Laravel eCommerce in 2027: WentoCart vs Lunar

Laravel has become one of the most popular ways to build web applications in PHP, and more teams now want to run their online stores on it too. The framework is familiar, the tooling is excellent, and most agencies already have Laravel developers on staff.

Two open-source options regularly come up when developers search for Laravel eCommerce: Lunar and WentoCart. Both are built on Laravel, both are free, and both let you own your code. But they take very different approaches. Lunar gives you commerce building blocks to add to a Laravel app; WentoCart gives you a complete store, ready to launch.

This comparison walks through architecture, storefront, admin, licensing, maturity and developer experience, so you can choose the right foundation for your next project.

• WentoCart is a complete platform: a React storefront and an admin dashboard in one application.

• Choose Lunar to add commerce to an existing Laravel app or build a fully custom, headless front end.

• Choose WentoCart to launch a full store quickly on a modern Laravel and React stack.

• Licences differ: Lunar uses the permissive MIT licence; WentoCart uses the copyleft

OSL-3.0 licence.

Why Build eCommerce on Laravel?

• Developer productivity: Eloquent ORM, queues, events, scheduling and testing tools come built in.

• A huge talent pool: Laravel developers are easier to hire than specialists in niche commerce frameworks.

• A rich ecosystem: packages for payments, search, media, permissions and more.

• Modern tooling: Vite for front-end builds, plus first-class support for React, Vue and Livewire.

• Ownership: open-source platforms on Laravel give you full control of code, data and hosting.

Meet the Contenders

Lunar

Lunar describes itself as bringing functionality “akin to Shopify and other e-commerce platforms to Laravel”. It is a set of packages rather than a finished application: a core package with the

models, actions and utilities a store needs, and an admin panel built with Filament for managing products, orders and staff. It is headless by design, giving you “complete freedom” to build your own storefront. Lunar is MIT-licensed, has around 3,800 stars on GitHub, and its next major version (2.0) was in alpha in autumn 2026.

WentoCart

WentoCart is a complete, open-source eCommerce platform built with Laravel, React, MySQL, Tailwind CSS and Vite, and released under the OSL-3.0 licence. Out of the box you get a responsive storefront (catalog browsing, search, product pages, wishlist, cart and checkout) and an admin dashboard for products, categories and attributes, inventory, orders, customers, coupons and promotions, and multi-language and multi-currency settings. Version 1.0 is its first community release.

Side-by-Side Comparison

Lunar WentoCart

What it is Headless commerce packages for Complete eCommerce platform on

Laravel Laravel

Storefront Not included; build your own (a Livewire Included: responsive React storefront starter kit is provided as a learning reference)

Admin panel Included, built with Filament Included, built with React

Front-end Your choice (Blade, Livewire, Inertia, React, Tailwind CSS, Vite stack React, Vue, a separate app)

Getting started Add packages to a Laravel app with Download and run php artisan Composer, then build the storefront wento:install

Licence MIT (permissive) OSL-3.0 (copyleft)

Maturity Established; v1 stable, v2 in development New; v1.0 community release

Best for Developers adding commerce to an app, Teams that want a full, modern store live or building custom headless front ends quickly and owned outright

Architecture: Building Blocks vs Complete Platform

This is the most important difference, and it shapes everything else. Lunar is a toolkit. You start with your own Laravel application and install Lunar’s packages into it. Your app gains products, carts, orders and an admin panel, but the shopper-facing experience is entirely yours to design and build. That is ideal when commerce is one part of a larger product, such as a membership site, a SaaS app with a shop, or a marketplace with custom rules.

WentoCart is an application. You install it and get a working store: storefront, checkout and admin already connected. You then customise the design, settings and code to fit your business. That is ideal when the store is the product and you want to launch without building a storefront from scratch.

A simple way to decide Ask: “Do I want to build a store, or do I want to add a store to something I’m building?” Adding commerce to an existing app points to Lunar. Launching a store as the main product points to WentoCart.

Storefront: The Biggest Practical Difference

With Lunar, the storefront is your project. Its official Livewire starter kit is helpful for learning, but its own README notes that it is a reference and “not production ready or complete”. Building a polished storefront (category pages, filters, product pages, cart, checkout, customer accounts, emails, responsive design) typically takes significant development time.

With WentoCart, that layer already exists as a React storefront with catalog browsing, product search, detailed product pages, wishlist, cart and checkout, plus multi-language and currency configuration. Your team starts from a working store and customises it, rather than starting from a blank page.

Admin Experience

Lunar’s admin is built on Filament, a popular Laravel admin framework. If your team already uses Filament, extending Lunar’s admin will feel natural, and you can add your own resources and pages.

WentoCart’s admin is built with React and covers day-to-day store operations in one dashboard: catalog, stock levels, orders and fulfilment, customers, coupons, taxes, currencies, shipping and store settings. Teams comfortable with React can customise both the admin and the storefront using the same front-end skills.

Getting Started

Lunar

Create or open a Laravel application, add Lunar’s packages with Composer, run its installer, then start building the storefront and checkout flow. Check the official documentation for current PHP and Laravel requirements; Lunar’s 2.0 alpha, for example, targets PHP 8.4 and Laravel 12 or 13.

WentoCart

Download the release, configure your environment and database, then run the installer:

$ php artisan wento:install

The installer checks requirements and prepares your store. From there you add products, configure settings and customise the design. The documentation walks through each step.

Licensing: MIT vs OSL-3.0

Both licences let you use the software commercially for free. The difference is what happens when you modify it:

• MIT (Lunar) is permissive. You can modify the code and keep your changes private, with few conditions beyond keeping the copyright notice.

• OSL-3.0 (WentoCart) is a copyleft licence. If you distribute a modified version, or make one available to others over a network, the licence requires the source code of that modified work to be available under OSL-3.0. It is the same licence family long used by Magento 1 and still used by PrestaShop’s core.

For most merchants running their own store, either licence works well. Agencies building products on top of a platform should review the licence terms with their legal adviser. (This is general information, not legal advice.)

Maturity and Community

Lunar has been around for several years, has an established community and a growing ecosystem of add-on packages. WentoCart is new: version 1.0 is its first community release, so its ecosystem of themes, extensions and integrations is still growing. If you need a specific payment gateway or integration on day one, check what each project supports before committing.

Being new also has upsides: WentoCart starts on a current stack without years of legacy decisions, and early adopters can help shape its roadmap through contributions and feedback.

Which Should You Choose? Your situation Better fit

You already have a Laravel app and want to add a shop to it Lunar

You want a fully custom, headless storefront (e.g. a separate front-end app) Lunar

Your team is invested in Filament for admin panels Lunar

You need a permissive licence with no copyleft obligations Lunar

You want a complete store (storefront, checkout and admin) working from day WentoCart one

Your team prefers React for both storefront and admin WentoCart

You are a merchant or agency that wants to launch quickly and own everything WentoCart

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use WentoCart headlessly? WentoCart ships as a complete application with its own storefront. Because you own the code, your developers can extend it, but if a headless-first architecture is your main requirement, Lunar is designed for that.

Do I need to know Laravel to run either one? To customise either platform, yes. To run a WentoCart store day to day, store staff use the admin dashboard and don’t need to write code.

The Bottom Line

Lunar and WentoCart aren’t really rivals; they solve different problems. Lunar is an excellent toolkit when commerce is one part of a bigger Laravel application or when you want total control of a headless front end. WentoCart is the faster route when you want a complete, modern store on Laravel and React that you can launch, customise and fully own.

See a complete Laravel store in action. Explore WentoCart’s live storefront and admin demo, read the documentation, or download v1.0 and run php artisan wento:install today.