Head to head · Commerce products · October 2026 research run
Ecwid by Lightspeed vs Shopware
Shopware scores 71.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Ecwid by Lightspeed's 63.2 (B), and leads in every scored category. Both do commerce products.
Which one, for what
Good for An agent doing back-office work on an existing Ecwid store, such as catalogue edits, order export and discount coupons.
Also in its favour
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- No incidents deducted, where Shopware loses 5 points for them
Watch for
Access tokens never expire and change only when the app is uninstalled and installed again
Shopware BB
Good for A merchant already on Shopware, or a team that wants an MIT PHP backend with a built-in MCP server for back-office work.
Ahead on
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 66
- Agent ergonomics, 78 against 66
- Security & auth, 73 against 61
- Payments & pricing, 50 against 15
- Maintenance & community, 87 against 79
Also in its favour
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Open source
Watch for
The MCP server is marked experimental until 6.8, and 6.7.14.0 changed what tools/list returns on the Store API endpoint
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Ecwid by Lightspeed | Shopware | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 80 | 83 | Shopware +3 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 66 | 85 | Shopware +19 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 66 | 78 | Shopware +12 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 61 | 73 | Shopware +12 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 15 | 50 | Shopware +35 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 79 | 87 | Shopware +8 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 72 | 76 | Shopware +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -5 | |
| Total | 63.2 · B | 71.4 · BB |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Ecwid by Lightspeed | Shopware |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Ecwid, Inc. (Lightspeed Commerce) | shopware AG |
| Hosted endpoint | https://app.ecwid.com/api/v3 | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the Lightspeed Service Agreement. The @lightspeed/ecom-headless npm package is MIT and the Java API client on GitHub is Apache-2.0 | MIT for the Community Edition core. Paid plans add proprietary extensions under shopware AG's general terms |
| Tools exposed | none | 14 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-30 | 2026-10-02 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-02-26 | 2026-06-10 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 22 stars, 307 npm/wk | 3.4k stars, 31k npm/wk |
Verdicts
Ecwid by Lightspeed
The REST API has 40 access scopes, a published limit of 600 requests a minute per token with Retry-After on a 429, field selection through responseFields, and Markdown docs with an llms.txt index. Tokens never expire, there is no test mode or idempotency key, API access needs a paid plan, and carts are built only in the browser.
Shopware
MIT-licensed core with OpenAPI specs for both APIs and a built-in MCP server that advertises three discovery tools, previews writes by default and limits each integration to an allowlist. The MCP server is experimental until 6.8, and 20 security advisories were published between May and September 2026, four of them critical.
Before you call either
Ecwid by Lightspeed
- Send the token as
Authorization: Bearertohttps://app.ecwid.com/api/v3/{storeId}. Tokens in the query string stopped working in March 2025 - Use the secret token server-side only. The public token reads enabled products and places orders that are not marked paid
- Add
responseFields, for exampletotal,items(id,name,price), to keep responses small, and page withoffsetandlimit(maximum 100) - Stay under 600 requests a minute per token and wait the
Retry-Afterseconds on a 429. Repeated calls with a bad token get the token and IP blocked for longer - Work in a separate test store. There is no test mode, and
POST /orderswrites a real order with no idempotency key - After changing an app's scopes, uninstall and reinstall it, then replace the stored tokens. The old ones stop working
Shopware
- Ask the merchant for an integration without --admin, tied to an ACL role and an MCP allowlist. Send sw-access-key and sw-secret-access-key headers to /api/_mcp
- Call shopware-tool-search first, then shopware-toolset-enable, and keep the Mcp-Session-Id header. A fresh session lists only three tools
- Pass dryRun=false to commit a write. shopware-media-upload has no dry run and uploads at once
- For shopping, call the Store API over HTTP with the sales channel's sw-access-key and keep the sw-context-token. The Store API MCP endpoint has no cart tools in core
- Send
includesin search criteria to cut response size, and read the 429 body for the wait time
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Ecwid by Lightspeed or Shopware?
Shopware scores 71.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Ecwid by Lightspeed's 63.2 (B), and leads in every scored category.
Do Ecwid by Lightspeed and Shopware need an API key?
Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.
Can an agent call Ecwid by Lightspeed and Shopware without installing anything?
Ecwid by Lightspeed has a hosted endpoint at https://app.ecwid.com/api/v3. No hosted endpoint is listed for Shopware.
Are Ecwid by Lightspeed and Shopware open source?
No open-source release is listed for Ecwid by Lightspeed. Shopware is open source (MIT for the Community Edition core. Paid plans add proprietary extensions under shopware AG's general terms).
Other comparisons with Ecwid by Lightspeed or Shopware
- Adobe Commerce (Magento) vs Ecwid by Lightspeed
- Adobe Commerce (Magento) vs Shopware
- BigCommerce API + MCP vs Ecwid by Lightspeed
- BigCommerce API + MCP vs Shopware
- Commerce Layer API + MCP vs Ecwid by Lightspeed
- Commerce Layer API + MCP vs Shopware
- commercetools vs Ecwid by Lightspeed
- commercetools vs Shopware
- Ecwid by Lightspeed vs Elastic Path API + MCP
- Ecwid by Lightspeed vs Medusa API + MCP
- Ecwid by Lightspeed vs Saleor API + MCP
- Ecwid by Lightspeed vs Shopify API + MCP
- Ecwid by Lightspeed vs Snipcart API + MCP
- Ecwid by Lightspeed vs Square
- Ecwid by Lightspeed vs Swell
- Ecwid by Lightspeed vs Vendure
- Ecwid by Lightspeed vs Wix Stores and eCommerce API
- Ecwid by Lightspeed vs WooCommerce API + MCP
- Elastic Path API + MCP vs Shopware
- Medusa API + MCP vs Shopware
- Saleor API + MCP vs Shopware
- Shopify API + MCP vs Shopware
- Shopware vs Snipcart API + MCP
- Shopware vs Square
- Shopware vs Swell
- Shopware vs Vendure
- Shopware vs Wix Stores and eCommerce API
- Shopware vs WooCommerce API + MCP
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/ecwid-vs-shopware.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/ecwid.json·/api/v1/tools/shopware.json - From a terminal
anchor compare ecwid shopware(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "ecwid", "b": "shopware"}at/mcp, no key