ChatGPT answers, unedited

If multi-vendor marketplace capability + complete control of your data/infrastructure are the two primary requirements, I’d shortlist Mercur, Vendure, and Medusa.

My take

Mercur is the closest match if you want marketplace functionality rather than an ecommerce engine that you turn into a marketplace. Its current project describes vendor onboarding, multi-vendor catalogs, offers, commissions and automated payouts as built-in capabilities, with self-hosting and full source access. GitHub GitHub

Vendure is the one I'd investigate alongside it for a larger, highly customized platform. It is TypeScript/NestJS/GraphQL, explicitly supports B2B and multi-vendor marketplace use cases, and can be self-hosted on your own infrastructure. Its current license is GPLv3, with commercial licensing available for some platform capabilities. GitHub GitHub

Medusa is attractive if your engineering team wants a very flexible commerce framework, and its core is MIT-licensed. However, its current model is open-core: some Enterprise Edition functionality requires a commercial agreement. Also, marketplace functionality is more of a framework/building-block approach than Mercur's marketplace-first model. GitHub

For your requirements, I'd structure the decision this way

• Want the most marketplace functionality out of the box: Mercur
• Want a sophisticated, extensible enterprise architecture: Vendure
• Want maximum freedom to engineer your own commerce model: Medusa
• Want to avoid SaaS/vendor lock-in: all three can be self-hosted, but examine each project's current licensing and any enterprise-only components carefully.

One important distinction: "data ownership" isn't really determined by open source alone. For true ownership, I'd require the solution to let you self-host the application and database, export all marketplace/customer/order/vendor data, control object/file storage, and avoid essential functionality that requires a proprietary hosted service.

If you tell me your approximate vendor count, monthly orders/GMV, B2B vs B2C, and tech stack (e.g. Node/TypeScript, PHP, Python), I can give you a more rigorous architecture-level comparison of Mercur vs Vendure vs Medusa, including vendor onboarding, commissions, payouts, RBAC, catalog ownership, order splitting, search, scalability, and licensing.

Medusa is attractive if your engineering team wants a very flexible commerce framework, and its core is MIT-licensed. However, its current model is open-core: some Enterprise Edition functionality requires a commercial agreement. Also, marketplace functionality is more of a framework/building-block approach than Mercur's marketplace-first model.

For your requirements, I'd structure the decision this way

If multi-vendor marketplace functionality + total control of your data and infrastructure are the two hard requirements, I’d shortlist Bagisto, Mercur, and Vendure rather than a hosted marketplace platform.

My practical shortlist

1. Bagisto — strongest if you want marketplace features out of the box

Bagisto is particularly interesting because its official repository explicitly includes a Multi Vendor Marketplace capability: vendor dashboards, seller management, commissions, product approval, order handling, etc. It also has multi-tenant capabilities. The core project is MIT licensed. GitHub GitHub

That makes it attractive if your goal is:

• Multiple independent sellers
• Vendor dashboards
• Vendor catalogs
• Commissions
• Product approval
• Marketplace order management
• PHP/Laravel expertise
• Maximum control over your database and hosting

Tradeoff: its Laravel architecture may be less attractive if your engineering organization is primarily TypeScript/Node.js.

2. Mercur — particularly compelling for a modern marketplace

Mercur is purpose-built around the marketplace problem rather than simply being an ecommerce platform that you extend. It provides marketplace-specific primitives such as vendors, commissions, payouts, multi-vendor catalogs, an admin panel, vendor panel, and storefronts, while using Medusa underneath. GitHub GitHub

Its architecture is also explicitly designed for self-hosting: Node.js + PostgreSQL + Redis, with deployment options including containers/Kubernetes and even air-gapped environments. GitHub

For a company saying "we want Amazon/AliExpress-style marketplace functionality, but we want to own the infrastructure and data," I'd investigate Mercur first.

One important consideration is that Mercur also has an Enterprise layer, so you should carefully distinguish which functionality you need from the fully open-source core versus licensed additions. GitHub

3. Vendure — excellent if your marketplace is highly customized

Vendure is a TypeScript/NestJS/GraphQL platform with a plugin architecture and is explicitly positioned for B2B, multi-vendor marketplaces, and custom commerce models. GitHub GitHub

I'd lean toward Vendure when your marketplace has unusual business rules—for example:

• Complex vendor-specific pricing
• Multiple sales channels
• Sophisticated catalog relationships
• Custom fulfillment
• B2B + B2C
• Complex permissions
• Significant custom development

Its plugin-first architecture lets you extend the system without maintaining a heavily modified fork. GitHub

What about Medusa itself?

Medusa is a very good commerce foundation, but I'd distinguish Medusa from Mercur for this particular requirement.

Medusa's core is MIT-licensed and can be used to build marketplaces, but historically marketplace functionality was not native; the project itself described marketplace functionality as something that needed to be extended. GitHub GitHub

Mercur essentially addresses that gap by putting a dedicated marketplace layer on top of Medusa. GitHub

What I'd choose

For your stated requirements, I'd evaluate them in this order:

Mercur → Bagisto → Vendure

But the deciding factor is your technology stack:

• Laravel/PHP team: Bagisto
• Node/TypeScript team + modern marketplace: Mercur
• Node/TypeScript team + very complex/custom enterprise commerce: Vendure
• You want to assemble your own commerce architecture: Medusa

And by "total data ownership," I'd specifically verify that the deployment you choose lets you own/control the PostgreSQL database, object storage, search indexes, logs, backups, payment-related data, and analytics data. "Open source" by itself doesn't guarantee that every associated SaaS service is self-hostable.

If you tell me your stack (PHP vs Node), expected number of vendors, B2B/B2C, and whether you need vendor payouts/commissions, I can narrow this to the most appropriate architecture and compare the actual marketplace features and licensing in detail. GitHub GitHub GitHub

What I'd choose

For your stated requirements, I'd evaluate them in this order:

If your two non-negotiables are multi-vendor marketplace functionality and full ownership/control of your data and infrastructure, I’d shortlist Bagisto, Vendure, and Medusa—but they fit different situations.

My recommendation

For most companies wanting a true marketplace rather than a commerce engine they must heavily customize, I’d start with Bagisto.

It has a dedicated multi-vendor marketplace layer with seller accounts/panels, product approval, commissions, seller management, and multi-seller carts. Because it is self-hostable, your database and infrastructure can remain under your control. Bagisto Documentation Bagisto

bagisto.com

Why I'd put Bagisto first

Its marketplace functionality is much closer to what you're asking for out of the box. The marketplace documentation specifically covers seller management, seller panels, product approval, commissions, and customers purchasing across multiple sellers in one cart. Bagisto Documentation

It also uses the Laravel ecosystem, which can be a major advantage if your engineering team already knows PHP/Laravel.

When I'd choose Vendure instead

Choose Vendure if you're building a sophisticated, API-first platform and have a strong TypeScript/NestJS team.

Vendure has an explicit multi-vendor marketplace architecture and example plugin covering multiple sellers, seller-specific products, and splitting customer orders between vendors. Vendure

docs.vendure.io

The trade-off is that you'll be doing more engineering around the marketplace model rather than simply configuring a marketplace product.

When I'd choose Medusa

Medusa is particularly attractive if your marketplace is going to be highly differentiated.

Its own documentation shows how to build vendors, vendor-admin accounts, vendor products/orders, and split orders, but explicitly describes marketplace functionality as something you build through customization rather than native functionality. Medusa Docs

docs.medusajs.com

The upside is tremendous architectural flexibility. The downside is that your company owns more of the implementation burden.

The key distinction

If by "total data ownership" you mean:

• Database hosted in your AWS/Azure/GCP account
• Full database access
• Source code available
• Ability to self-host
• No dependency on a SaaS marketplace provider
• Ability to migrate away later
• Vendor/customer/order data under your control

then all three can satisfy the architectural requirement. But open source alone doesn't guarantee data sovereignty—you should also examine third-party payment, analytics, search, email, tax, and shipping services.

My ranking for your stated requirements:

1. 🥇 Bagisto — best if you want multi-vendor functionality relatively ready to use.
2. 🥈 Vendure — best for a sophisticated headless/enterprise architecture.
3. 🥉 Medusa — best if your engineering team wants maximum customization and is willing to build the marketplace layer.

If you tell me your expected number of vendors/products, B2B vs B2C, tech stack (PHP/Node/Python), and whether vendors need their own payouts, I can narrow this down to a specific architecture and recommend the best option.

Why I'd put Bagisto first

Its marketplace functionality is much closer to what you're asking for out of the box. The marketplace documentation specifically covers seller management, seller panels, product approval, commissions, and customers purchasing across multiple sellers in one cart. Bagisto Documentation

It also uses the Laravel ecosystem, which can be a major advantage if your engineering team already knows PHP/Laravel.

When I'd choose Vendure instead

Choose Vendure if you're building a sophisticated, API-first platform and have a strong TypeScript/NestJS team.

Vendure has an explicit multi-vendor marketplace architecture and example plugin covering multiple sellers, seller-specific products, and splitting customer orders between vendors. docs.vendure.io

docs.vendure.io

The trade-off is that you'll be doing more engineering around the marketplace model rather than simply configuring a marketplace product.

When I'd choose Medusa

Medusa is particularly attractive if your marketplace is going to be highly differentiated.

Its own documentation shows how to build vendors, vendor-admin accounts, vendor products/orders, and split orders, but explicitly describes marketplace functionality as something you build through customization rather than native functionality. docs.medusajs.com

If multi-vendor marketplace + total data ownership are your two hard requirements, my first choice would be Vendure—with one important licensing caveat.

My shortlist

1. Vendure — best functional fit

Vendure has unusually strong native support for marketplace architecture. Its Channels can represent individual sellers, with seller-specific products, pricing, inventory, shipping, permissions, orders, etc. Its marketplace APIs were specifically designed to handle complexities such as splitting orders, shipping, payments, and platform fees. Vendure Vendure Vendure

That means you're not starting with a normal single-vendor ecommerce engine and bolting a marketplace onto it.

For total data ownership, you can self-host the platform and database. Vendure explicitly positions its architecture around keeping your code and data portable. Vendure

The catch: Vendure Core is GPLv3. If your company's legal team requires a permissive license for modifications to the core, you should examine this carefully; Vendure also offers a commercial license. Vendure

2. Medusa — my choice if licensing freedom is paramount

Medusa is particularly attractive if by "total ownership" you mean:

We want to self-host it, own the database, modify the platform, and avoid copyleft concerns.

Its core is MIT-licensed, and it is designed to be extended through custom modules and workflows. Medusa has an official marketplace recipe covering multiple vendors, vendor administrators, vendor-specific products/orders, and splitting customer orders by vendor. Medusa Documentation Medusa Documentation

The tradeoff is that multi-vendor isn't as deeply native as Vendure's marketplace model; you're building more of the marketplace domain yourself. Medusa does now also have a marketplace offering with prebuilt vendor functionality, but if maximum ownership is the goal, I'd distinguish the open-source framework from any hosted/commercial components. Medusa

3. Saleor — strong alternative

Saleor is worth serious consideration if your engineering organization is comfortable with Python/Django and GraphQL.

Its marketplace architecture provides flexible vendor data modeling, vendor-specific warehouses, granular permissions, vendor portals through apps, and support for payment splitting/commissions through integrations. Saleor Commerce

It also explicitly emphasizes self-hosting, open source, and avoiding vendor lock-in. Saleor Commerce

What I'd choose

If I were architecting your system:

Choose Vendure if:

• Marketplace functionality is the #1 priority.
• You want seller/channel isolation built deeply into the commerce model.
• You're comfortable with GPLv3 or willing to purchase a commercial license.
• You have a TypeScript/Node engineering team.

Choose Medusa if:

• Data/code ownership and permissive licensing are the #1 priorities.
• You want an MIT-licensed core.
• Your team is TypeScript/Node.
• You're comfortable implementing some marketplace business logic yourself.

Choose Saleor if:

• You have a strong Python team.
• GraphQL is a strategic requirement.
• You want marketplace functionality built largely as extensions/apps.

My overall recommendation

For a serious B2B/B2C multi-vendor marketplace: Vendure.

For maximum legal/technical freedom and ownership: Medusa.

The distinction is important: "open source" doesn't automatically mean "we own everything." I'd evaluate the license of every component, whether the marketplace functionality is actually open source, where the database lives, whether vendor/customer data can be exported, and whether any cloud service imposes GMV or usage dependencies.

If you tell me your tech stack (Node/Python/etc.), expected number of vendors, B2B vs B2C, payment provider, and whether GPL is acceptable, I can narrow this down to one architecture and give you a Vendure vs Medusa vs Saleor decision matrix including data model, vendor isolation, payments/payouts, commissions, inventory, and migration risk.

The tradeoff is that multi-vendor isn't as deeply native as Vendure's marketplace model; you're building more of the marketplace domain yourself. Medusa does now also have a marketplace offering with prebuilt vendor functionality, but if maximum ownership is the goal, I'd distinguish the open-source framework from any hosted/commercial components. medusajs.com

3. Saleor — strong alternative

Saleor is worth serious consideration if your engineering organization is comfortable with Python/Django and GraphQL.

Its marketplace architecture provides flexible vendor data modeling, vendor-specific warehouses, granular permissions, vendor portals through apps, and support for payment splitting/commissions through integrations.

It also explicitly emphasizes self-hosting, open source, and avoiding vendor lock-in.

What I'd choose

If I were architecting your system:

Best fit: Bagisto if you want the most complete open-source, self-hosted multi-vendor marketplace with maximum control over your data. Its marketplace module covers sellers, commissions, approvals, payouts, inventory, orders, and seller dashboards, while the core is MIT-licensed. Bagisto Documentation GitHub

• Bagisto: best turnkey marketplace choice.
• Vendure: better for a highly customized, enterprise/headless architecture; multi-vendor APIs and seller/channel modeling are strong. docs.vendure.io docs.vendure.io
• Medusa: excellent developer flexibility, but marketplace functionality requires more custom development. docs.medusajs.com

For “multi-vendor + self-hosted + total data ownership + minimize vendor lock-in,” I’d shortlist Bagisto first and Vendure second.

If multi-vendor marketplace functionality + total control of your data are the two priorities, I’d shortlist Bagisto, Vendure, and Medusa—but my recommendation depends on how much you want to build yourself.

My pick: Bagisto

bagisto.com is probably the best fit if you want marketplace functionality out of the box rather than assembling it yourself.

It already has marketplace concepts for:

• Seller onboarding and seller dashboards
• Seller-specific catalogs and inventory
• Product approval/moderation
• Commissions and payouts
• Seller storefronts
• Multi-seller cart
• Orders and fulfillment
• Seller/customer messaging
• Reviews and moderation
• Multi-tenant commerce Bagisto Documentation Bagisto Marketplace

Because you can self-host the platform and database, you can retain control over your customer, vendor, product, order, and transaction data.

How I'd rank the alternatives

Vendure is particularly interesting if you have a strong engineering team. Its architecture explicitly supports multi-vendor marketplaces, and its Channels system can represent separate vendors with their own products, pricing, inventory, administrators, etc. Vendure Vendure

vendure.io

Medusa is excellent if your marketplace is going to have unusual business rules. Its marketplace architecture lets you create your own vendor models and workflows, and its documentation demonstrates vendor admins, vendor products, and splitting customer orders by vendor. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

medusajs.com

The important distinction is that Medusa's core doesn't natively give you a complete marketplace; you build the marketplace layer yourself or use a marketplace solution such as Mercur. Medusa

What I'd choose for your company

• Want to launch quickly with standard marketplace features → Bagisto
• Want an enterprise-grade, deeply customizable marketplace → Vendure
• Want to build a very differentiated marketplace with maximum architectural flexibility → Medusa
• Already have a Python/Django team → consider Saleor

One caveat: "open source" doesn't automatically mean identical ownership rights. Licensing matters if you intend to modify the platform, distribute modifications, or build proprietary extensions. In particular, check the current license terms of the exact version and extensions you deploy before making this an architectural decision.

If you tell me your approximate vendor count, expected order volume, tech stack (PHP/Node/Python), and whether you need vendor payouts/commissions, I can narrow this down to one recommendation and give you a proposed architecture.

Medusa is excellent if your marketplace is going to have unusual business rules. Its marketplace architecture lets you create your own vendor models and workflows, and its documentation demonstrates vendor admins, vendor products, and splitting customer orders by vendor.

If multi-vendor marketplace + complete control of your data and infrastructure are the priorities, I’d shortlist Bagisto, Vendure, and Medusa—but my default recommendation would be Vendure for a serious marketplace, with Bagisto as the best choice if you want more marketplace functionality out of the box.

1. My pick: Vendure

Vendure is particularly strong if you're building a marketplace that may become complex.

Its Channels architecture maps naturally to vendors: each seller can have its own products, prices, stock locations, shipping configuration and administrator permissions. Vendure explicitly documents a multi-vendor marketplace architecture around this model. Vendure Developer Hub Vendure Developer Hub

It is also self-hostable, so you can keep the database, application, backups and infrastructure under your control. Vendure Core is currently GPLv3-licensed. Vendure

I'd choose Vendure if you need:

• Many vendors/sellers
• Vendor-specific catalogs and pricing
• Vendor-specific inventory and fulfillment
• Complex B2B/B2C rules
• Multiple regions, currencies or brands
• A headless architecture
• Your own cloud/VPC/database
• A system you'll heavily customize

2. Bagisto — best if you want marketplace features sooner

Bagisto is very attractive if you want a more traditional marketplace rather than building all the marketplace mechanics yourself.

Its current marketplace module provides seller management, seller dashboards, commissions/payouts, product approvals, seller storefronts, reviews, reporting, and even a cart spanning multiple sellers. Bagisto Documentation

The underlying Bagisto platform is MIT-licensed, and its documentation confirms that the core is open source. However, the multi-vendor functionality is a paid add-on, so don't confuse "open-source platform" with "every marketplace feature is free." Bagisto Documentation

Choose Bagisto if:

• Your team knows PHP/Laravel
• You want conventional marketplace functionality
• You want seller dashboards and marketplace workflows without building everything
• Time-to-market matters more than having the most composable architecture

3. Medusa — excellent for a very custom marketplace

Medusa is another strong choice, especially for a TypeScript/Node.js engineering team.

The important caveat is that multi-vendor isn't a native turnkey feature. Medusa's own documentation shows how to build a marketplace module, vendor accounts, vendor-product relationships, vendor APIs, and order splitting. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

That can actually be an advantage if your marketplace has unusual business rules—you aren't fighting a prebuilt marketplace model.

What I'd recommend for your company

If your requirement is:

"We want Amazon/Etsy-style multi-vendor functionality, but we want to own the database, source code, infrastructure and customer/vendor data."

I'd rank them:

1. Vendure — best overall for a sophisticated marketplace
2. Bagisto — best for getting a conventional marketplace running quickly
3. Medusa — best for a developer-heavy team wanting maximum architectural freedom

One important distinction: self-hosting alone doesn't guarantee "total data ownership." You should also verify the license, database access, backup/export mechanisms, telemetry, hosted-service dependencies, payment-provider data, and whether marketplace extensions lock you into a vendor.

If you tell me your tech stack (PHP/Laravel vs Node/TypeScript vs Python), number of vendors, B2B/B2C, and whether you need vendor payouts/commissions, I can narrow this down to one architecture and give you a Vendure vs Bagisto vs Medusa feature-by-feature comparison.

If multi-vendor marketplace + complete ownership/control of your data are the two primary requirements, I’d shortlist Vendure, Medusa, and Saleor, with Vendure as my first choice for most companies building a serious marketplace in 2026.

My recommendation

Why Vendure: its architecture already models Channels, Sellers, vendor-specific administrators, inventory, pricing, shipping and orders, rather than requiring you to construct all of those marketplace concepts yourself. Vendure's official marketplace documentation specifically covers seller registration, seller channels, vendor administration, order splitting and platform fees. Vendure Developer Hub Vendure Developer Hub

And because you can self-host the entire stack and database, your catalog, customer data, orders, vendor information, pricing, etc. can remain in infrastructure you control.

docs.vendure.io

When I'd choose Medusa instead

Choose Medusa if your company has a strong TypeScript/Node team and expects to make the marketplace highly bespoke.

Medusa is more of a commerce framework than a ready-made marketplace. Its official marketplace approach has you create a Vendor/Marketplace module, link vendors to products and orders, create vendor APIs, and implement order splitting yourself. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

That can actually be an advantage if your marketplace isn't conventional—for example:

• complex vendor commission rules
• unusual fulfillment models
• subscriptions
• vendor-specific business workflows
• external ERP integration
• custom B2B purchasing
• multiple types of sellers

docs.medusajs.com

When I'd choose Saleor

Saleor is worth considering if you have a Python team and want a very API-centric, enterprise-oriented architecture. Its documentation includes a marketplace recipe, alongside strong multi-channel capabilities. Saleor Documentation

I'd put it behind Vendure for your particular requirement, though, unless your engineering organization is already heavily invested in Python/Django.

The important distinction: "open source" vs. "data ownership"

For your requirement, I would explicitly avoid making the decision based merely on whether a vendor says "open source."

You want to verify that you can:

1. Self-host the application
2. Self-host PostgreSQL/database infrastructure
3. Keep backups under your control
4. Export all marketplace/customer/vendor/order data
5. Run without the vendor's SaaS infrastructure
6. Modify the application
7. Control authentication and authorization
8. Store files/images in your own S3-compatible storage
9. Integrate your own payment processor
10. Avoid a contractual requirement to send your transactional data to the platform provider

On those criteria, Vendure is particularly attractive.

My architecture recommendation

For a company that says "we need a multi-vendor marketplace and we absolutely want to own the data," I'd seriously consider:

Frontend
→ Next.js / React

Marketplace engine
→ Vendure

Database
→ PostgreSQL, self-hosted

Cache / jobs
→ Redis, self-hosted

Files
→ Your own S3-compatible storage

Search
→ OpenSearch/Elasticsearch or another self-controlled search layer

Payments
→ Stripe Connect, Adyen, or another provider depending on your marketplace/payment requirements

Infrastructure
→ AWS/Azure/GCP or your own Kubernetes/VM environment

Analytics
→ Your own warehouse rather than depending on marketplace SaaS analytics

That gives you a setup where the commerce platform is effectively your application, rather than your business operating inside somebody else's marketplace SaaS.

One additional point: Vendure's marketplace implementation is an extensible foundation, not a turnkey Amazon clone. Its own documentation explicitly notes that the example marketplace plugin is educational and leaves production concerns such as email verification and a real payment implementation to the implementer. Vendure Developer Hub

Bottom line:
Vendure → best overall fit for a serious self-hosted multi-vendor marketplace.
Medusa → best if extreme customization and TypeScript flexibility are more important than having marketplace concepts structured for you.
Saleor → best if you're a Python/GraphQL-oriented enterprise team.

If you tell me your number of vendors, expected monthly orders/GMV, B2B vs B2C, commission model, payment provider, and whether vendors need their own dashboards, I can narrow this down to a specific architecture and compare Vendure vs Medusa vs Saleor feature-by-feature.

If your priorities are:

1. True multi-vendor marketplace capabilities (vendors, seller dashboards, commissions, payouts, vendor catalogs)
2. Total data ownership (self-hosting, your database, your code, no SaaS lock-in)
3. Long-term enterprise flexibility

then I would shortlist open-source, self-hosted marketplace-native platforms rather than SaaS tools or single-store ecommerce systems with plugins.

Best fits

GitHub BagistoGitHub## My recommendation by scenario

1. You are building an “Amazon/Etsy-style” marketplace

Choose:

Mercur

Why:

• Marketplace is the core use case, not an extension.
• Designed around: - vendor accounts
• vendor catalogs
• commissions
• offers
• payouts
• marketplace workflows
• Headless architecture makes it easier to build your own customer experience. GitHub

This is likely the closest match if “multi-vendor” is your primary business model.

2. You need enterprise-grade customization

Choose:

Spree Commerce

Good fit if you need:

• custom checkout logic
• ERP integration
• B2B purchasing
• multiple storefronts
• complex pricing rules
• custom workflows

Spree emphasizes self-hosting, API access, and ownership of your infrastructure. GitHub

3. You already have a Laravel engineering team

Choose:

Bagisto

Advantages:

• Laravel developers are easy to find.
• Easier customization than some heavier enterprise platforms.
• Good option when you want to own and modify the entire stack. Bagisto

Solutions I would avoid for your stated goal

Hosted SaaS marketplaces

Examples:

• Shopify marketplace setups
• Sharetribe-style hosted platforms

They are excellent for validation, but you generally do not get the same level of infrastructure and data ownership.

WooCommerce + marketplace plugins

Good for small launches, but for a serious marketplace:

• vendor logic becomes plugin-dependent
• upgrades become harder
• performance/scaling can become challenging

Architecture I would choose for a serious company

A strong long-term stack would look like:

• Backend commerce engine: Mercur or Spree
• Database: PostgreSQL (owned by your company)
• Hosting: Your cloud account or private infrastructure
• Frontend: React / Next.js storefront
• Payments: Stripe Connect, Adyen MarketPay, or your preferred processor
• Search: OpenSearch/Elasticsearch
• Storage: Your S3-compatible object storage
• Analytics: Your own warehouse

This gives you:

• ownership of customer data
• ownership of vendor data
• ability to change providers
• no marketplace revenue tax
• no vendor lock-in

My ranking for your requirements

1. Mercur — best match for a new multi-vendor marketplace
2. Spree Commerce — best for enterprise engineering teams
3. Bagisto — best for Laravel-focused companies
4. Magento Open Source — best only if you already have Magento expertise
5. PrestaShop + marketplace extensions — best for smaller marketplaces

If you share your marketplace type (B2B/B2C, physical products vs services, expected vendor count, and whether you have developers), the recommendation can be narrowed further.

If multi-vendor marketplace + complete control of your data are the two top requirements, I’d shortlist Vendure, Saleor, and Medusa, with Vendure as my first choice for a serious custom marketplace.

My recommendation

Why Vendure: its architecture maps unusually well to a marketplace. Its Channels can represent individual sellers, with seller-specific products, pricing, inventory, shipping, administrators and orders. Its official marketplace implementation also covers splitting a customer's order into seller orders and calculating marketplace fees. Vendure Developer Hub Vendure Developer Hub

That means you aren't trying to bolt a marketplace onto a conventional single-store engine.

Where Saleor fits

saleor.io

Saleor is probably my #2 choice, especially if you have a Python/GraphQL team. It supports vendor-specific warehouses, granular permissions, custom vendor portals and payment-splitting integrations. Saleor Commerce Saleor Documentation

It's particularly attractive if you expect sophisticated B2B, international, multi-warehouse or GraphQL-heavy requirements.

Where Medusa fits

docs.medusajs.com

Medusa is excellent if your engineering team is strongly Node.js/TypeScript oriented. However, marketplace functionality isn't as native: Medusa's own documentation describes vendors, vendor admins and order splitting as functionality you build using its customization framework. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

That can actually be an advantage if your marketplace has a highly unusual business model.

What I'd choose

For a company saying:

"We need Amazon/Etsy-style multiple sellers, but we want to own the database, infrastructure, customer data, vendor data and business logic."

I'd start with Vendure.

A typical architecture would be:

Next.js storefront → Vendure → PostgreSQL
↘ Redis/background workers
↘ S3-compatible object storage
↘ Stripe Connect/payment provider
↘ your analytics/data warehouse

You self-host the commerce engine and database, so you're not making the marketplace's operational data dependent on a SaaS commerce provider.

One important caveat: "open source" and "total data ownership" are separate questions. You should evaluate the software license, cloud/managed-service terms, database accessibility, export capabilities, third-party payment providers, analytics, search, email, and CDN separately. Self-hosting gives you much stronger control, but external services can still hold portions of your data.

If you tell me (1) number of vendors, (2) B2C vs B2B, (3) expected monthly orders/GMV, (4) whether you need vendor payouts/commissions, and (5) your tech stack, I can give you a much more definitive Vendure vs Saleor vs Medusa architecture recommendation, including estimated development effort and infrastructure.

If your priorities are:

1. Multi-vendor marketplace capability (vendors, commissions, vendor dashboards, split payments, vendor inventory)
2. Total data ownership (self-hosting, control of database/code, no SaaS lock-in)
3. Ability to customize for your business model

the best fit is usually not a traditional e-commerce store platform but a self-hosted, API-first commerce framework.

Here are the strongest options:

OSSAlt Designodin## My recommendation by company profile

Choose Saleor if you are building a serious marketplace platform

Best for:

• B2B marketplaces
• Multiple warehouses
• Complex permissions
• Global selling
• Enterprise integrations

Saleor has strong API-first architecture, granular permissions, and marketplace patterns such as vendor modeling, vendor-specific inventory, and custom vendor portals through extensions. Saleor Commerce

Typical architecture:

Frontend:
Next.js / React

Commerce Engine:
Saleor

Marketplace Layer:
- Vendor accounts
- Commission engine
- Vendor dashboards
- Seller approvals
- Payout workflows

Data:
Your PostgreSQL database
Your infrastructure

This is the choice I would lean toward for a marketplace you expect to operate for many years.

Choose Medusa if your team is JavaScript/TypeScript focused

Medusa is excellent when you want:

• Full control
• Custom checkout flows
• Unique marketplace logic
• Modern headless architecture

It uses a modular approach, making it easier to replace or extend commerce functions. Sharetribe

Good fit examples:

• Niche Amazon-style marketplace
• Creator marketplace
• Wholesale marketplace
• Marketplace with unusual business rules

Choose Bagisto if speed matters more than enterprise architecture

Bagisto is worth considering if:

• Your developers know Laravel/PHP
• You want more marketplace functionality closer to the box
• You want lower initial development effort

It can reduce the amount of custom marketplace work compared with headless frameworks. OSSAlt

Platforms I would avoid for your stated goal

Shopify Marketplace apps

Good product, but:

• Your core data lives in a SaaS platform
• Marketplace behavior depends on apps
• Deep customization becomes constrained

SaaS marketplace builders

Fast launch, but they conflict with "total data ownership."

Magento/Adobe Commerce

Powerful, but often:

• Expensive to customize
• Heavy operational footprint
• Slower developer velocity

A practical shortlist

If I were selecting for a company today:

#1 — Saleor

Best overall for a long-term, owned marketplace platform

#2 — Medusa

Best for a startup with strong engineering and a custom vision

#3 — Bagisto

Best for getting a marketplace running quickly with ownership

A few questions would change the recommendation significantly:

1. Is this a product marketplace (Amazon/Etsy style) or a service marketplace (Uber/Airbnb style)?
2. Do vendors need their own dashboards to manage products/orders?
3. Do you need split payments and automatic vendor payouts?
4. What is your preferred technology stack: PHP/Laravel, Python, or Node.js/TypeScript?
5. Expected scale: hundreds, thousands, or millions of vendors/products?

Best overall for a long-term, owned marketplace platform

#2 — Medusa

Best for a startup with strong engineering and a custom vision

#3 — Bagisto

Best for getting a marketplace running quickly with ownership

A few questions would change the recommendation significantly:

1. Is this a product marketplace (Amazon/Etsy style) or a service marketplace (Uber/Airbnb style)?
2. Do vendors need their own dashboards to manage products/orders?
3. Do you need split payments and automatic vendor payouts?
4. What is your preferred technology stack: PHP/Laravel, Python, or Node.js/TypeScript?
5. Expected scale: hundreds, thousands, or millions of vendors/products?

If your priorities are:

1. Multi-vendor marketplace capabilities (vendors, commissions, seller dashboards, approvals, payouts, inventory separation)
2. Total data ownership (self-hosting, database access, no SaaS lock-in, ability to modify code)
3. Long-term enterprise control

then I would shortlist these open-source options:

Sharetribe Vendure## My recommendation by scenario

1. You want a ready-to-customize multi-vendor marketplace

Choose: Bagisto

Why:

• Built around ecommerce operations rather than just APIs.
• Marketplace features include seller management, commissions, product approvals, vendor dashboards, and order workflows through its marketplace capabilities. Bagisto GitHub
• Laravel ecosystem makes hiring developers easier in many markets.
• You control the source code, hosting, database, and customer data.

Good for:

• Amazon-style marketplace
• Wholesale marketplace
• Regional marketplace
• B2B supplier marketplace

Potential drawback:

• Very complex marketplace logic may require custom Laravel development.

2. You are building a technology platform, not just a store

Choose: Medusa

Why:

• Headless architecture.
• API-first.
• Excellent if you want: - mobile apps
• custom vendor portals
• AI shopping experiences
• unusual checkout/payment flows
• integrations with ERP/CRM systems

Medusa is especially attractive when your team wants to own the entire application layer rather than adapt an ecommerce product. Build with Matija Vendure

Potential drawback:

• You will build more marketplace-specific functionality yourself.

3. You need enterprise B2B marketplace workflows

Choose: Vendure

Good fit if you need:

• complex organizations
• approval chains
• advanced pricing rules
• enterprise integrations
• structured commerce workflows

Vendure is more opinionated toward complex commerce systems. Build with Matija Vendure

Architecture I would consider for a serious marketplace

A scalable setup would look like:

Frontend
  |
Next.js / React / Mobile Apps
  |
Commerce Engine
  |
Medusa / Vendure / Bagisto
  |
PostgreSQL Database
  |
Your infrastructure (AWS, Azure, private cloud)
  |
ERP / CRM / Payments / Shipping APIs

You own:

• customer records
• vendor data
• transaction history
• product catalog
• analytics
• database backups
• source code

What I would avoid for your stated goal

Avoid relying primarily on:

• Shopify Marketplace apps
• Sharetribe-style SaaS platforms
• closed marketplace builders

They can be excellent for launching quickly, but they do not give the same level of database, infrastructure, and code ownership. Bagisto

My final ranking for your requirements

1. Bagisto — best if you need a marketplace that works sooner with full ownership.
2. Medusa — best if you have a strong engineering team and want a custom marketplace platform.
3. Vendure — best for enterprise-grade B2B complexity.
4. Saleor — best if your team prefers Python/GraphQL.
5. WooCommerce + plugins — best only for smaller marketplaces.

If you tell me your marketplace type (B2B/B2C, physical products vs services, number of vendors, expected order volume, and your tech stack), I can narrow this to one architecture.

• Shopify Marketplace apps
• Sharetribe-style SaaS platforms
• closed marketplace builders

They can be excellent for launching quickly, but they do not give the same level of database, infrastructure, and code ownership.

My final ranking for your requirements

If multi-vendor marketplace + total control of your code and data are the two priorities, my top recommendation is Bagisto—with Vendure as the stronger alternative if you have a TypeScript/Node engineering team.

My ranking

1. Bagisto — best overall for your requirements

Bagisto is probably the closest match if you want a functioning multi-vendor marketplace rather than a commerce framework that you have to assemble yourself.

Its marketplace functionality includes seller management, product approval, commissions, payouts, seller dashboards, inventory, pricing, orders/fulfillment, reviews, and seller subscriptions. Bagisto Documentation Bagisto Marketplace

Most importantly for your "total data ownership" requirement, Bagisto is open source under the MIT license, so you can self-host it and control the underlying application and database. GitHub

One caveat: the Multi-Vendor Marketplace extension itself is a paid Bagisto component, despite the core being open source. Bagisto Documentation

bagisto.com

2. Vendure — my choice for a technically sophisticated marketplace

If your company has a strong engineering team and expects significant customization, I'd seriously consider Vendure.

Vendure Core is open source and self-hostable, with TypeScript/NestJS, GraphQL, a plugin architecture, and support for complex commerce models. GitHub

It has particularly good architectural primitives for marketplaces: Channels can represent individual vendors, with vendor-specific products, pricing, stock, administrators, orders, etc. Vendure

There is also an official multi-vendor marketplace implementation guide. However, Vendure explicitly notes that its example marketplace plugin isn't production-complete, so you'll have more implementation work than with Bagisto's marketplace package. Vendure

vendure.io

3. Medusa — excellent if you want to build your own architecture

Medusa is compelling if "total control" means you want to design the marketplace almost exactly around your business model.

It provides a marketplace recipe covering multiple vendors, vendor admins, vendor products/orders, and splitting customer orders by vendor. But marketplace functionality isn't native in the same way as Bagisto's marketplace extension—you build/extend the required functionality yourself. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

medusajs.com

What I'd choose

Choose Bagisto if:

• You want to launch relatively quickly.
• You need seller/vendor dashboards out of the box.
• PHP/Laravel is acceptable.
• You want a conventional Amazon/Etsy-style marketplace.
• Your priority is ownership + lots of marketplace functionality without building everything yourself.

Choose Vendure if:

• You have a TypeScript/Node.js team.
• Your marketplace has complicated vendor, catalog, pricing, fulfillment, B2B, or multi-tenant rules.
• You're willing to develop more of the marketplace yourself.
• Long-term architecture and extensibility matter more than fastest launch.

Choose Medusa if:

• You have a strong engineering organization.
• Your marketplace model is unusual enough that conventional marketplace software will fight you.
• You want maximum freedom to create custom commerce workflows.

Bottom line

For the requirements you gave, I'd start with Bagisto and only move to Vendure if your marketplace logic is sufficiently complex to justify a more engineering-heavy platform.

And if by "total data ownership" you mean no vendor can ever access our production database, no mandatory cloud dependency, ability to export everything, and no proprietary SaaS lock-in, I'd specifically evaluate the self-hosting, licensing, database, backups, payment integrations, and any commercial extensions before signing off on the architecture.

If your company has a strong engineering team and expects significant customization, I'd seriously consider Vendure.

Vendure Core is open source and self-hostable, with TypeScript/NestJS, GraphQL, a plugin architecture, and support for complex commerce models. GitHub

It has particularly good architectural primitives for marketplaces: Channels can represent individual vendors, with vendor-specific products, pricing, stock, administrators, orders, etc. Vendure

There is also an official multi-vendor marketplace implementation guide. However, Vendure explicitly notes that its example marketplace plugin isn't production-complete, so you'll have more implementation work than with Bagisto's marketplace package. Vendure

vendure.io

3. Medusa — excellent if you want to build your own architecture

Medusa is compelling if "total control" means you want to design the marketplace almost exactly around your business model.

It provides a marketplace recipe covering multiple vendors, vendor admins, vendor products/orders, and splitting customer orders by vendor. But marketplace functionality isn't native in the same way as Bagisto's marketplace extension—you build/extend the required functionality yourself.

If multi-vendor marketplace + complete control of your data/source code are the two biggest requirements, I’d shortlist Bagisto, Vendure, and Saleor—but the best choice depends heavily on your engineering stack.

My recommendation

1. Bagisto — best if you want a marketplace that is closest to “ready to customize”

bagisto.com is Laravel/PHP-based and has a marketplace extension supporting vendor registration, seller dashboards, commissions, product management, and related marketplace workflows. Its MIT-licensed core and self-hosting model give you control over your application and database. OSSAlt Bagisto

Choose Bagisto if:

• You want PHP/Laravel.
• You need multi-vendor functionality without building everything from scratch.
• You want your own PostgreSQL/MySQL infrastructure and database.
• You want traditional ecommerce functionality plus marketplace capabilities.

2. Vendure — best for a modern, highly customized marketplace

vendure.io is TypeScript/NestJS/GraphQL and has a strong plugin architecture. It's particularly attractive if you're building a sophisticated marketplace rather than simply installing a marketplace package. Vendure Eryx Innovations Lab

I'd choose it when your team is TypeScript-heavy and you expect significant custom business logic.

One caveat: Vendure's core licensing is GPLv3, so have your legal team review the implications if you intend to modify and distribute the platform itself. ShipGarden

3. Saleor — best for enterprise/API-first architecture

saleor.io is Python/Django + GraphQL. It provides building blocks for vendors, permissions, warehouses, fulfillment, and vendor portals, but you'll generally build the actual marketplace layer around those primitives. Saleor Commerce

It's a strong choice if you have a Python team, GraphQL architecture, and complex enterprise requirements.

What I'd pick

*Subject to GPLv3 licensing considerations.

The important distinction

If by “total data ownership” you mean:

Our company owns the database, vendor/customer/order data, source code, backups, infrastructure, and can move to another hosting provider without asking the platform vendor.

Then self-hosting is the key architectural requirement. All three can support that, unlike SaaS-first options such as Shopify.

For a true multi-vendor marketplace, however, I'd lean:

Bagisto → fastest path to a working marketplace
Vendure → best long-term engineering platform for a custom marketplace
Saleor → best for enterprise/API/GraphQL-heavy organizations

If you tell me your tech stack (PHP/Node/Python), expected number of vendors, B2B vs B2C, payment-splitting requirements, and whether vendors need their own dashboards, I can narrow this down to one platform and propose the architecture/database ownership model.

For a multi-vendor marketplace with total data ownership, I would shortlist self-hosted open-source platforms rather than SaaS marketplace products. The best fit depends on how much marketplace logic you need and your engineering stack. Sharetribe Mercur

My top recommendations

OSSAlt Saleor Commerce## My recommendation by scenario

1. You want a true Amazon-style marketplace

Choose Saleor or Medusa.

You will likely need:

• Vendor onboarding
• Vendor dashboards
• Product approval workflows
• Commission calculation
• Split payments
• Vendor-specific inventory
• Multiple warehouses
• Complex permissions
• Custom analytics

Saleor is attractive when you need sophisticated permissions, channels, and inventory models. Medusa is attractive when your team prefers TypeScript/Node.js and wants maximum customization freedom. Eryx Innovations Lab Saleor Commerce

2. You want to launch faster with built-in marketplace concepts

Choose Bagisto.

It is closer to a traditional marketplace platform:

• Seller registration
• Marketplace workflows
• Commission handling
• Laravel customization

It can reduce initial development compared with building marketplace logic from a commerce engine. OSSAlt

3. You need the largest ecosystem and lower technical barrier

Choose WooCommerce + a multi-vendor extension.

Good for:

• Retail marketplaces
• Local seller networks
• Smaller catalogs
• Content + commerce sites

Less ideal for:

• Millions of SKUs
• Complex fulfillment rules
• Highly customized vendor operations

WPBundle## What I would avoid if "total data ownership" is a hard requirement

Avoid relying primarily on:

• Shopify Marketplace apps
• Mirakl-style marketplace SaaS
• Sharetribe-style hosted marketplace platforms

They can be excellent products, but your data model, workflows, and infrastructure remain tied to another company's platform. A self-hosted open-source stack gives you control over:

• Database
• Customer records
• Vendor records
• Orders
• Product catalog
• Business logic
• Infrastructure

Mercur## My default choice for a serious company

If you have an engineering team:

#1 Saleor → enterprise marketplace with complex rules
#2 Medusa → modern custom marketplace with a TypeScript team
#3 Bagisto → faster marketplace build with Laravel developers

If you tell me:

1. expected GMV/month,
2. number of vendors,
3. B2C vs B2B,
4. whether you need vendor payouts/split payments, and
5. your engineering stack (PHP, Node, Python, etc.),

I can narrow it to one architecture.

If your priorities are (1) true multi-vendor marketplace functionality and (2) complete control/ownership of your data and infrastructure, I’d shortlist Vendure, Saleor, and Medusa/Mercur.

My recommendation: Vendure

Vendure is probably the best overall fit if you have an engineering team and expect significant marketplace customization.

• Multi-vendor: Vendure has documented marketplace architecture specifically for sellers listing products and customers placing orders containing products from multiple sellers. Vendure
• Self-hosted: You can run it on your own infrastructure, Docker, or Kubernetes, retaining control of the deployment and data. GitHub
• Multi-tenant/vendor isolation: Its Channels model can represent individual vendors, with vendor-specific products, pricing, stock, administrators, orders, etc. Vendure
• Highly extensible: TypeScript/NestJS + GraphQL makes it particularly attractive if your developers are already in the Node/TypeScript ecosystem.
• Important caveat: Vendure Core is GPLv3, with a separate commercial license available. Your legal team should review this if you intend to modify/distribute the platform itself. GitHub Vendure

The other two

Saleor is especially interesting if your marketplace needs sophisticated vendor permissions, warehouses, and custom vendor portals. Its official marketplace architecture explicitly covers vendor modeling, vendor-specific inventory/fulfillment, permissions, vendor portals, and payment splitting. Saleor Commerce Saleor's core is open source and self-hostable. GitHub

Medusa + Mercur deserves serious consideration if you want an MIT-licensed stack. Mercur is specifically an open-source B2B/B2C multi-vendor marketplace built on Medusa, with separate backend, admin, and vendor panels. GitHub Medusa's core is MIT licensed, although some enterprise components are commercial. GitHub

What I'd choose

If I were architecting your company platform:

Option A — Best for a serious customized marketplace

Vendure + PostgreSQL + Redis + your own cloud/Kubernetes + Next.js

Option B — Best if license freedom is extremely important

Medusa + Mercur + PostgreSQL + Next.js

Option C — Best for enterprise/Python/GraphQL

Saleor + custom marketplace apps + PostgreSQL + Next.js

The key distinction is that "open source" doesn't automatically mean "you own everything." You should evaluate four separate things: source-code license, ability to self-host, database ownership, and whether important marketplace features are locked behind a commercial edition.

For your stated requirements, I would start with Vendure vs. Medusa/Mercur, with Saleor as the third candidate.

If you tell me your vendor count, expected orders/month, B2B vs B2C, payment model (split payments/commissions), and tech stack, I can give you a much more concrete architecture recommendation and a feature-by-feature comparison of Vendure vs Medusa/Mercur vs Saleor.

For a company that requires multi-vendor marketplace capabilities + total data ownership, you should generally avoid SaaS-first marketplace platforms and choose a self-hosted open-source platform where your database, code, and infrastructure remain under your control. Mercur

The best fit depends on your technical team and marketplace model:

My recommendation by scenario

1. You want Amazon/Etsy-style marketplace and full ownership

Choose Mercur or Spree Commerce.

Good when you need:

• Multiple vendors
• Vendor dashboards
• Commission rules
• Split orders/payments
• Custom checkout logic
• Your own hosting and database
• No platform lock-in

Mercur is especially interesting if your team wants a modern JavaScript/TypeScript stack and full control over the codebase. GitHub

2. You already have a Laravel/PHP team

Choose Bagisto.

Good when you need:

• Faster development using Laravel
• Custom business workflows
• Ownership of customer/vendor/product data
• Integration with ERP, CRM, logistics systems

Bagisto### 3. You need to launch quickly with less engineering

Consider CS-Cart Multi-Vendor.

It is not the same as a fully open-source stack, but it gives you many marketplace features out of the box while allowing self-hosting. Guideflow

Minimum architecture I would require for “total data ownership”

Whichever platform you choose, make sure you control:

• Database (PostgreSQL/MySQL)
• Product catalog data
• Vendor/customer accounts
• Order history
• Payment records
• Analytics data
• Source code repository
• Hosting environment
• Backups and disaster recovery

My shortlist

For a serious company building a long-term marketplace:

1. Mercur — best modern open-source marketplace foundation
2. Spree Commerce — best for enterprise-grade customization
3. Bagisto — best value if your team is Laravel-based
4. CS-Cart Multi-Vendor — best if speed matters more than pure open source

If you tell me your marketplace type (B2B wholesale, B2C retail, services, rentals, digital products, or local marketplace), expected number of vendors/products, and your technology stack, I can narrow this to one choice.

If your priorities are:

1. True multi-vendor marketplace capabilities (seller onboarding, vendor dashboards, commissions, split orders/payments, vendor management)
2. Total data ownership (self-hosting, owning the database, code access, no vendor lock-in)
3. Long-term enterprise flexibility

I would shortlist these open-source options:

Bagisto GitHub## My recommendation by company profile

1. Enterprise marketplace (Amazon-style, B2B, many sellers)

Choose: Mercur

Why:

• Built specifically around marketplace workflows rather than adding vendors onto a single-store ecommerce system.
• Supports vendor portals, commissions, marketplace catalogs, and marketplace-specific logic.
• Modern headless architecture makes it easier to build web, mobile, partner portals, and custom workflows.
• Self-hosting keeps your customer, seller, and transaction data under your control. GitHub HubP

Best for:

• B2B marketplaces
• Industry exchanges
• Wholesale platforms
• Multi-country marketplaces
• Companies with engineering resources

Potential downside:

• Requires stronger development capability than plug-and-play ecommerce systems.

2. Large company wanting a proven commerce foundation

Choose: Spree Commerce

Why:

• Mature open-source commerce framework.
• Good choice when you need custom business rules, integrations, ERP connections, or headless commerce.
• Supports marketplace concepts such as vendors, commissions, and multi-vendor checkout. Spree Commerce Spree Commerce

Best for:

• Enterprise retail
• Complex catalogs
• Omnichannel businesses

Potential downside:

• Marketplace features may require more engineering compared with a marketplace-first product.

3. Laravel/PHP development team

Choose: Bagisto

Why:

• Strong customization potential.
• Fits companies already invested in Laravel.
• Gives you ownership of the source code and infrastructure. Bagisto

Best for:

• Regional marketplaces
• Custom workflows
• Businesses with PHP developers

Potential downside:

• You may build more marketplace-specific functionality yourself.

Solutions I would be cautious about for your stated goal

WooCommerce + marketplace plugins

Good for:

• Testing an idea
• Smaller seller counts

Less ideal for:

• Thousands of vendors
• Complex commissions
• Large-scale marketplace operations

The marketplace layer is usually an add-on rather than the core architecture. Mercur

SaaS marketplaces

Platforms like hosted marketplace builders can be faster, but they conflict with "total data ownership" because your infrastructure and roadmap depend on another company.

My ranking for your requirements

1. 🥇 Mercur — best match for "multi-vendor + total ownership"
2. 🥈 Spree Commerce — best enterprise commerce foundation
3. 🥉 Bagisto — best if your team is Laravel-focused
4. PrestaShop/WooCommerce extensions — best for smaller launches

Before selecting, I would evaluate:

• Number of vendors expected (100 vs 100,000 changes the architecture)
• B2B vs B2C marketplace
• Need for automated payouts (Stripe Connect/Adyen/etc.)
• Vendor KYC/compliance requirements
• ERP/PIM integration needs
• Whether you have an internal engineering team

If you share your expected vendor count, product count, B2B/B2C model, and preferred technology stack, I can narrow this to a specific recommendation.

If multi-vendor marketplace + complete control of your data and infrastructure are the two top requirements, I’d shortlist Mercur, Bagisto, and Vendure—with Mercur as my first choice for a modern custom marketplace.

🥇 My recommendation: Mercur

github.com is specifically built as an open-source multi-vendor marketplace, rather than taking a single-vendor store and bolting marketplace functionality onto it. It is built on Medusa, uses PostgreSQL/Redis, and provides separate backend, admin, and vendor interfaces. It is MIT licensed. GitHub

That makes it particularly attractive if you want:

• Multiple independent sellers/vendors
• Vendor dashboards
• Seller-specific catalogs and orders
• Marketplace commissions/payout logic
• B2B and B2C
• Your own AWS/Azure/on-prem infrastructure
• Full database ownership
• Ability to modify the source code
• A modern TypeScript/Node.js architecture
• Headless storefronts using Next.js or another frontend

🥈 Bagisto — best if your team is Laravel/PHP

bagisto.com is probably the strongest alternative if your organization already has Laravel expertise.

Its marketplace module provides seller management, commissions, product approvals, seller dashboards, and marketplace order handling. Bagisto Documentation GitHub The core is MIT licensed, and you can self-host it and control the underlying data. Bagisto Documentation

The catch is important: the multi-vendor functionality is an additional paid module, rather than all of it being part of the MIT core. Bagisto Documentation

🥉 Vendure — best for sophisticated enterprise architecture

vendure.io is excellent if you're building something more complex than a conventional marketplace.

It has explicit marketplace architecture, and its Channels model can represent individual vendors with their own products, prices, stock, administrators, etc. Vendure Vendure It's also designed for complex B2B/B2C and multi-channel commerce. Vendure

However, there's a licensing consideration: Vendure Community Edition is GPLv3, with a commercial license available. GitHub If your company's legal team wants a permissive MIT license and maximum freedom around proprietary extensions, I'd favor Mercur/Bagisto instead.

What about Medusa?

medusajs.com is a very good foundation, particularly if you want to build a highly customized commerce platform rather than use an already-assembled marketplace.

Its core is MIT licensed, but Medusa uses an open-core model, so some Enterprise functionality has a commercial license. GitHub Mercur is interesting because it gives you a marketplace layer on top of Medusa rather than making you build all of the marketplace functionality yourself.

My decision tree

If I were selecting for your company:

• Need a marketplace out of the box + modern tech stack → Mercur
• Already have a strong Laravel/PHP team → Bagisto
• Large enterprise, complex B2B, multi-channel, sophisticated business rules → Vendure
• Marketplace is highly unique and you're prepared to build substantial functionality → Medusa

One important distinction: "data ownership" isn't just the software license. I'd require the architecture to let you own/control the PostgreSQL database, object storage, backups, search indexes, logs, encryption keys, and deployment environment. All of these self-hostable options can support that model, but you should verify every third-party service used for payments, email, search, analytics, etc.

For a new company project in 2026, my default architecture would be: Mercur + PostgreSQL + Redis + S3-compatible object storage + Next.js storefront + your own AWS/Azure/Kubernetes infrastructure. That gives you a strong combination of marketplace functionality, source-code control, and data portability. GitHub

If you tell me your number of vendors, expected orders/GMV, B2B vs B2C, preferred tech stack, and whether vendors need their own storefronts, I can narrow this to a specific recommendation and give you a feature-by-feature comparison of Mercur vs Bagisto vs Vendure.

However, there's a licensing consideration: Vendure Community Edition is GPLv3, with a commercial license available. GitHub If your company's legal team wants a permissive MIT license and maximum freedom around proprietary extensions, I'd favor Mercur/Bagisto instead.

What about Medusa?

medusajs.com is a very good foundation, particularly if you want to build a highly customized commerce platform rather than use an already-assembled marketplace.

Its core is MIT licensed, but Medusa uses an open-core model, so some Enterprise functionality has a commercial license. Mercur is interesting because it gives you a marketplace layer on top of Medusa rather than making you build all of the marketplace functionality yourself.

My decision tree

If multi-vendor marketplace functionality + complete control of your data/infrastructure are the two biggest requirements, I’d shortlist Bagisto and Vendure, with Bagisto as the best fit if you want marketplace functionality out of the box.

🥇 My pick: Bagisto

Bagisto is probably the most practical choice if you want to get a functioning multi-vendor marketplace rather than build the marketplace architecture yourself.

Its marketplace functionality covers seller management, seller dashboards, product approval, commissions, orders, and multi-seller carts. Bagisto Documentation GitHub

The core platform is MIT-licensed, so you can self-host it, modify the source, and retain control over your application and database. GitHub

One important caveat: the Multi-Vendor Marketplace functionality is a paid Bagisto extension, even though the underlying Bagisto platform is open source. Bagisto Documentation

bagisto.com

🥈 Vendure if you're building a sophisticated platform

Vendure would be my choice over Bagisto if your company has a strong engineering team and expects things like:

• complex vendor-specific pricing and catalogs
• sophisticated order splitting/fulfillment
• multiple sales channels
• B2B + B2C simultaneously
• custom vendor workflows
• headless/mobile architectures
• extensive integrations
• very large catalogs or transaction volumes

Vendure specifically provides APIs and an example multi-vendor implementation covering sellers, products and orders. Vendure It is also explicitly designed to be self-hosted—you control the deployment, data and stack. GitHub

The trade-off is licensing: the open-source Community Edition is GPLv3, rather than MIT. GitHub That deserves a legal review if you're building proprietary extensions or distributing the software.

vendure.io

What about Medusa?

Medusa is attractive technically, especially if you're already a TypeScript/Node.js shop. Its core is MIT licensed and highly extensible. GitHub

But there's a key distinction: multi-vendor isn't a native core capability. Medusa's own documentation shows how to construct a marketplace by implementing vendor management, vendor admins, product ownership and order splitting yourself. MedusaJS Documentation

So I'd choose Medusa when your engineering architecture is more important than having marketplace capabilities ready-made.

medusajs.com

My recommendation

If I were selecting for your company:

Bagisto → fastest path to a self-owned multi-vendor marketplace

Vendure → best long-term architecture for a technically sophisticated enterprise marketplace

Medusa → best if you want a highly composable Node/TypeScript platform and are comfortable building marketplace logic

One thing I'd clarify before committing: "total data ownership" should mean more than just open source. I'd specifically require that the platform lets you control the database, object storage, search index, backups, encryption keys, logs, and vendor/customer data—and that you can export all of it without depending on the vendor's SaaS.

If you tell me your expected number of vendors/SKUs, B2B vs B2C, tech stack (PHP/Node/etc.), and whether vendors need their own payouts, I can narrow this down to a specific architecture and recommend Bagisto vs Vendure vs Medusa for your situation.

If multi-vendor marketplace capability + total data ownership are your top requirements, I would prioritize self-hosted open-source platforms over SaaS marketplaces. The best fit depends on your business model, engineering capacity, and scale. Mercur Twosided

Shortlist

My recommendation by scenario

1. You want maximum control and long-term ownership

Choose Spree Commerce or Bagisto.

• Your database stays on your infrastructure.
• You control customer, vendor, order, and transaction data.
• You avoid marketplace SaaS lock-in.
• You can modify the code and workflows.

Spree specifically positions its marketplace capabilities around vendor dashboards, multi-vendor checkout, commissions, APIs, and self-hosted ownership. Spree Commerce

2. You need to launch quickly but still own the platform

Choose CS-Cart Multi-Vendor.

Good if you need:

• vendor registration
• seller dashboards
• commissions
• product approvals
• shipping workflows
• marketplace operations without building everything

The tradeoff is that it is less developer-centric than a pure open-source framework. Twosided Jujubesy

3. You are building a unique marketplace business model

Choose a composable/headless approach:

• Backend: Spree, Medusa, Bagisto, or Magento
• Frontend: React/Next.js/Vue
• Payments: your own processor integrations
• Infrastructure: your cloud account
• Data warehouse: your own stack

This gives you the strongest ownership and flexibility.

Platforms I would be cautious about for “total data ownership”

• Shopify marketplace apps — convenient, but you remain dependent on Shopify’s ecosystem.
• Sharetribe — excellent for validation and service marketplaces, but hosted SaaS means less infrastructure ownership.
• Mirakl-type enterprise marketplace layers — powerful, but usually introduce vendor dependency and licensing costs. Mercur

My default recommendation

For a company serious about owning its marketplace:

Tier 1 choice: Spree Commerce
Tier 2 choice: Bagisto
Fastest operational launch: CS-Cart

A few questions would change the recommendation:

1. Are you building a B2C marketplace (Amazon-style), B2B marketplace, or services marketplace?
2. How many vendors do you expect (100, 10,000, 100,000+)?
3. Do you have an internal engineering team (PHP/Laravel, Node.js, Java, etc.)?
4. Do you need built-in vendor payouts/split payments?

If multi-vendor marketplace functionality + complete control of your code, database, and hosting are the priorities, my top choice is Vendure.

My ranking

🥇 Vendure — best overall fit

Vendure is particularly strong for your requirements because multi-vendor is an architectural use case rather than something bolted on through a marketplace plugin.

Vendure's Channels can represent individual sellers, with seller-specific products, pricing, inventory, shipping, orders, customers and administrator permissions. Its official multi-vendor implementation also demonstrates splitting a customer's order across sellers and calculating marketplace/platform fees. Vendure Vendure

It is also self-hostable: Vendure Core is open source, uses SQL databases such as PostgreSQL/MySQL/MariaDB, and exposes APIs and a plugin architecture for customization. Vendure Vendure

That gives you an architecture roughly like:

Your infrastructure → Vendure → your database → your storage → your payment provider

rather than:

Your business → SaaS marketplace provider → their infrastructure/data layer

So you can control the database, backups, hosting, application code and integrations.

docs.vendure.io

🥈 Medusa — excellent alternative

Medusa is arguably the better choice if your engineering team wants a highly composable TypeScript/headless framework and is comfortable building more marketplace-specific functionality themselves.

Medusa's own documentation explicitly describes creating a marketplace module, vendor/admin models, vendor APIs and workflows that split orders by vendor. However, marketplace functionality isn't native in the same way Vendure's seller/channel architecture is—you build the marketplace layer using Medusa's framework. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

docs.medusajs.com

When I'd choose Bagisto

Bagisto is worth serious consideration if your company is already heavily invested in PHP/Laravel. It provides source-code and hosting control and has an established multi-vendor ecosystem. Bagisto

But for a new, technically sophisticated marketplace, I'd generally favor Vendure or Medusa over building around a traditional ecommerce framework.

What I'd pick

Vendure if your requirements look like:

• Multiple independent vendors/sellers
• Vendors need their own admin access
• Vendor-specific catalog, pricing and inventory
• One customer checkout can contain products from multiple vendors
• Automatic order splitting
• Marketplace commissions/platform fees
• Vendor-specific fulfillment/shipping
• Strong tenant/vendor data isolation
• Your company owns the database and infrastructure
• Significant future customization
• API-first/headless architecture

Vendure's current architecture is particularly compelling here: its documentation explicitly supports multi-vendor and multi-tenant configurations, including channel-level permissions and seller-specific data. Vendure Vendure

One important caveat: "open source" doesn't automatically mean every feature you might want is already built. Vendure's official multi-vendor plugin is explicitly an example and notes that production marketplaces need additional work around areas such as payment integration and email verification. Vendure

If you tell me your expected vendor count, B2B vs B2C, payment model (platform collects then pays vendors vs vendors collect directly), and tech stack (Node/PHP/etc.), I can narrow this down to a concrete Vendure vs Medusa vs Bagisto architecture and TCO recommendation.

It is also self-hostable: Vendure Core is open source, uses SQL databases such as PostgreSQL/MySQL/MariaDB, and exposes APIs and a plugin architecture for customization. Vendure Vendure

That gives you an architecture roughly like:

Your infrastructure → Vendure → your database → your storage → your payment provider

rather than:

Your business → SaaS marketplace provider → their infrastructure/data layer

So you can control the database, backups, hosting, application code and integrations.

docs.vendure.io

🥈 Medusa — excellent alternative

Medusa is arguably the better choice if your engineering team wants a highly composable TypeScript/headless framework and is comfortable building more marketplace-specific functionality themselves.

Medusa's own documentation explicitly describes creating a marketplace module, vendor/admin models, vendor APIs and workflows that split orders by vendor. However, marketplace functionality isn't native in the same way Vendure's seller/channel architecture is—you build the marketplace layer using Medusa's framework. docs.medusajs.com docs.medusajs.com

docs.medusajs.com

When I'd choose Bagisto

Bagisto is worth serious consideration if your company is already heavily invested in PHP/Laravel. It provides source-code and hosting control and has an established multi-vendor ecosystem.

But for a new, technically sophisticated marketplace, I'd generally favor Vendure or Medusa over building around a traditional ecommerce framework.

What I'd pick

Vendure if your requirements look like:

If multi-vendor marketplace capability + total ownership of your code and data are the two primary requirements, I’d shortlist Vendure, Medusa, and Bagisto—but my first choice would be Vendure for a serious, long-lived marketplace.

My ranking

1. 🥇 Vendure — my recommendation

Vendure

Vendure is particularly strong because multi-vendor is designed into its architecture, rather than being merely an add-on. Its Channels can represent individual sellers, with seller-specific products, pricing, inventory, shipping, roles and orders. docs.vendure.io

It also specifically supports the hard marketplace problems: splitting orders between sellers, seller-specific fulfillment/shipping, platform fees and commissions. vendure.io

For ownership, self-hosting means your company controls the infrastructure and database. Vendure describes its core as open source and emphasizes portable code and data. vendure.io

Choose Vendure if you expect:

• Hundreds/thousands of vendors
• Complex vendor permissions
• Vendor-specific catalogs and pricing
• Multi-vendor checkout
• Order splitting
• Commissions/platform fees
• Multiple storefronts/channels
• B2B + B2C
• ERP/PIM/CRM integration
• Significant customization over several years

The main thing I'd have your legal team examine is the exact license for the Vendure version/components you intend to deploy, particularly if your definition of "total ownership" includes proprietary modifications and redistribution rights.

2. 🥈 Medusa — excellent if your engineering team wants maximum flexibility

Medusa

Medusa is a very good alternative, especially for a TypeScript/Node.js engineering organization.

The important caveat is that marketplace functionality isn't as native to the core as Vendure's. Medusa's own documentation describes marketplace functionality as something you build by extending its framework with vendor models, APIs and workflows. docs.medusajs.com

On the other hand, that gives you tremendous architectural freedom. Medusa's marketplace example supports vendor admins, vendor-specific products/orders and splitting customer orders by vendor. vendure.iovendure.iodocs.medusajs.com

Medusa is particularly attractive if you want to build a custom marketplace product, rather than configure an existing marketplace application.

3. 🥉 Bagisto — consider this if you prefer Laravel

Bagisto

Bagisto is worth serious consideration if your team is strong in PHP/Laravel. Its marketplace extension provides vendor registration, vendor dashboards, products and commissions, while the underlying platform is open source and self-hostable. bagisto.com

I'd favor it when time-to-market and conventional ecommerce functionality matter more than having a highly composable headless architecture.

What I'd choose

For a company starting a marketplace today:

Vendure → best overall architecture for a sophisticated multi-vendor marketplace

Medusa → best if your developers want a very flexible TypeScript framework and are comfortable building marketplace logic

Bagisto → best if you have a Laravel/PHP team and want a more traditional ecommerce platform

And I would not make Shopify, Mirakl, VTEX, etc. the first choice if "total data ownership" literally means we must control the production database, infrastructure, source code and ability to migrate without platform dependency. Self-hosted open source is much better aligned with that requirement.

One important distinction: "open source" does not automatically mean "total ownership." Before selecting, I'd evaluate the software license, dependencies, hosted/cloud terms, database portability, proprietary extensions, payment-provider data, vendor/customer data export, and whether you can continue running the exact version independently of the vendor.

If you tell me your expected number of vendors, B2B vs B2C, tech stack (PHP/Node/Python/etc.), expected GMV/order volume, and whether vendors need their own storefronts, I can narrow this to a specific architecture and recommend Vendure vs Medusa vs Bagisto for your company.

If multi-vendor marketplace + total data ownership are your two top requirements, I’d shortlist Medusa + MercurJS first, with Vendure as the stronger alternative for more enterprise-heavy requirements.

My recommendation

1. Medusa + MercurJS — best overall fit

Medusa Marketplace

MercurJS on GitHub

This is probably the closest match to what you described:

• Multi-vendor: vendor dashboards, vendor products/orders, commissions, order splitting, unified checkout and payouts are already addressed by the marketplace starter. medusajs.comgithub.com
• Data ownership: you can self-host the application and database rather than putting your commerce data into a proprietary SaaS platform.
• Open source: MercurJS is MIT licensed; Medusa's core is MIT licensed, although Medusa uses an open-core model and some Enterprise Edition components are commercially licensed. medusajs.comgithub.com
• Technology: TypeScript/Node.js, which is a good fit if your engineering team is already in the JavaScript/TypeScript ecosystem.
• Customization: particularly attractive if your marketplace has unusual vendor, commission, fulfillment, pricing or checkout rules.

One important caveat: Medusa itself doesn't natively ship as a complete marketplace; its marketplace functionality is implemented through its marketplace recipe/extensions. MercurJS gives you a much more complete starting point. docs.medusajs.com

2. Vendure — best if enterprise complexity matters more

Vendure

Vendure is extremely compelling if you need sophisticated B2B, multi-channel, permissions, organizations, pricing or operational workflows. Its Channels architecture can also represent individual vendors/sellers and provides channel-specific products, pricing, stock, administrators, orders, etc. docs.vendure.io

It is also explicitly designed to be self-hosted: its documentation says you own the deployment, data and stack. github.com

The catch is licensing: current Vendure Core is GPLv3, with a commercial license also available. github.com If your company's legal team wants permissive licensing and maximum freedom to build proprietary extensions, Medusa/Mercur is generally more comfortable.

Quick decision matrix

What I would choose

For a company saying "we want an Amazon/Etsy-style marketplace, but we want to own the data and infrastructure", I'd choose:

Medusa + MercurJS + PostgreSQL + self-hosted infrastructure

rather than trying to build the marketplace functionality from raw Medusa.

That gives you a fairly clean architecture where your company owns the code, database, infrastructure and marketplace data, while avoiding having to implement vendor management, order splitting, commissions and vendor dashboards from scratch.

If you tell me your stack (Node/Python/PHP/etc.), number of vendors, B2B vs B2C, expected order volume, and whether vendors need their own payouts, I can narrow this down to Medusa/Mercur vs Vendure vs Saleor vs Bagisto and recommend an architecture.

For a multi-vendor marketplace with full data ownership, I would shortlist open-source, self-hostable commerce platforms rather than SaaS marketplace products. The “best” choice depends heavily on whether you need a true Amazon-style marketplace (vendors, commissions, vendor dashboards, payouts) or a multi-store commerce platform. ShipGarden OSSAlt

Best overall fits

ShipGarden Vendure## My recommendation by scenario

1. You want a serious marketplace platform (vendors, commissions, approvals, complex rules)

Pick: Vendure

Why:

• TypeScript/NestJS stack works well for custom marketplace development.
• Plugin architecture is designed for extending commerce logic.
• Good fit when you need: - vendor accounts
• seller-specific catalogs
• custom order routing
• marketplace fees
• multiple storefronts/channels

The tradeoff is that you will likely build marketplace-specific modules rather than install a complete “multi-vendor marketplace” package. Build with Matija Grafen

2. You are an enterprise with strong backend engineering and B2B needs

Pick: Saleor

Why:

• Mature API-first architecture.
• Strong for: - multiple channels
• international commerce
• complex catalogs
• enterprise integrations
• Self-hosting gives you control of customer, order, and product data. Saleor Commerce

3. You want the fastest custom build with JavaScript/TypeScript developers

Pick: Medusa

Why:

• Very flexible modular architecture.
• Easier for Node.js teams.
• Good when your marketplace model is unique and you do not want your business logic constrained by a prebuilt marketplace engine. ShipGarden

Solutions I would be cautious about

• WooCommerce + marketplace plugins

Good for small marketplaces, but large multi-vendor systems can become plugin-heavy and harder to maintain.

• Magento/Open Source (Adobe Commerce Open Source)

Powerful, but operational complexity and development cost can be high for a modern headless marketplace.

• SaaS marketplace platforms

Easier launch, but usually conflict with your requirement of total data ownership.

Architecture I would choose for a company that says “total data ownership”

A strong reference architecture:

• Commerce engine: Vendure / Saleor / Medusa
• Database: PostgreSQL owned by your company
• Object storage: S3-compatible storage you control
• Search: OpenSearch/Elasticsearch
• Payments: Stripe Connect or equivalent marketplace payment provider
• Identity: Keycloak or your own IAM
• Analytics: self-hosted warehouse (ClickHouse, PostgreSQL, etc.)
• Frontend: Next.js/React storefront

My ranking for your stated requirements

1. Vendure — best balance for a custom enterprise marketplace
2. Saleor — best if you need enterprise commerce maturity
3. Medusa — best if your engineering team wants maximum flexibility

If you tell me:

• number of vendors expected (100 / 10,000 / 1M),
• B2B vs B2C,
• need for vendor payouts/commissions,
• your preferred tech stack (Node, Python, PHP),
• cloud vs on-prem,

I can narrow it to a single recommendation.

If multi-vendor marketplace + total data ownership are your two primary requirements, I’d shortlist Vendure and Medusa, with Vendure as my first choice for a serious, long-term marketplace.

🥇 My recommendation: Vendure

Vendure is particularly well aligned with your requirements because multi-vendor isn't merely an add-on: Vendure has APIs and data-model concepts specifically designed for marketplaces. Its marketplace architecture handles things such as sellers, order splitting, shipping, payments and platform fees. docs.vendure.io

Its Channels model is also useful if each vendor needs isolation of products, pricing, stock, shipping methods, administrators, orders, etc. docs.vendure.io

Most importantly for "total data ownership," you can self-host the open-source core on your own infrastructure and database. Vendure explicitly positions its platform around portability and ownership of your code and data. vendure.io

Vendure official site

🥈 Medusa — excellent alternative

Medusa is a very strong choice if you have a capable development team and expect to build a highly customized marketplace.

Medusa's marketplace functionality is implemented through its framework rather than being entirely native: its official recipe demonstrates vendors, vendor admins, vendor-specific products/orders and splitting customer orders by vendor. docs.medusajs.com

The core is open source and MIT-licensed, although Medusa uses an open-core model with some Enterprise Edition components under a commercial agreement. github.com

Medusa official site

🥉 Bagisto — consider if you're a Laravel shop

Bagisto is worth considering if your organization already has strong PHP/Laravel expertise. Its marketplace functionality supports sellers, commissions, product approvals, vendor dashboards, orders and transactions. github.com

Bagisto official site

What I'd choose

For a company building something like Amazon/Etsy/eBay-style marketplace infrastructure, I'd rank them:

1. Vendure → best overall fit
2. Medusa → best if your developers want maximum architectural freedom
3. Bagisto → best if your existing stack is Laravel/PHP

One important distinction: "open source" doesn't automatically mean every feature is free/open-source. Before committing, I'd specifically audit the license of the exact version/modules you plan to deploy, vendor payout/payment functionality, search, admin functionality, and any enterprise-only components.

If you tell me your expected number of vendors, product count, B2B vs B2C, preferred tech stack, and whether you need vendor payouts/commissions, I can narrow this down to a specific architecture and deployment recommendation.

If multi-vendor marketplace + total data ownership are your two non-negotiables, I’d shortlist Medusa, Vendure, and Bagisto rather than a SaaS marketplace platform.

My recommendation: Medusa + marketplace layer

Best overall fit: Medusa if you have a modern TypeScript/Node.js engineering team.

Medusa is MIT-licensed, self-hostable, and designed as a modular commerce engine. That gives you control over the application, database, infrastructure, and customer/vendor data rather than putting the marketplace's core data in a vendor's SaaS database. contracollective.com

The important caveat: Medusa isn't a turnkey multi-vendor marketplace out of the box. You'd build or adopt the marketplace layer for:

• Vendor onboarding/KYC
• Vendor organizations and permissions
• Vendor-specific catalogs
• Vendor commissions
• Seller dashboards
• Split orders
• Vendor payouts
• Vendor shipping/fulfillment
• Seller analytics
• Disputes/refunds
• Marketplace admin

If you want these capabilities more natively, there are stronger alternatives.

How I'd rank them

\*Bagisto's multi-vendor functionality comes through its Marketplace extension rather than the core platform. bagisto.com

Vendure deserves a serious look

For your particular requirements, Vendure may actually be the strongest architectural choice.

Vendure has documented APIs specifically for building multi-vendor marketplaces, including the concept of customers ordering products from multiple sellers. It even provides an example marketplace plugin to demonstrate the architecture. docs.vendure.io

It's also TypeScript/GraphQL/NestJS, so it's a good fit if you want a highly customized marketplace rather than a conventional PHP ecommerce installation.

The trade-off is licensing: Vendure's core is GPLv3/open-core, with some advanced enterprise functionality commercial. So I'd have your legal team review the license implications before committing. vendure.io

If "total data ownership" means literally everything

I'd structure the system like this:

Your infrastructure

→ PostgreSQL
→ Object storage (S3-compatible)
→ Redis
→ Medusa/Vendure
→ Marketplace service
→ Search engine
→ Analytics warehouse
→ Vendor portal
→ Customer storefront
→ Payment provider

You own the database, backups, object storage, logs, analytics data, product catalog, customer records, vendor records and order history.

The payment processor would necessarily retain payment-related information required for processing/compliance, but you can architect the commerce system so you're not dependent on a marketplace SaaS provider for your operational data.

My decision rule

• Want maximum developer flexibility + MIT + TypeScript: Medusa
• Want marketplace/B2B architecture + TypeScript: Vendure
• Want a more traditional, ready-made multi-vendor ecommerce system + Laravel: Bagisto
• Want enterprise headless commerce and complex catalogs, but marketplace is secondary: Saleor

For a company building a serious marketplace that expects dozens/hundreds/thousands of independent sellers, I'd personally start with Vendure vs. Medusa, and only choose Bagisto if your team is already strongly invested in Laravel/PHP.

If you tell me your expected vendor count, monthly orders/GMV, B2B vs B2C, payment/payout model, and preferred tech stack, I can narrow this down to a specific architecture and recommend which one I'd actually build on.

For a company that needs multi-vendor marketplace capabilities + full data ownership, I would generally shortlist Vendure, Medusa, Saleor, and Odoo, but the best fit depends heavily on whether you want a developer-built marketplace or a ready-to-operate business platform.

My top recommendation: Vendure

Best fit: serious B2B/B2C marketplace with engineering resources

Why it fits:

• Self-hostable → you control the database, infrastructure, and customer/vendor data.
• Built for complex commerce models.
• Strong plugin architecture for:
  • vendor accounts
  • seller catalogs
  • commissions
  • order splitting
  • custom workflows
  • multi-channel commerce
• TypeScript/NestJS/GraphQL stack is attractive for modern engineering teams.
• Has documented multi-vendor marketplace patterns. docs.vendure.io

Trade-offs:

• You will need developers to build some marketplace-specific workflows.
• Vendor payouts, seller onboarding, dispute handling, etc., usually require customization or integrations.

Vendure is especially strong if your marketplace is closer to:

• Amazon-style product marketplace
• B2B distributor marketplace
• wholesale platform
• multi-brand commerce ecosystem

vendure.io

Comparison

Second choice: Medusa

Choose Medusa if you want:

• maximum developer freedom
• modern JavaScript stack
• a composable architecture
• custom marketplace logic

Medusa provides marketplace examples where vendors manage products/orders and orders can be split by vendor, but marketplace functionality is typically something you build on top rather than a complete built-in marketplace suite. docs.medusajs.com

Good for:

• startup marketplaces
• unique business models
• custom mobile/web experiences

If you want less custom development

Odoo

Best when your marketplace is tied to:

• inventory
• accounting
• CRM
• fulfillment
• supplier management

Weakness:

• Marketplace UX is not its strongest area.
• You may spend time customizing modules.

Avoid SaaS marketplaces if "total data ownership" is a hard requirement

Platforms like hosted marketplace SaaS products can accelerate launch, but you typically accept:

• vendor-controlled infrastructure
• limited database access
• API limitations
• migration risk

For ownership, self-hosted open source is usually the better direction.

My practical recommendation

For a company building a long-term marketplace:

Enterprise/B2B marketplace → Vendure
Startup with unique marketplace idea → Medusa
Marketplace + ERP operations → Odoo
Need something live quickly with less engineering → CS-Cart Multi-Vendor or WooCommerce-based solutions

If you tell me:

1. B2B, B2C, or both?
2. Physical products, digital products, services, or rentals?
3. Expected vendors (100, 10k, 1M)?
4. Do vendors need their own dashboards and payouts?

…I can narrow this to a specific architecture.

For a company that needs multi-vendor marketplace capabilities + total data ownership, I would focus on self-hosted open-source platforms rather than SaaS marketplace tools. The best fit depends on how much marketplace functionality you need out of the box versus how much custom engineering you have available. www.sharetribe.com

Short recommendation

github.comsaleor.io

My default recommendation: Saleor

For a serious company that says "we need total data ownership", I would shortlist Saleor first.

Strengths:

• ✅ Self-host your entire stack
• ✅ Own your database and customer/vendor data
• ✅ API-first (GraphQL)
• ✅ Strong permissions model for vendor roles
• ✅ Multi-warehouse inventory support
• ✅ Suitable for custom vendor portals
• ✅ Good fit for enterprise integrations (ERP, CRM, analytics)

saleor.iosaleor.io

The tradeoff:

• You will likely build some marketplace-specific pieces yourself:
  • vendor onboarding
  • commission rules
  • seller dashboards
  • vendor payouts
  • dispute workflows

Saleor provides the foundation, but it is not a finished Amazon clone. saleor.iosaleor.io

When Medusa is the better choice

Choose Medusa if your company has a strong engineering team and wants to create a differentiated marketplace experience.

Good fit if you need:

• custom checkout logic
• unusual business rules
• custom fulfillment
• AI shopping experiences
• highly customized buyer/seller workflows

Its TypeScript/Node.js ecosystem makes it attractive for modern web teams. www.sharetribe.com

The tradeoff:

• More marketplace functionality must be engineered rather than configured.

When I would avoid WooCommerce

WooCommerce is excellent for single-merchant commerce, but a large multi-vendor marketplace can become complicated because you often end up managing:

• marketplace plugins
• payment split extensions
• vendor dashboards
• performance scaling issues
• plugin compatibility

It can work, but for a strategic marketplace where your data and platform are core assets, I would usually choose a headless commerce architecture instead.

Architecture I would recommend

For a company building a long-term marketplace:

Frontend
 ├── Next.js / React storefront
 ├── Vendor portal
 └── Admin portal

Commerce Core
 ├── Saleor or Medusa
 ├── PostgreSQL database
 ├── Object storage (S3-compatible)
 └── Search engine (OpenSearch/Elasticsearch)

Marketplace Services
 ├── Vendor management
 ├── Commission engine
 ├── Payout service
 ├── Reviews/ratings
 ├── Messaging
 └── Analytics

Infrastructure
 ├── Your cloud account
 ├── Your backups
 ├── Your encryption keys
 └── Your data warehouse

Decision rule

• $10M+ GMV, enterprise customers, complex inventory: Saleor
• Startup building a unique marketplace product: Medusa
• Need something closer to Amazon/Etsy out of the box: Vasty Shop or a marketplace-specific fork
• Need maximum ownership and minimum vendor lock-in: Saleor self-hosted

Before selecting, I would clarify three things:

1. Is this a physical goods marketplace, services marketplace, or digital products?
2. How many vendors do you expect (100, 10,000, 1M+)?
3. Do vendors need their own dashboards, inventory, shipping, and payouts?

Those answers can change the best choice significantly.

If your two non-negotiables are multi-vendor marketplace functionality + complete control of the data/infrastructure, I’d shortlist Bagisto, Vendure, and Medusa—but they fit different situations.

My recommendation

1. Bagisto — best if you want the most turnkey open-source marketplace

Bagisto is probably the strongest fit if you want a conventional marketplace with vendor management rather than building marketplace behavior yourself. Its marketplace functionality supports seller management, commissions, product approvals, vendor dashboards, orders, and transactions. It is Laravel/PHP based and available under the MIT license. github.com

Why I'd choose it:

• Multi-vendor functionality is already a major part of the ecosystem.
• MIT licensing is attractive if you want maximum freedom to modify and redistribute your implementation.
• Self-hosting means your database and customer/vendor data can remain entirely under your control.
• Good choice if your team is comfortable with PHP/Laravel.

Bagisto official site

2. Vendure — best for a sophisticated, engineering-led marketplace

I'd choose Vendure over Bagisto if you're building a technically sophisticated marketplace—especially B2B, complex pricing, multiple channels, or highly customized workflows.

Vendure is a headless TypeScript/NestJS/GraphQL platform with a plugin architecture. Its documentation explicitly provides APIs and an example implementation for multi-vendor marketplaces. docs.vendure.io

It can be completely self-hosted on your infrastructure, including cloud, Kubernetes, on-prem, and air-gapped environments. vendure.io

Important caveat: Vendure Core is GPLv3, while some enterprise capabilities are commercially licensed. github.com So if "open source" also means permissive licensing with no copyleft, Bagisto has an advantage.

Vendure official site

3. Medusa — best if you want a composable developer platform

Medusa is another strong TypeScript option. Its commerce modules are open source and it explicitly supports building marketplaces and distributor platforms. github.com

I'd put it behind Vendure for your particular requirement because multi-vendor marketplace functionality generally requires more application-level construction rather than being the most turnkey marketplace experience.

Medusa official site

Quick decision matrix

Bottom line

If you mean:

"We want an Amazon/Etsy-style marketplace, multiple vendors, vendor dashboards/commissions/orders, and we want the entire system and database running on our infrastructure."

I'd start with Bagisto.

If instead you mean:

"We're an engineering-heavy company and need a highly customized marketplace architecture that will become a core business platform."

I'd choose Vendure.

One important distinction: "data ownership" and "open source" aren't quite the same thing. A self-hosted system gives you control over where the data lives, but you should also examine telemetry, third-party integrations, backups, payment-provider data, object storage, analytics, and the software license before declaring total data ownership.

If you tell me your expected vendor count, monthly orders/GMV, B2B vs B2C, tech stack (PHP vs Node/TypeScript), and whether you need vendor payouts/Stripe Connect, I can narrow this to a specific architecture and recommend which one I'd actually deploy.

If your priorities are:

1. True multi-vendor marketplace capabilities (vendor onboarding, seller dashboards, commissions, split orders/payments, vendor catalogs)
2. Total data ownership (your servers, your database, your code, no SaaS lock-in)
3. Long-term extensibility

I would focus on open-source, self-hosted marketplace-native platforms, not plugins added to a single-store ecommerce system.

Here are the strongest candidates:

My recommendation by scenario

Choose Mercur if:

• You are building a marketplace similar to Amazon, Alibaba, Faire, or a vertical B2B marketplace.
• You want a modern stack (Node/TypeScript), API-first architecture, and control over your roadmap.
• You have developers or an implementation partner. github.com

Choose Bagisto if:

• Your company already has Laravel/PHP expertise.
• You need deep customization but want faster development than building from scratch. bagisto.com

Choose Spree if:

• You expect enterprise-scale requirements:
  • multiple storefronts
  • complex pricing
  • international commerce
  • ERP integrations
  • headless architecture github.comgithub.com

Solutions I would be cautious about for your requirement

• WooCommerce + Dokan/WCFM-style marketplace plugins: excellent for MVPs, but marketplace logic is layered onto a single-store architecture.
• Hosted marketplace SaaS platforms: faster launch, but you generally give up infrastructure ownership and database control.
• Magento/Adobe Commerce with marketplace extensions: powerful, but marketplace functionality becomes dependent on extension vendors and increases upgrade complexity.

A practical enterprise architecture

For a company that says “total data ownership,” I would typically design:

• Commerce engine: Mercur, Spree, or Bagisto
• Database: PostgreSQL/MySQL under your control
• Object storage: your S3-compatible storage (or private cloud)
• Search: OpenSearch/Elasticsearch
• Payments: Stripe Connect, Adyen, or your preferred processor
• Identity: Keycloak or your existing IAM
• Analytics: your own warehouse (Snowflake, BigQuery, ClickHouse, etc.)
• Deployment: Kubernetes/Docker on your cloud or private infrastructure

If you want the shortest answer: Mercur is probably the closest match for “open-source multi-vendor marketplace + full data ownership” today; Spree is the stronger choice if you are building a very large enterprise commerce platform. github.comgithub.com

The deciding questions are:

1. Is your marketplace B2B, B2C, or both?
2. Expected scale: 10k, 100k, or millions of SKUs/vendors?
3. Do you have an internal engineering team?
4. Do you need vendor payouts/split payments built in, or can that be custom?

If multi-vendor marketplace capability + total data ownership are your top priorities, you should generally avoid SaaS-first platforms and choose a self-hosted open-source marketplace stack where you control the code, database, hosting, and customer/vendor data. bagisto.comdocs.bagisto.com

The best fit depends on your company’s technical environment:

bagisto.com

My shortlist for a company that says “we own our data”

1. Best overall for a ready-made multi-vendor marketplace: Bagisto

• Strong choice if you want:
  • vendor registration
  • seller dashboards
  • product approval workflows
  • commissions
  • marketplace administration
  • Laravel customization
• Easier to turn into a functioning marketplace than a pure commerce framework. docs.bagisto.com

2. Best for a technology company building a differentiated marketplace: Medusa

• Choose this if you want a custom platform:
  • unique vendor rules
  • custom checkout
  • unusual fulfillment models
  • mobile apps + headless storefronts
  • API-first architecture
• More like building your own marketplace engine than installing one. www.sharetribe.com

3. Best for enterprise complexity: Saleor

• Good when you need:
  • complex catalogs
  • multiple regions/currencies
  • advanced inventory models
  • GraphQL-first architecture
• Usually requires a stronger engineering team. contracollective.com

I would avoid as your primary choice if “total ownership” is non-negotiable

• SaaS marketplaces (you rent the platform and depend on vendor roadmap)
• Closed marketplace builders
• Platforms where vendor/customer data lives only in the provider’s cloud

Recommended architecture for long-term ownership

A strong enterprise setup would look like:

• Commerce engine: Bagisto, Medusa, or Saleor
• Database: PostgreSQL/MySQL under your control
• Hosting: your AWS/Azure/on-prem environment
• Search: OpenSearch/Elasticsearch
• Files: your own object storage (S3-compatible)
• Payments: your own merchant accounts
• Analytics: your own warehouse (Snowflake, BigQuery, ClickHouse, etc.)

If you tell me:

1. expected number of vendors (100? 10,000?),
2. product marketplace vs service marketplace,
3. B2B, B2C, or both,
4. your development stack (PHP, Node, Python, Java),
5. expected order volume,

I can narrow this to a specific recommendation.

If multi-vendor marketplace capability + complete control of your code and data are the priorities, I’d shortlist Medusa, Bagisto, and Vendure. My default recommendation for a new marketplace would be Medusa.

1. 🥇 Medusa — best overall for a custom marketplace

Medusa is particularly attractive if you have a development team and want the marketplace to become a strategic product rather than just an ecommerce site.

Its architecture is modular and MIT-licensed, and the official documentation explicitly describes building marketplaces with custom vendor/seller data models, vendor-specific orders, APIs, and workflows. docs.medusajs.com

It also now has a marketplace offering/starter with features such as vendor dashboards, unified multi-vendor checkout, and split payments/payouts. medusajs.com

Why I'd choose it:

• Your database can live entirely on your infrastructure.
• MIT license is very permissive.
• TypeScript/Node.js makes it attractive for modern engineering teams.
• Excellent foundation for custom vendor logic, commissions, payouts, fulfillment, etc.
• Headless architecture makes it easier to build your own web/mobile experiences.

Caveat: You should expect engineering work. "Open source" doesn't mean the complete Amazon/Etsy-style marketplace business logic is all turnkey.

2. 🥈 Bagisto — best if you want more ecommerce functionality out of the box

Bagisto is built on Laravel and is MIT licensed. Its ecosystem includes marketplace functionality, vendor management, commissions, product management, and integrations. bagisto.com

I'd lean toward Bagisto if your team is strong in PHP/Laravel or you want a more conventional ecommerce platform rather than assembling a highly customized commerce backend.

3. 🥉 Vendure — excellent for enterprise/B2B

Vendure has a very strong architecture for complex commerce, and its documentation specifically provides APIs and an example implementation for multi-vendor marketplaces. docs.vendure.io

It's especially compelling if you need B2B organizations, sophisticated pricing, multiple channels, ERP integration, permissions, SSO, and auditability.

The important catch is licensing: Vendure Core is GPLv3, while its commercial Platform provides additional enterprise capabilities under a commercial license. github.com

What I'd pick for your company

If you're building a serious marketplace from scratch:

Medusa + PostgreSQL + your own cloud infrastructure

That gives you a strong combination of source-code control, database ownership, extensibility, and a modern marketplace architecture.

I'd choose Bagisto instead if your organization is already heavily invested in Laravel/PHP.

I'd choose Vendure instead if this is primarily an enterprise/B2B marketplace where organizational accounts, complex pricing, approvals, permissions, and ERP integration matter more than minimizing licensing constraints.

One important distinction: "data ownership" isn't really determined by open source alone. You should architect the deployment so your company controls the PostgreSQL database, object storage, backups, encryption keys, logs, and infrastructure—and verify that any marketplace/payment extensions don't introduce external data dependencies.

If you tell me your expected vendors/GMV, B2B vs B2C, tech stack, payment/payout model, and whether vendors need their own storefronts, I can narrow this to a specific architecture and compare Medusa vs Bagisto vs Vendure feature-by-feature.

If multi-vendor marketplace + total data ownership are your two primary requirements, I’d shortlist Bagisto, Mercur, and Vendure—with Bagisto as the best default choice for most companies.

🥇 My pick: Bagisto

Bagisto is probably the best starting point if you want a functioning multi-vendor marketplace rather than a commerce framework that you have to turn into one.

Its marketplace functionality supports vendor management, commissions, product approval, vendor dashboards, catalog/order management, and multi-vendor workflows. The underlying platform is MIT-licensed and self-hostable, so you can keep the application and database entirely on infrastructure you control. github.com

That combination is particularly attractive if your definition of "total data ownership" means:

• Your own database
• Your own cloud/on-prem infrastructure
• No mandatory SaaS dependency
• Full source-code access
• Ability to export/migrate everything
• Control over customer, vendor, order and transaction data
• Ability to modify the platform without waiting for a vendor

🥈 Consider Mercur if the marketplace itself is the product

MercurJS is interesting if you're building something more like Amazon/Etsy/Airbnb-style marketplace infrastructure rather than simply adding vendors to an ecommerce store.

It's specifically an open-source multi-vendor B2B/B2C marketplace built on Medusa, with vendor and admin panels, PostgreSQL, Redis, and an MIT license. github.com

I'd favor it over Bagisto if your engineering team is strongly Node/TypeScript/React oriented.

🥉 Vendure for a sophisticated enterprise architecture

Vendure is arguably the strongest architectural choice if you have a serious engineering organization and expect complicated B2B, pricing, channels, ERP integration, or custom marketplace rules.

Vendure explicitly supports multi-vendor implementations and its Channels model can represent individual vendors, with vendor-specific products, pricing, stock, administrators, orders, etc. docs.vendure.io

The catch is licensing: Vendure Core is GPLv3, while some enterprise capabilities are under its commercial license. github.com So I'd have your legal team review the GPL implications before committing.

What I'd choose

If I were making the architecture decision:

Bagisto + PostgreSQL/MySQL + your own cloud infrastructure for the lowest-risk path to a fully owned marketplace.

Choose Mercur instead if your team is Node/TypeScript-first and you want a marketplace-oriented architecture from the outset.

Choose Vendure if you're an enterprise engineering organization where extensibility, complex B2B workflows and long-term architecture matter more than having the most marketplace functionality out of the box.

One important distinction: "open source" doesn't automatically mean "total data ownership." Self-host the application and database, control backups/object storage/search/analytics, and ensure payment providers aren't your system of record for business data.

If you tell me your tech stack (PHP/Laravel vs Node/TypeScript), expected GMV/order volume, B2B vs B2C, and whether vendors need their own storefronts/payouts, I can narrow this to one architecture and compare the actual marketplace features, licensing, scalability, and implementation cost.

For a company that needs multi-vendor marketplace capabilities + total data ownership, I would focus on self-hosted open-source platforms rather than SaaS marketplace builders. The best fit depends mainly on whether you want a ready marketplace product or a composable commerce foundation. bagisto.com

Shortlist

My recommendation by scenario

1. You want an Amazon/Etsy-style marketplace quickly
→ Bagisto is probably the closest match. It starts closer to a marketplace product: vendors, commissions, seller management, catalog ownership, and marketplace workflows. bagisto.com

2. You have a strong engineering team and want a long-term platform
→ Medusa is a strong choice. It gives you a modular commerce backend where you can build your own vendor, payout, fulfillment, and marketplace rules while owning the infrastructure. propicked.comborn.mt

3. You are building enterprise commerce (multiple regions, channels, complex catalogs)
→ Saleor is worth evaluating. It is designed around API-first/headless commerce and emphasizes avoiding vendor lock-in through open-source ownership. saleor.io

For “total data ownership,” verify these points regardless of platform

• Self-host the application and database
• Own customer, vendor, order, payment, and analytics data
• Avoid proprietary hosted marketplace databases
• Ensure export APIs exist
• Control backups and encryption keys
• Confirm the open-source license allows your intended commercial use

A practical architecture for a serious marketplace is often:

Commerce engine (Bagisto / Medusa / Saleor)
→ Marketplace module (vendors, commissions, payouts)
→ Your database + cloud account
→ Custom frontend/mobile apps
→ Your analytics and AI layer

If you tell me:

1. number of vendors expected (100, 10k, 1M+),
2. B2B vs B2C,
3. preferred tech stack (PHP/Laravel, Node/TypeScript, Python), and
4. whether you need vendor payouts built in,

I can narrow this to a specific recommendation.

If multi-vendor marketplace + total control of your data/code are the two primary requirements, I’d shortlist Vendure, Medusa, and Bagisto—but my default recommendation for a serious enterprise build would be Vendure.

1. 🥇 Vendure — my first choice

Vendure is particularly well suited if your marketplace will become a substantial business platform.

Its Channels architecture maps naturally to vendors: each vendor can have its own products, pricing, stock, administrators, orders, etc. Vendure explicitly documents multi-vendor marketplace implementations. docs.vendure.io

It is also self-hostable, so your database and application can live on infrastructure you control. The core is open source, and the architecture is TypeScript/Node.js/GraphQL. vendure.io

Why I'd choose it: strong domain model + excellent extensibility + marketplace concepts already fit the architecture.

One caveat: Vendure has an open-source Core plus commercial Platform capabilities, so you should carefully distinguish what you need from the commercial layer if "100% open source" is a hard requirement. vendure.io

2. 🥈 Medusa — best if you want maximum architectural freedom

Medusa is an excellent choice if you have a strong engineering team and expect to build a lot of proprietary marketplace logic.

Its commerce modules are open source, and you can self-host the application/database. github.com

The important distinction is that multi-vendor isn't native to the core Medusa application. Medusa provides an official marketplace recipe showing how to create vendors, vendor admins, vendor-specific products/orders, and split customer orders between vendors. docs.medusajs.com

There's also a marketplace solution in the Medusa ecosystem that adds vendor dashboards, commissions, vendor verification, order splitting, and other marketplace functionality. medusajs.com

Choose Medusa over Vendure if: your marketplace is highly differentiated and you want the underlying commerce framework to be a set of building blocks rather than an opinionated marketplace architecture.

3. 🥉 Bagisto — best for a conventional marketplace and Laravel team

Bagisto is worth serious consideration if your company prefers PHP/Laravel.

Its Multi Vendor Marketplace functionality already covers seller management, commissions, product approval, order handling, and vendor dashboards. docs.bagisto.com

It's arguably the quickest route to a conventional multi-seller ecommerce marketplace, particularly if your team already knows Laravel.

Choose Bagisto if: speed-to-market and ready-made marketplace functionality matter more than having the most sophisticated headless architecture.

What I'd recommend for your company

If by "total data ownership" you mean:

• database runs on your infrastructure
• no mandatory SaaS dependency
• source code available
• ability to modify the platform
• ability to export/migrate everything
• vendor/customer/order data belongs to your company
• no platform controlling your marketplace roadmap

then I'd rank them:

1. Vendure → best overall enterprise architecture
2. Medusa → best for maximum custom development freedom
3. Bagisto → best for faster implementation with Laravel

One important distinction: open source ≠ automatically total data ownership. You should also examine the software license, hosted services, payment provider, search provider, analytics, email/SMS providers, and any proprietary marketplace extensions. Your architecture should ensure that none of those becomes the system of record.

If I were designing it

I'd probably use:

Vendure/Medusa → PostgreSQL → your cloud/VPC → object storage you control → your identity provider → your payment processor → your own analytics/data warehouse

with the marketplace entities modeled roughly as:

Marketplace → Vendors → Vendor Users → Products → Inventory → Orders → Vendor Orders → Commissions → Payouts

That gives you a platform where the marketplace database remains your company's source of truth, rather than having vendor data trapped in a SaaS marketplace provider.

If you tell me your expected vendor count, monthly orders/GMV, B2B vs B2C, preferred tech stack (Node/PHP/etc.), and whether you need vendor payouts/commissions, I can narrow this to a specific architecture and licensing choice.

If multi-vendor marketplace + total ownership of your data are the two top requirements, I’d shortlist Vendure, Bagisto, and Medusa, with Vendure as my first choice for an enterprise-grade implementation.

🥇 My recommendation: Vendure

Vendure is particularly compelling because its Channels model maps naturally to marketplace vendors. A channel can have its own products, pricing, stock locations, shipping methods, administrators, orders, etc., while still operating within one commerce backend. Vendure explicitly documents this architecture for multi-vendor marketplaces. docs.vendure.io

For data ownership, you can self-host Vendure, choose your own infrastructure/region, and keep your code and data under your control. The open-source Core is GPLv3; Vendure also has a commercial Platform layer if you later want enterprise functionality/support. vendure.io

Vendure official site

🥈 Bagisto if you want something more turnkey

Bagisto is worth serious consideration if your team is comfortable with Laravel/PHP. Its marketplace functionality already covers seller management, seller dashboards, commissions, product approval, orders and transactions rather than requiring you to build all of those concepts yourself. github.com

Bagisto official site

🥉 Medusa if your marketplace is highly custom

Medusa is more of a commerce framework than a ready-made marketplace. Its official marketplace recipe demonstrates vendor accounts, vendor-admin access, vendor-specific products/orders, and splitting a customer's order across vendors. docs.medusajs.com

That makes it attractive when your marketplace has unusual business rules that don't fit a conventional marketplace model.

Medusa official site

What I'd choose

For an enterprise marketplace: Vendure

For a Laravel-based team wanting more marketplace functionality out of the box: Bagisto

For a highly differentiated marketplace where engineering flexibility matters more than out-of-the-box functionality: Medusa

One important distinction: "open source" doesn't automatically mean "total data ownership." I'd specifically require that the platform can be self-hosted, that the database is accessible/exportable, that vendor/customer/order data isn't dependent on a proprietary SaaS service, and that your custom code remains portable.

If you tell me your expected number of vendors/SKUs, B2B vs B2C, payment/payout model, and tech stack (PHP/Node/etc.), I can narrow this down to a specific architecture and explain Vendure vs Bagisto vs Medusa for your use case.