Head to head · Commerce products · October 2026 research run
Saleor API + MCP vs Vendure
Vendure has a score of 71.4 (BB) against Saleor API + MCP's 68.7 (B). Both do commerce products. The largest gap is reliability, 39 points.
Which one, for what
Pick Saleor API + MCP for
- agent ergonomics (+18)
- security & auth (+6)
- transparency & trust (+5)
Pick Vendure for
- reliability (+39)
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Saleor API + MCP | Vendure | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 50 | 89 | Vendure +39 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 89 | 91 | Vendure +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 86 | 68 | Saleor API + MCP +18 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 71 | 65 | Saleor API + MCP +6 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 45 | 45 | even |
| 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 | 72 | Saleor API + MCP +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | -3 | |
| Total | 68.7 · B | 71.4 · BB |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Saleor API + MCP | Vendure |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Saleor | Vendure (Elevantiq GmbH) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | https://readonlydemo.vendure.io/shop-api |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | BSD-3-Clause | GPL-3.0-or-later |
| 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 | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-30 | 2026-09-02 |
| Popularity | 23k stars, 7.3k npm/wk | 8.5k stars, 30k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | 3/5 (2) |
Verdicts
Saleor API + MCP
One GraphQL schema with 78 typed error-code enums and 464 marked deprecations. The MCP server can't create checkouts or orders.
Vendure
Full cart, coupon, shipping and payment flow in the GraphQL Shop API, with ErrorResult types an agent can branch on. No vendor-hosted API. Vendure Cloud is only partly available.
Before you call either
Saleor API + MCP
- 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
errorsarray 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
Vendure
- Keep the session token from the first Shop API response and send it on every call. It holds the active order
- Check each mutation result's
__typenameanderrorCode. Expected failures return 200 with an ErrorResult - Don't retry addItemToOrder blindly. Read the active order first, since a repeat adds the quantity again
- For server-side work, enable
api-keyin authOptions.tokenMethod and give the key one role in one channel - Run 3.7.3 or later, and purge old job records, which may still hold session tokens
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- Saleor API + MCP vs Snipcart API + MCP
- Saleor API + MCP vs Swell
- Saleor API + MCP vs WooCommerce API + MCP
- Shopify API + MCP vs Vendure
- Snipcart API + MCP vs Vendure
- Swell vs Vendure
- Vendure vs WooCommerce API + MCP
Machine-readable
/api/v1/tools/saleor.json·/api/v1/tools/vendure.json- This page as Markdown,
/compare/saleor-vs-vendure.md