Self hosting moves the commerce risk onto you

Partner

Saleor is open source commerce with a GraphQL API from the schema up: catalog, checkout, and multi channel logic behind one graph, running on infrastructure you own. The API design is the easy part of that trade. The checkout is not, because owning the code means owning PCI scope, fraud rules, and tax logic with it.

We build headless storefronts on Shopify Plus and BigCommerce, where checkout stays with the platform and we build everything else. Saleor moves catalog, checkout, and channel logic inside your own infrastructure, which is a staffing decision before it is an architecture one. Monogram is a Saleor partner.

Commerce

How we would evaluate a Saleor build

You own the infrastructure, not just the code
Saleor ships as code you deploy, not a service you subscribe to. Postgres, the GraphQL gateway, background jobs, and every security patch become your team's responsibility, not a vendor's. A managed platform prices that operational weight into a subscription and carries it for you. Self hosting hands you the code and the pager both.
GraphQL is the schema, not a layer
Shopify and BigCommerce added GraphQL beside an older REST API, so the graph mirrors a data model built for something else first. Saleor defines catalog, checkout, and channel objects as GraphQL types from the start. The schema is the actual data model here, not a translation layer sitting in front of one.
Multi channel logic lives in the schema
Selling one catalog into different currencies, languages, or storefronts usually means an app layer bolted onto a platform built for a single channel. Saleor treats a channel as a first class object in its schema, so pricing, availability, and shipping rules attach to it directly rather than to a workaround. No Saleor build appears in our published work yet.