Instead of Shopify

Hosted storefront, payments and fulfilment.

Partly

You can run the store. You cannot run the payments as easily, and Shopify's real product is everything around the checkout.

You lose: Payments, tax handling and a support line when checkout breaks on a Saturday.

Start here

Medusa

MITa projectactive

A commerce framework. You build the storefront and pick the payment provider.

github.com/medusajs/medusa medusajs.com

A cluster, mail deliverability, telephony, or a team.

Also worth a look

SaleorBSD-3-Clausea projectactive
GraphQL-first and serious. Same story: payments are external.
github.com/saleor/saleor saleor.io
WooCommerceGPL-2.0an eveningactive
Runs on WordPress, which you already know how to patch. Plugins are the risk.
github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce woocommerce.com

Facts checked 8 November 2026. Licences, activity and archive status come from each project's own repository; the verdict and the cost lines are the desk's.