# Shopware vs Square

> Shopware scores 71.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Square's 69.2 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Square leads on agent ergonomics. Both do commerce products. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/shopware-vs-square
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/shopware-vs-square.md (~2,450 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/shopware-vs-square.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/shopware-vs-square.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: 2026-10-08

Shopware scores 71.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Square's 69.2 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Square leads on agent ergonomics. Both do commerce products.

- Shopware: grade BB, 71.4/100, rank #107 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/shopware.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/shopware.json
- Square: grade B, 69.2/100, rank #156 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/square.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/square.json

## Which one, for what

### 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:
- Reliability, 83 against 58
- Security & auth, 73 against 67
- Payments & pricing, 50 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 87 against 81
- Transparency & trust, 76 against 70

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

### Square (B)

Good for: Agents working for a seller already on Square, on catalogue, inventory, orders, payment links and customers, online and in person.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 83 against 78

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Runs on your own machine
- No incidents deducted, where Shopware loses 5 points for them

Watch for: The MCP server is marked beta, and the remote server reaches production data only


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Shopware | Square | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 83 | 58 | Shopware +25 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 87 | Square +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 83 | Square +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 73 | 67 | Shopware +6 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 50 | 40 | Shopware +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 87 | 81 | Shopware +6 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 76 | 70 | Shopware +6 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **71.4 · BB** | **69.2 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Shopware | Square |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | shopware AG | Block, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://mcp.squareup.com/mcp` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT for the Community Edition core. Paid plans add proprietary extensions under shopware AG's general terms | Proprietary service under the Square Developer Terms of Service. The MCP server and the OpenAPI specification on GitHub are Apache 2.0, and the Node.js SDK is MIT |
| Tools exposed | 14 | 3 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-02 | 2026-09-16 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-06-10 | 2026-09-10 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-09-15 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 3.4k stars, 31k npm/wk | 454k npm/wk, 72k PyPI/wk |

## Verdicts

**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.

**Square.** The REST API has a public OpenAPI 3.0 spec, OAuth scopes split by read and write for each resource, idempotency keys on writes and a free sandbox. The MCP server is in beta and its remote instance reaches production only. No numeric REST rate limits or SLA were found, and the status page recorded widespread errors on 27 September 2026.

## Before you call either

### Shopware

1. 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
2. Call shopware-tool-search first, then shopware-toolset-enable, and keep the Mcp-Session-Id header. A fresh session lists only three tools
3. Pass dryRun=false to commit a write. shopware-media-upload has no dry run and uploads at once
4. 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
5. Send `includes` in search criteria to cut response size, and read the 429 body for the wait time

### Square

1. Test against the sandbox first with the local MCP server and `SANDBOX=true`. The remote server at mcp.squareup.com reaches production only
2. Set `DISALLOW_WRITES=true` on the local MCP server when the task only reads
3. Call `get_service_info`, then `get_type_info`, before each `make_api_request`. The request body is otherwise untyped
4. Send a fresh `idempotency_key` on every write, and reuse it when retrying the same write
5. Pin `Square-Version` in each request. Use a page cursor within 5 minutes of receiving it

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Shopware or Square?

Shopware scores 71.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Square's 69.2 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Square leads on agent ergonomics.

### Do Shopware and Square need an API key?

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

### Can an agent call Shopware and Square without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Shopware. Square has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.squareup.com/mcp.

### Are Shopware and Square open source?

Shopware is open source (MIT for the Community Edition core. Paid plans add proprietary extensions under shopware AG's general terms). No open-source release is listed for Square.


## For agents

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

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