Shopware

Shopware 6 answers two needs at once, a shopping cart that works out of the box and an ecommerce framework you build on when the requirements stop being standard. It is used by thousands of shops and supported by a worldwide community of developers, agencies and merchants.

The platform is primarily based on Symfony 7 and Vue.js 3, and it is API-first, so a custom storefront can talk to it without touching the default one. Installed as a vendor dependency in a Flex project, it behaves like any other Symfony package, which keeps the tooling and upgrade path familiar to a PHP team.

Building on top of it is well-trodden ground.

• Plugins: Symfony bundles loaded as part of the application, with the whole framework available to them.
• Apps: a lighter, modern way to add functionality, requiring very little Shopware-specific knowledge.
• Community store: more than 3,100 extensions are already published for shops that would rather install than build.
• Headless mode: the storefront is optional, so the platform can sit behind whatever front end a project needs.

For production, the recommended on-premise route is the Flex template, backed by a web-based installer, written instructions and a course, plus hosting partners who hand over a preinstalled shop. A managed cloud plan exists for anyone who wants none of that, and commercial plans add functionality to on-premise installs. The platform itself is free under the MIT license, and code contributions require signing a contributor license agreement.