Shopware 6 is an open-source eCommerce platform built on PHP/Symfony and Vue.js, released in 2019 as the complete rewrite of Shopware 5. Developed by Shopware AG in Münster, Germany, it dominates the DACH market and has a growing international presence. Its Community Edition is MIT-licensed; commercial tiers (Rise, Evolve, Beyond) add enterprise features and dedicated support.
The key capabilities that make Shopware 6 the preferred platform across German-speaking Europe.
Shopware's built-in page builder lets marketing teams create rich product landing pages, category pages and campaign layouts using drag-and-drop blocks — without developer involvement. It combines CMS and eCommerce in a single editing interface, removing the need for a separate CMS tool.
Native support for SEPA, Klarna, PayPal and common German payment methods. Built-in EU VAT rules, GDPR-compliant tools, German delivery note formats and integration with German accounting systems (DATEV, Lexoffice). Far less setup than an international-first platform requires for the German market.
Customer-specific pricing, customer group management, quote requests, order approval workflows, company accounts with budget limits and purchase history. Available in the free Community Edition and extended in commercial tiers.
Shopware's Store API provides a complete headless layer for custom frontends. The official Composable Frontend (based on Vue.js/Nuxt) is a reference implementation; we also build custom Next.js and React frontends against the same API.
4,000+ extensions in the official Shopware Store covering payment, shipping, ERP, PIM, marketing and more. The plugin system is based on Symfony bundles and Vue.js components, making custom plugin development straightforward for the PHP/Vue.js developer.
Community Edition can be self-hosted on any LAMP/LEMP stack or via managed hosting. Commercial tiers offer Shopware's own cloud hosting. Shopware 6 has no hard dependency on a specific hosting provider, giving you full deployment flexibility.
Businesses selling in the German-speaking market who want a platform with native SEPA/Klarna support, built-in German tax and VAT rules, and the largest network of DACH-specific agencies and plugins.
Brands where the Shopping Experiences CMS gives marketing teams the ability to create landing pages and campaign content without developer involvement for every content update.
Growing merchants who want a feature-rich platform with B2B capabilities, headless-readiness and a Symfony/Vue.js architecture that their development team can extend without fighting the platform.
We build, migrate and support Shopware 6 stores for European merchants.
Custom Shopware development, plugin builds, theme work, version upgrades and ongoing maintenance packages for merchants running Shopware.
Connect Shopware to your ERP, PIM, payment providers, logistics and marketing tools for a fully integrated commerce operation.
FAQ
Community Edition (MIT) is free and covers the full eCommerce feature set. Rise adds B2B features, a rule-based promotion engine and a digital sales room. Evolve adds AI Copilot, advanced analytics and multi-channel management. Beyond adds custom enterprise features and a dedicated success manager. For most SMB and mid-market projects, Community Edition with commercial plugins covers the requirements. We advise on the right tier based on your specific feature needs.
Both are Symfony-based but serve different priorities. Shopware arrives with more built-in features — its Shopping Experiences CMS, payment integrations and B2B suite reduce custom development for standard requirements. Sylius gives you more architectural freedom — its resource layer and state machines make it easier to implement unusual business logic. Shopware wins for DACH merchants who want a rich out-of-the-box experience; Sylius wins when you need to deviate significantly from a standard commerce model.
Yes. Shopware 6 handles catalogues with hundreds of thousands of products well when properly configured with Elasticsearch for search and filtering. Product streams (dynamic product groups) and rule-based content assignment scale well with large catalogues. Infrastructure tuning (Redis caching, CDN) is important for very high-traffic stores.
Yes. Shopware provides an official migration assistant plugin that handles products, categories, customers, orders and CMS content. Custom plugins require rewriting for the Shopware 6 architecture (Symfony DI, Vue.js). We manage the full migration process including plugin replacement strategy, data validation and SEO redirect mapping.
A standard production setup uses PHP-FPM (8.1+), Nginx or Apache, MySQL 8 or MariaDB, Redis for session/cache, Elasticsearch (OpenSearch) for search, and a CDN for static assets. Shopware supports Varnish for full-page caching in headless setups. We advise on and configure the full infrastructure stack as part of every Shopware project.
Tell us about your project and we'll advise on whether Shopware 6 is the right fit — and what the build would look like.
