GitHub

A hosted platform you rent, or a codebase you keep.

Shopify runs the infrastructure, the checkout, and the release schedule for you. Litestore gives you the same commerce surfaces as source code on your own database, so you take on the hosting in exchange for owning the system.

See pricingAll comparisons

Side by side.

A tick is a claim about this codebase; where the other product is stronger, its column says so. Prices change, so numbers stay out.

LitestoreShopify

Who runs it

You do, on Vercel, Docker, or your own server
They do, fully managed

Source code

The whole app, MIT licensed
Themes and apps only; the core is closed

Ongoing cost

Hosting and the services you plug in
Subscription, plus fees tied to plan and payment method

Checkout

Your components, your domain, editable end to end
Platform-owned; customisation is bounded

Data access

Direct SQL on your Postgres; dump it any time
Through their API and exports

Extending it

Edit the code, or add a module
Apps, most of them separately subscribed

Growth tooling

Creators, affiliates, referrals, campaigns, SEO, and ads are modules on one database
Usually separate apps, each with its own bill and dashboard

Storefront tech

Next.js 16, React 19, your components
Liquid themes or headless with their APIs

Which one to pick.

Choose Litestore when
  • Platform fees are becoming a real line item against your margin.
  • You keep hitting the edge of what the hosted checkout will let you change.
  • You want the customer and order data to sit in a database you can query directly.
  • Your growth stack is six app subscriptions that can't agree on what an order was worth.
Choose Shopify when
  • You want zero infrastructure responsibility — no database, no backups, no upgrades.
  • You need the app ecosystem for a niche capability you'd otherwise build.
  • Your team has no engineer who wants to own a Next.js codebase.

There is a Shopify Admin OAuth import for catalogs, and because the schema is plain Prisma, bulk moves are ordinary database work.

MIT licensed · self-hosted

Read the code before you decide.

Get the sourceMigrating from Shopify?