# 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. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/saleor-vs-vendure
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/saleor-vs-vendure.md (~1,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/saleor-vs-vendure.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/saleor-vs-vendure.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: 2026-10-04

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.

- Saleor API + MCP: grade B, 68.7/100, rank #121 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/saleor.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/saleor.json
- Vendure: grade BB, 71.4/100, rank #84 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vendure.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/vendure.json

## 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 | Saleor API + MCP | Vendure | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 89 | Vendure +39 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 89 | 91 | Vendure +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 86 | 68 | Saleor API + MCP +18 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 71 | 65 | Saleor API + MCP +6 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 45 | 45 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 85 | even |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 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

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

### Vendure

1. Keep the session token from the first Shop API response and send it on every call. It holds the active order
2. Check each mutation result's `__typename` and `errorCode`. Expected failures return 200 with an ErrorResult
3. Don't retry addItemToOrder blindly. Read the active order first, since a repeat adds the quantity again
4. For server-side work, enable `api-key` in authOptions.tokenMethod and give the key one role in one channel
5. Run 3.7.3 or later, and purge old job records, which may still hold session tokens

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