battles / Platforms
Sellfy vs Solidus
Sellfy ($29/mo/mo, vibe code 6/10) vs Solidus (usage-based/mo, vibe code 6/10). Solidus is the easier one to rebuild yourself — here is what you lose either way.
Platforms
$29/mo/mo
- MVP
- multi-day
- Full replacement
- single-creator storefront
Platforms
usage-based/mo
- MVP
- 2 weeks
- Full replacement
- 8-14 months
easier to rebuild
get the build prompt →price gap / year
$348/mo
running both / year
$348/mo
our call
Start with Solidus — highest vibe code, weakest moat.
Sellfy
The core loop is buildable, but a dependable replacement becomes a real weekend or multi-day project. For Sellfy, sell digital files and simple subscriptions from a user-owned storefront. The hard boundary is payments, hosted delivery, email, print-on-demand, upsells, and support, plus payments, tax, distribution, and operations.
you can rebuild
- Sell a small catalog of digital files and simple subscriptions from a user-owned storefront, deliver purchased files, and manage customers.
what you lose
- payments, hosted delivery, email, print-on-demand, upsells, and support
- marketplace discovery
- tax remittance
- fraud operations
- advanced course and community tooling
real moats
- compliance-regulatory
- scale-infra
Solidus
There is no licence to escape. Rebuilding makes sense only if you want to leave Ruby; otherwise you are trading a maintained core for a bespoke one.
you can rebuild
- Catalog, variants and option types
- Cart, checkout and order state machine
- Promotions with basic rules and actions
- Admin interface for orders and products
what you lose
- A maintained upgrade path with a security-conscious core team
- Rails extensions for payments, taxes and reporting
- Free bug fixes from other people's production incidents
real moats
- An active maintainer community absorbing edge cases you have not hit yet
open source escape hatches
- spree/spree BSD-3
- medusajs/medusa MIT
- saleor/saleor BSD-3
Questions people ask
Which is easier to rebuild with AI, Sellfy or Solidus?
Solidus. It scores 6/10 on vibe code with a moat of 2/10, so an AI-assisted MVP takes about 2 weeks and a full replacement about 8-14 months.
Which one costs less, Sellfy or Solidus?
Solidus at usage-based/mo for a typical mid-market store. The gap between the two is about $348/mo a year.
What do I lose if I replace Sellfy?
payments, hosted delivery, email, print-on-demand, upsells, and support marketplace discovery tax remittance
What do I lose if I replace Solidus?
A maintained upgrade path with a security-conscious core team Rails extensions for payments, taxes and reporting Free bug fixes from other people's production incidents
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