular admin UI. “The Angular-based Admin UI has been replaced by the new React Admin Dashboard.” Source: docs.vendure.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 | Not bundled. Two officially supported starters, TanStack Start and Next.js, described as a foundation you customize. “Both provide a production-ready foundation that you can customize for your store.” Source: docs.vendure.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 | One scaffolding command that configures the server and provisions a database. “This is the fastest way to get a Vendure server up and running and will handle all the configuration for you.” Source: docs.vendure.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 | Dual licensed: GPLv3 as the Community Edition, or a paid Vendure Commercial Licence. “GNU General Public License version 3 (GPLv3) as Vendure Community Edition * Vendure Commercial License (VCL)” 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 free under GPLv3, or Vendure Cloud managed for you. “Vendure Core is free under GPLv3 for developers building and operating a custom ecommerce application.” Source: vendure.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 | Plugins, published as npm packages, are the central mechanism. “The heart of Vendure is its plugin system.” Source: docs.vendure.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, Braintree and Mollie plugins exist and are documented, published under the community scope. “npm install @vendure-community/stripe-plugin stripe” Source: docs.vendure.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 | No dedicated cash-on-delivery plugin. The docs describe payment on delivery as a pattern you implement in a payment method handler. “if providing a 'payment on delivery' option, the authorization step would occur on checkout, and the settlement step would be triggered upon delivery” Source: docs.vendure.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 | Multi-language content is built in, with no third-party translation service required. “Vendure has built-in support for multi-language content, allowing you to serve a fully localized storefront” Source: docs.vendure.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 language guide or the other official pages read on this date. That is not the same as unsupported: a storefront you build yourself can of course mirror. Searched, not stated: docs.vendure.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 | A database it provisions for you: PostgreSQL through Docker when Docker is there, SQLite when it is not. “If you have Docker Desktop installed, it will create and configure a Postgres database for you, otherwise it will use SQLite.” Source: docs.vendure.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 | On major version 3, at v3.7.3 when this page was read. No official page states a first-release date. “v3.7.3 Latest” 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 Vendure when
- You want GraphQL, and a schema your frontend can introspect and extend.
- You are modelling B2B commerce, which Vendure builds around explicitly.
- You want a plugin ecosystem and a longer track record than a first release.
- GPLv3 with an optional commercial licence fits your company's policy.
Pick The Merchant Engine when
- You want the storefront and the admin installed together rather than a starter to build on.
- REST with a generated OpenAPI document per audience suits your team better than GraphQL.
- The store serves Arabic, and the pages have to mirror without you building that yourself.
- Cash on delivery has to work out of the box, not as a payment handler you write.
Questions
Both are NestJS. Is this a Vendure fork?
No. Shared framework, different codebase and a different shape: Vendure is a GraphQL headless platform, this is a REST platform that ships its own admin and storefront.
Does Vendure ship a storefront?
It supports two storefront starters, TanStack Start and Next.js, which its docs call a production-ready foundation you customize. They are separate projects from the server.
Which has the better licence for an agency?
It depends on what you build. Vendure's core is GPLv3, which is free but copyleft. This engine is source available under PolyForm Noncommercial, with a yearly commercial licence sized by the number of paid stores, so an agency licenses once and installs per client.
Can I use Vendure with an Arabic storefront?
Nothing stops you: you build the storefront, so you control direction. The difference is that here the mirroring, the locale prefix and the Arabic catalogue come with the shipped storefront.
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.