# Ecwid by Lightspeed vs Spree Commerce

> Spree Commerce scores 70.4 (BB) to Ecwid by Lightspeed's 63.2 (B) for commerce catalogues. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ecwid-vs-spree-commerce
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ecwid-vs-spree-commerce.md (~2,950 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ecwid-vs-spree-commerce.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ecwid-vs-spree-commerce.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Spree Commerce scores 70.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Ecwid by Lightspeed's 63.2 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Ecwid by Lightspeed leads on transparency & trust. Both do commerce catalogues.

- Ecwid by Lightspeed: grade B, 63.2/100, rank #403 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/ecwid.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/ecwid.json
- Spree Commerce: grade BB, 70.4/100, rank #155 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/spree-commerce.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/spree-commerce.json
- Best commerce platforms and checkout APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/commerce/index.md
- All 136 commerce comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/commerce/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Ecwid by Lightspeed (B)

Good for: An agent doing back-office work on an existing Ecwid store, such as catalogue edits, order export and discount coupons.

Ahead on:
- Transparency & trust, 72 against 60

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- No incidents deducted, where Spree Commerce loses 5 points for them

Watch for: Access tokens never expire and change only when the app is uninstalled and installed again

### Spree Commerce (BB)

Good for: Teams that want to own a Rails commerce backend with marketplace, B2B and multi-region functions and drive it through REST.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 66
- Agent ergonomics, 90 against 66
- Payments & pricing, 55 against 15

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Open source

Watch for: Six GitHub security advisories between 8 January and 20 July 2026, four rated High, most of them access-control flaws on guest carts, orders and addresses


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Ecwid by Lightspeed | Spree Commerce | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 80 | 82 | Spree Commerce +2 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 85 | Spree Commerce +19 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 90 | Spree Commerce +24 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 61 | 65 | Spree Commerce +4 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 15 | 55 | Spree Commerce +40 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 81 | Spree Commerce +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 72 | 60 | Ecwid by Lightspeed +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -5 | |
| **Total** | | **63.2 · B** | **70.4 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Ecwid by Lightspeed | Spree Commerce |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Ecwid, Inc. (Lightspeed Commerce) | Vendo Connect Inc |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://app.ecwid.com/api/v3` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | 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 | BSD-3-Clause for the backend, MIT for the npm packages. Enterprise Edition code is under a separate commercial licence |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-30 | 2026-07-28 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-02-26 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | 22 stars, 307 npm/wk | 16k stars, 1.6k 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.

**Spree Commerce.** A self-hosted BSD 3-Clause platform with public OpenAPI files for the Store and Admin APIs, scoped secret keys, documented rate limits and idempotency keys on cart and checkout calls. GitHub lists six security advisories between January and July 2026, four rated High, and the default docs describe the 6.0 release candidate while 5.6.1 is the stable release.

## Before you call either

### Ecwid by Lightspeed

1. Send the token as `Authorization: Bearer` to `https://app.ecwid.com/api/v3/{storeId}`. Tokens in the query string stopped working in March 2025
2. Use the secret token server-side only. The public token reads enabled products and places orders that are not marked paid
3. Add `responseFields`, for example `total,items(id,name,price)`, to keep responses small, and page with `offset` and `limit` (maximum 100)
4. Stay under 600 requests a minute per token and wait the `Retry-After` seconds on a 429. Repeated calls with a bad token get the token and IP blocked for longer
5. Work in a separate test store. There is no test mode, and `POST /orders` writes a real order with no idempotency key
6. After changing an app's scopes, uninstall and reinstall it, then replace the stored tokens. The old ones stop working

### Spree Commerce

1. Send a publishable key in `X-Spree-Api-Key` on every Store API call. Add `X-Spree-Token` with the cart token for guest carts, or a customer JWT as a Bearer token
2. Send `Idempotency-Key` with the cart token or a customer JWT on cart, payment and completion calls. A request carrying only the publishable key is never cached
3. Ask for `fields` and `expand` explicitly. Relations are left out by default and `limit` stops at 100
4. Use a secret key with the narrowest scopes for the Admin API. `read_all` gives a read-only key, and the CLI's auto-minted local key is read-only
5. Read the docs under `/docs/v5` for a 5.6 store. The default docs describe 6.0, which renames shipments to fulfilments and splits carts from orders

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Ecwid by Lightspeed or Spree Commerce?

Spree Commerce scores 70.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Ecwid by Lightspeed's 63.2 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Ecwid by Lightspeed leads on transparency & trust.

### Do Ecwid by Lightspeed and Spree Commerce need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Ecwid by Lightspeed and Spree Commerce without installing anything?

Ecwid by Lightspeed has a hosted endpoint at https://app.ecwid.com/api/v3. No hosted endpoint is listed for Spree Commerce.

### Are Ecwid by Lightspeed and Spree Commerce open source?

No open-source release is listed for Ecwid by Lightspeed. Spree Commerce is open source (BSD-3-Clause for the backend, MIT for the npm packages. Enterprise Edition code is under a separate commercial licence).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ecwid-vs-spree-commerce.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ecwid-vs-spree-commerce.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "ecwid", "b": "spree-commerce"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare ecwid spree-commerce`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/ecwid.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/spree-commerce.json

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- [Adobe Commerce (Magento) vs Spree Commerce](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/adobe-commerce-vs-spree-commerce.md)
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