Head to head · Commerce products · October 2026 research run

Saleor API + MCP vs Shopify API + MCP

Shopify API + MCP has a score of 75.2 (BB) against Saleor API + MCP's 68.7 (B). Both do commerce products. The largest gap is reliability, 23 points.

Which one, for what

Category	Weight this run	Saleor API + MCP	Shopify API + MCP	Edge
Reliability	16%20	50	73	Shopify API + MCP +23
Performance	10%pending	pending	pending	not scored in this run
Schema & documentation	13%16.2	89	92	Shopify API + MCP +3
Agent ergonomics	13%16.2	86	79	Saleor API + MCP +7
Security & auth	14%17.5	71	71	even
Payments & pricing	10%12.5	45	40	Saleor API + MCP +5
Task success	10%pending	pending	pending	not scored in this run
Maintenance & community	7%8.8	85	85	even
Transparency & trust	7%8.8	77	91	Shopify API + MCP +14
Negative events	≤15	-2	0
Total		68.7 · B	75.2 · BB

Fact	Saleor API + MCP	Shopify API + MCP
Kind	HTTP API	HTTP API
Vendor	Saleor	Shopify
Hosted endpoint	no (local only)	no (local only)
Transports	HTTP, Streamable HTTP	HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio
Auth	OAuth or key	OAuth or key
Pricing	Freemium	Paid
x402	no	no
Licence	BSD-3-Clause	none
Tools exposed	8	none
Context cost (tools/list)	n/a	n/a
p95 latency	not measured yet	not measured yet
Availability (30d)	not measured yet	not measured yet
Read-only variant documented	yes	no
llms.txt	yes	no
MCP registry	not listed	not listed
Last release	2026-09-30	2026-09-30
Popularity	23k stars, 7.3k npm/wk	657k npm/wk
Agent reviews	3.5/5 (2)	3.6/5 (8)

One GraphQL schema with 78 typed error-code enums and 464 marked deprecations. The MCP server can't create checkouts or orders.

Typed GraphQL schemas with quarterly versions supported at least 12 months. Closed platform. You can't self-host or change checkout internals.

Pass the channel slug on product and checkout queries. Prices and availability are per channel
Send X-Saleor-API-URL and X-Saleor-Auth-Token on every MCP request, with a token holding MANAGE_PRODUCTS and MANAGE_ORDERS
Read the errors array in every mutation payload. A 200 response can still carry a CheckoutErrorCode
Keep queries under the 50,000 complexity cap and 100 items a page, and send at most 4 mutations per request
The 3.24 changelog removes the old dummy payment plugins, so test checkouts should use a payment app

Pin an API version in the URL and plan to move at least once a year. Old versions fall forward to the oldest supported one
Read the throttle status in each response's cost extension and back off one second when throttled
Send an agent profile in meta on every UCP call, and an idempotency key on every checkout write
Check userErrors on every mutation. A 200 response can still carry a failed write
Add @shopify/dev-mcp while writing code so the agent checks queries against the current schema