It was created by Sean Schofield in 2007 and has since had over 800 contributors[4] and gained 15,000 GitHub stars[5], making it the number 4 open-source eCommerce solution on GitHub. Spree was downloaded over 2.5 million times from RubyGems.[6]
On April 2nd, 2025, a new major Spree 5 version was released.[10] It introduced to the free Community Edition features such as:[11]:
a new admin dashboard experience
a no-code customizable storefront
no-code integrations available from the admin dashboard, e.g. Stripe, Klaviyo, Google Analytics
Some other notable features in the free Community Edition include:[12]
Multi-store: run separate stores from a single admin dashboard
Multi-country, multi-language, multi-currency
Product catalog management
Inventory management
Product search
Product discovery tools, including ChatGPT Instant Checkout
Promotions & Loyalty
Shipping management
Taxes management
Customize checkout
Order management
Physical and Digital Products
Storefront API for headless projects, e.g. a decoupled storefront, a mobile app[13]
Platform API for 3rd party system integration and programmatic store management[14]
Spree 5 also introduced, besides a free Community Edition, a paid Enterprise Edition[15] including features requested by big businesses, such as configurable user roles, an audit log for all user activity, enhanced security features (including data encryption), and modular architecture with a collection of private gems.
Typical Use Cases
Since Spree Commerce is an open-source and self-hosted software, it is a good fit for complex use cases requiring extensive customization and full tech stack ownership for technical, business, security or compliance reasons.[16]
The Enterprise Edition comes with a collection of private gems supporting the following use cases:
multi-vendor marketplace – for selling products delivered by 3rd party vendors in a dropshipping model[17]
multi-tenant eCommerce – for hosting thousands of isolated stores in a white-label SaaS model[18]
B2B eCommerce – with customizable customer signup forms, customer segmentation, pricing per customer or customer segment, user organizations and roles, and post-purchase support[19]
Licensing
Starting on September 4th, 2024, a dual-licensing model was introduced. Since then, all new Spree Commerce versions are being released under open-source AGPL v3 license with an Enterprise Edition commercial license as an alternative.[20] Spree versions released prior to that were licensed under the New BSD License.[21]
AGPL v3 is an OSI-approved open-source license, meaning it meets all the criteria for Free and Open Source Software as defined by the Open Source Initiative.
This licensing change allows the Spree Commerce core development team to maintain the open-source nature of Spree while also supporting ongoing development and maintenance of the Spree project with Enterprise Edition license sales, ensuring its long-term viability.[22]
At the same time, Spree Commerce Community Edition may be used for free and privately for single-tenant eCommerce applications without any code disclosure under the AGPLv3 license. This benefits all small business developers building online stores for themselves or their clients.[23]
Spree Commerce history
On July 1, 2011, Spree received $1.5 million in seed funding from AOL and True Ventures.[24] On February 25, 2014 Spree raised an additional $5M in Series A funding led by Thrive Capital. Also participating were Vegas Tech Fund (led by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh), Red Swan (led by Bonobos CEO Andy Dunn) as well as existing investors True Ventures and AOL Ventures.[25]
On September 21, 2015 it was acquired by First Data.[26] After the First Data acquisition, developers from Spark Solutions and VinSol now maintain and develop the Spree Commerce Open Source project. Vinsol also develops Spree extensions.
In 2016 an OpenCommerce Conference was held in New York to showcase the newest e-commerce projects running on Spree.[27]
In 2021 Spree changed its model from a monolithic e-commerce platform to an API-first application allowing non-Ruby developers to customize and run Spree applications. JavaScript SDK also became available.
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