Open-source Ecommerce

January 29, 2025

Open-source full ownership vs Shopify’s developer experience

shopify

Shopify has established itself as an excellent platform for businesses needing standard eCommerce functionality. However, when eCommerce businesses need to extend or customize beyond these standard features, they often encounter significant challenges. Spree Commerce offers a compelling open-source alternative to Shopify for businesses that need full ownership of their eCommerce platform.

The Developer Experience Challenge

The developer community has been vocal about the limitations and frustrations of customizing Shopify beyond its basic functionality.

As one developer noted on Reddit, “Shopify is an e-commerce platform first, with a development API second. Meaning you can setup a shop without knowing how to code.” While this is great for simple use cases, it presents challenges for complex implementations.

Let’s examine some key developer testimonials found on Reddit and their implications:

“Shopify is an e-commerce platform first, with a development API second. Meaning you can setup a shop without knowing how to code.”

This reveals Shopify’s primary focus on non-technical users, with developer needs being secondary. While this makes the platform accessible, it often results in limitations when more complex customizations are needed.

“Shopify’s developer experience has never been good. They make changes for their own business goals, not because they make sense from a developer standpoint.”

This highlights a fundamental misalignment between Shopify’s business priorities and developer needs. Changes are driven by platform objectives rather than improving the development experience.

“Built an internal Shopify app for moving orders from Shopify into our backend. Their APIs are complex, get deprecated more than I’d like, have rate limiting aggressive enough that I had to slow all my batch jobs down, and their endpoints return really atomic information, meaning you need to make lots of calls to get a holistic view of a resource.”

This detailed critique reveals several technical challenges:

• Complex and frequently changing APIs
• Aggressive rate limiting affecting performance
• Granular data requiring multiple API calls
• High maintenance overhead

“One of the major issues was undocumented changes, so you would have a stable working connection and then they would randomly publish undocumented changes and you had to play the guessing game as to why its not working.”

This points to a significant reliability issue where:

• Changes occur without proper documentation
• Stable integrations can break unexpectedly
• Troubleshooting becomes time-consuming
• Development becomes unpredictable

“Shopify wants total control, and to take a shot at owning the future of ecommerce development, even it means building shittier, bulkier tools for all of us to use”

This indicates that Shopify’s platform control comes at the cost of:

• Reduced development flexibility
• Compromised tool quality
• Limited innovation options
• Forced adoption of their tools

These developer experiences highlight why businesses with complex requirements or custom needs might want to consider alternatives like open-source solutions that provide full code ownership and development freedom.

Business Risk and Lock-in Concerns

Developers and business owners have expressed growing concerns about long-term viability and business risks associated with platform dependency. Let’s examine their experiences:

“The experience of an eCommerce provider changing their pricing plans made me reconsider everything. I no longer want to trust a third party with my data or be victim to some business decisions that suddenly make something viable unviable.”

This highlights critical business concerns:

• Unpredictable pricing changes
• Data ownership risks
• Business model vulnerability
• Platform dependency issues

“I have the feeling that a lot of people who opt for SaaS will regret their decision at some point in the next few years.”

This prediction reflects growing awareness of:

• Long-term platform limitations
• Increasing customization needs
• Rising costs over time
• Reduced business flexibility

“Shopify will likely ruin your competitive advantage. There certainly are cases when you should use it. But innovating is not one of them.”

This observation reveals a fundamental limitation:

• Standard features available to all
• Limited differentiation possibilities
• Innovation constraints
• Competitive disadvantage for unique business models

“In short, it depends on the business model, and you don’t want to reinvent the wheel unless you have to due to the business logic.”

This pragmatic view suggests:

• Platform choice should match business needs
• Custom development is sometimes necessary
• Business logic should drive technology decisions
• Standard solutions work for standard needs

The Open-Source Alternative: Spree Commerce

For businesses requiring deep customization and full control over their eCommerce platform, Spree Commerce offers several distinct advantages:

Complete Code Ownership

Unlike Shopify’s closed ecosystem, Spree’s open-source nature provides:

• Full access to source code
• Freedom to modify core functionality
• No dependency on third-party decisions
• Complete data ownership
• Custom feature development

Customization Freedom

Spree allows businesses to:

• Build unique features
• Implement custom workflows
• Create proprietary integrations
• Optimize performance
• Control deployment environment

Development Control

With Spree, development teams can:

• Work with clean, documented code
• Implement changes without restrictions
• Deploy updates on their schedule
• Maintain consistent APIs
• Scale according to business needs

When to Choose Each Platform

Conclusion

While Shopify excels at providing standardized eCommerce functionality, businesses requiring extensive customization or full platform control often find its limitations challenging.

As one developer noted, “In short, it depends on the business model, and you don’t want to reinvent the wheel unless you have to due to the business logic.”

Spree Commerce offers a compelling alternative for businesses that need full ownership of their eCommerce platform. As an open-source eCommerce solution, it provides the freedom to innovate, customize, and scale without the constraints of a SaaS platform, making it an ideal choice for projects requiring extensive customization or unique features beyond standard eCommerce functionality.