Vendure — Open Source Headless E-Commerce Framework

What it is

Vendure is an open-source headless commerce framework built with TypeScript, NestJS, and GraphQL. It provides the full backend for e-commerce: products, orders, payments, fulfillment, shipping, and tax, exposed through a GraphQL API so any frontend can consume it.

Vendure targets developers and teams building custom storefronts with React, Next.js, Vue, or any frontend framework who need a flexible commerce engine without vendor lock-in.

How it saves time or tokens

Vendure removes the need to build commerce primitives from scratch. Its plugin system means you add payment gateways (Stripe, PayPal, Mollie), search (Elasticsearch), and custom business logic without modifying core code. The Admin UI ships ready-made, so back-office operations work on day one. Multi-channel support lets you run web, mobile, and POS from a single backend instance.

How to use

1. Scaffold a new project with the CLI:

npx @vendure/create my-shop
cd my-shop
npm run dev

1. Open the admin panel at http://localhost:3000/admin and log in with superadmin / superadmin.

1. Configure products, shipping methods, and payment integrations through the admin UI or programmatically via the GraphQL API.

Example

Querying products from the storefront GraphQL API:

query {
  products(options: { take: 10 }) {
    items {
      id
      name
      slug
      variants {
        price
        currencyCode
        stockLevel
      }
      featuredAsset {
        preview
      }
    }
  }
}

Creating a custom plugin:

import { VendurePlugin, PluginCommonModule } from '@vendure/core';

@VendurePlugin({
  imports: [PluginCommonModule],
  providers: [],
  configuration: config => {
    // modify server config here
    return config;
  },
})
export class MyCustomPlugin {}

Related on TokRepo

• API development tools — tools for building and testing API-first backends
• Coding tools for developers — broader developer tooling category

Common pitfalls

• Running npx @vendure/create without Node 18+ causes silent failures in dependency resolution
• Vendure uses TypeORM under the hood; complex queries may need raw SQL or custom resolvers instead of relying solely on the built-in list queries
• The default SQLite database is for development only; production deployments should use PostgreSQL or MySQL for data integrity and performance