Best Tech Stack for Building an E-commerce Store as a Solo Developer

Let me save you three months of research. If you're a solo developer building an e-commerce store, you do not need to build everything from scratch. I learned this the hard way by spending eight weeks building a custom checkout flow when Shopify does it better in five minutes.

But there are good reasons to build your own. More control, no monthly platform fees eating your margins, and the ability to customize everything. Here's the stack that gives you both speed and control.

The Recommended Stack

Why This Stack Works for Solo Developers

E-commerce has a ton of solved problems. Cart logic, inventory management, order processing, tax calculation. Building these from scratch is a trap. I've seen solo developers spend months recreating what Shopify gives you for $39/month.

The trick is using an open-source commerce engine (Medusa.js or Saleor) that handles the boring infrastructure while giving you full control over the frontend experience. You get the customization of a custom build with the reliability of battle-tested software.

This approach also means you own your data and your code. No platform lock-in. No surprise fee increases. No begging support to add a feature.

Frontend: Next.js

For e-commerce, page speed directly impacts conversion rates. Every 100ms of load time costs you roughly 1% in sales. Next.js gives you server-side rendering, automatic image optimization, and static generation for product pages. That means fast pages without any extra work.

The commerce ecosystem around Next.js is also mature. There are starter templates for Medusa, Saleor, and Shopify's Storefront API. You're not starting from zero.

Alternative. If you want something even faster to build, use Shopify with a custom Hydrogen storefront. You lose some control but gain a lot of speed. Honestly, if your primary goal is selling products and not building software, Shopify might be the better call. No shame in that.

Backend: Medusa.js

Medusa.js is my pick for solo developers. It's Node.js-based (so you stay in JavaScript/TypeScript land), it's open source, and it handles products, orders, customers, discounts, shipping, and payments out of the box.

I like Medusa over Saleor because the learning curve is gentler and the plugin ecosystem is growing fast. You can add features without touching core code.

Why not just Stripe alone? Stripe handles payments, but it doesn't manage inventory, product variants, shipping calculations, or order fulfillment. You could build all that yourself, but you'd basically be rebuilding Medusa with worse code and more bugs.

Database + Auth + Hosting

Database. PostgreSQL is the standard for e-commerce. It handles complex product queries, inventory counts, and order relationships without breaking a sweat. Medusa uses Postgres by default, so there's nothing to configure.

Auth. Medusa handles customer authentication. Customers can create accounts, save addresses, track orders. You don't need to wire up a separate auth provider for this.

Hosting. Put the Next.js frontend on Vercel for fast global CDN delivery. Run the Medusa backend on Railway or Render. Both give you managed PostgreSQL and easy deployments. Total cost for a new store is typically $0-25/month until you have real traffic.

What I'd Skip

Building your own cart. Cart logic is deceptively complex. Discount stacking, tax calculations, shipping rules, inventory reservation. Use what Medusa gives you.

WooCommerce. It's 2026. PHP-based WordPress commerce with a mountain of plugins is not the developer experience you want. If you're going the WordPress route, just use Shopify instead.

Headless CMS for products. Your commerce engine IS your product CMS. Don't add Contentful or Sanity just for product descriptions. That's an extra service, extra cost, and extra complexity for zero benefit.

Custom payment processing. Stripe handles PCI compliance, fraud detection, and international payments. Do not try to process credit cards yourself. Ever.

Getting Started

1. Set up Medusa. Run npx create-medusa-app@latest and follow the prompts. You'll have a working backend with admin dashboard in about 10 minutes.

2. Add the Next.js storefront. Medusa provides a Next.js starter. Clone it, connect it to your Medusa backend, and customize the design.

3. Configure Stripe. Add your Stripe keys to Medusa. Test the full checkout flow with Stripe's test cards.

4. Add 5-10 products. Don't launch with an empty store. Add real products with good images, descriptions, and pricing.

5. Deploy and start selling. Push the frontend to Vercel, the backend to Railway, and start driving traffic. You can always add features later, but you can't make sales without a live store.

The best e-commerce stack for a solo developer is one that handles the commodity features so you can focus on what makes your store unique. Products, branding, and customer experience are where you win. Not custom cart implementations.