Thirty Bees is a free, open-source ecommerce platform forked from PrestaShop 1.6. Read features, pricing, pros, and cons in this in-depth review.
Thirty Bees is an open-source e-commerce platform designed to let merchants run a full-featured online store without paying subscription fees for core functionality. It was created by developers Michael Dekker and Lesley Paone as a stabilized fork of PrestaShop 1.6, aimed at store owners who wanted the reliability of that established codebase combined with ongoing security patches, performance work, and new features.
Unlike hosted SaaS platforms, Thirty Bees is self-hosted software: merchants download it and install it on their own server or a compatible hosting provider, giving them full access to the underlying code and complete control over customization, data, and infrastructure choices.
The platform is maintained by its founding team and an open-source community, with development funded through optional paid modules, premium themes, and support services rather than mandatory licensing fees for the base platform.
Thirty Bees ships with the core toolkit expected of a mature e-commerce platform: product catalog and inventory management, multiple payment gateway integrations, tax and shipping rule configuration, and a back-office dashboard for order and customer management. Because it descends from PrestaShop 1.6, merchants migrating from that platform can move over with minimal friction.
The platform also supports multi-store setups from a single installation, SEO-friendly URL structures, and a marketplace of official and third-party themes and modules that extend functionality for shipping carriers, marketing tools, and payment processors.
A key differentiator is that many features bundled as paid add-ons on other platforms are included in the free core distribution, reflecting the founders' stated goal of building the best free e-commerce platform without nickel-and-diming merchants for essentials.
The core Thirty Bees platform is completely free and open source under its published license, with no subscription required to run a store. Merchants are responsible for their own hosting costs, since the software is self-hosted rather than provided as a managed cloud service.
Additional revenue comes from optional premium modules and themes sold through the Thirty Bees marketplace, as well as paid technical support and development services for merchants who want professional assistance beyond community forums and documentation.
Thirty Bees is used to build and run self-hosted online stores, covering product catalog management, checkout, payments, and order fulfillment.
Yes, the core Thirty Bees platform is free and open source; merchants only pay for their own hosting and any optional premium modules or themes they choose to buy.
Yes, Thirty Bees began as a fork of PrestaShop 1.6, created to keep that stable codebase updated and patched for merchants.
Basic server administration and installation knowledge is helpful since Thirty Bees is self-hosted rather than a fully managed SaaS product.
Store owners on PrestaShop 1.6 generally have a relatively smooth migration path given the shared codebase origins.
Thirty Bees was created by developers Michael Dekker and Lesley Paone, who together have decades of e-commerce development experience.
Yes, the platform supports running multiple storefronts from a single installation and back office.
Common alternatives include PrestaShop, WooCommerce, OpenCart, and hosted platforms like Shopify or BigCommerce.