Spwig

Overview

Spwig is an open-source platform for operating an online store, with tools for catalog management, marketing, integrations and point of sale. It is best suited to merchants with varied products or multiple locations who want to choose between managing their own infrastructure and hosted service. The central trade-off is clear: self-hosting removes usage caps, while hosted plans exchange infrastructure control for defined quotas and support.

Key features

Eight product formats cover simple and variable goods, digital products, bundles, customizable and configurable items, bookings and gift cards. That range can accommodate a mixed catalog in one system; merchants with only standard products may find less reason to prioritize it.

Order workflows, multi-location inventory, customer profiles, analytics and report exports cover day-to-day store operations. Point of sale is included at no cost in every install and works on a tablet or in a browser, making Spwig a credible fit for merchants selling both online and in person. Spwig says it charges no transaction fee.

Marketing tools include SEO metadata, coupons, loyalty points, referral rewards, affiliate commissions, email campaigns and automated notifications, alongside abandoned-cart recovery. An app marketplace adds another route to extending the store. Named payment integrations include Stripe, PayPal, Square and Revolut; shipping providers include FedEx, UPS and USPS.

Developers get a RESTful API, event-driven webhooks, a component architecture and a portal for publishing themes and integrations. API access is included with hosted Growth, while REST API and webhooks appear in hosted Pro and Pro Plus, so a store that needs programmatic access should account for the tier threshold.

Self-hosting keeps customer data on the merchant’s infrastructure, and Spwig describes its approach as privacy-first. Community installations send one anonymous daily telemetry ping about installation and feature information; Spwig says it stores neither IP addresses nor customer data, and telemetry can be disabled with SPWIG_TELEMETRY=0. The commerce platform uses AGPL-3.0, while its SDKs are Apache-licensed, a distinction developers should consider before integrating or modifying the platform.

Pricing

Self-Host / Community costs nothing, billed Free forever. It includes the full platform, storefront, admin and POS, with no usage caps and community support. This is the strongest option for merchants able to operate their own infrastructure; the trade-off is taking on that responsibility rather than buying managed hosting.

Hosted plans are billed annually at €35/mo for Starter, €59/mo for Growth, €99/mo for Pro and €149/mo for Pro Plus. Monthly billing is higher where stated: Starter is €40 billed monthly, Growth €69, Pro €115 and Pro Plus €175. Starter allows 1,000 products, 3 staff accounts, 25GB media storage and 3,000 emails per month, with basic reporting and email support (48h). It suits a first store with modest staffing and email needs, but its low quotas leave little room for rapid expansion.

Growth raises those limits to 5,000 products, 10 staff, 100GB and 10,000 emails per month, and adds REST API access and email support (24h). It is the more practical step for a growing operation that needs integration access or more room for staff and media. Pro allows unlimited products, 25 staff, 250GB and 25,000 emails per month, with REST API plus webhooks and priority support (12h); it fits established stores with larger catalogs, but still caps staff, storage and email.

Pro Plus keeps unlimited products and lifts staff to unlimited, with 500GB media storage and 50,000 emails per month. Its REST API, webhooks, SLA and included POS make it the broadest listed hosted package, though its storage and email allowances remain finite. Hosted tiers therefore need to be compared against both current usage and expected growth.

Community, Pro edition and Enterprise edition are also described without a published price, so they have custom pricing. Pro edition adds a hosted email gateway, higher hosted-service rate limits and priority support; Enterprise adds SSO with Azure AD and Okta, the highest hosted-service rate limits and dedicated onboarding. Community includes the full platform and rate-limited GeoIP, geocoder and push services. Pro and Enterprise licences include priority email support with defined response times, while community support is free.

Platforms

Spwig supports Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows, web, API and self-hosted deployments. That breadth suits merchants choosing between browser-based access, mobile use and running the service on their own infrastructure.

Who it's for

Spwig is most compelling for merchants with varied product types, multiple locations, in-person sales or a preference for self-hosted software. It is less suitable for a store that wants uncapped managed hosting: the uncapped option is self-hosted, while hosted plans impose product, staff, storage and email ceilings.

Pros and cons

Pros: Self-hosted Community is free with no usage caps, giving technically equipped merchants a way to use the full platform without hosted quotas.

Pros: Included POS, multi-location inventory and broad product support bring online and in-person operations into one system.

Pros: No transaction fee and a wide set of marketing tools support stores looking to manage more than catalog and checkout.

Cons: Hosted plans cap staff, media and monthly email even when product counts become unlimited, so high-volume operations must watch several ceilings.

Cons: Self-hosting avoids those usage caps but leaves infrastructure with the merchant.

Cons: Some editions have custom pricing, making their cost harder to compare directly with the published hosted tiers.

Alternatives

Compare ecommerce platforms if you want to survey the category before settling on a deployment model. Big Cartel is a simpler fit for a very small catalog: its free Gold plan caps stores at five products, while Platinum raises the limit to 50 for $15 a month. Spree Commerce is another open-source, self-hosted option, including a Community Edition and an Enterprise Edition for DTC, B2B and marketplace use cases.

BigCommerce may suit a merchant preferring a paid hosted service; its Core plan is $29 a month and applies a 2.0% Open Payment Provider fee, unlike Spwig’s stated no-transaction-fee approach. Lightspeed eCom offers a free-forever account for merchants considering another free entry point. Liferay Commerce has a free tier aimed at exploration, development and pre-production, so it is a different fit from Spwig’s full no-cap self-hosted Community edition. Wix eCommerce is worth considering for its free plan with drag-and-drop editing, no-code design features and templates. Shoptet offers a free plan capped at 10 products, while Bagisto is another free open-source self-hosted download, with stated server requirements including PHP 8.3+, MySQL 8.0.32+ or MariaDB 10.3+, and at least 4 GB RAM.

Verdict

Choose Spwig if you need broad store operations, built-in POS and a genuine choice between self-hosted control and managed hosting. Its free Community edition is particularly attractive when you can run your own infrastructure; look elsewhere if you need fully managed service without quota ceilings or want every plan’s price to be straightforward.