Sylius: A Symfony-Based E-Commerce Framework

Sylius takes the opposite approach from WooCommerce: instead of a plugin bolted onto a content platform, it’s an e-commerce framework built from Symfony components from the ground up, aimed at stores with real custom business logic that a generic plugin architecture would fight rather than support.

composer create-project sylius/sylius-standard my-shop
cd my-shop
symfony console sylius:install
symfony server:start

Because it’s built on Symfony, extending it means writing ordinary Symfony code (events, services, Doctrine entities) rather than learning a commerce-specific plugin API:

class OrderPlacedListener
{
    public function __construct(private LoyaltyPointsCalculator $calculator) {}

    public function onOrderPlaced(ResourceControllerEvent $event): void
    {
        $order = $event->getSubject();
        $this->calculator->awardPoints($order->getCustomer(), $order->getTotal());
    }
}

services:
    App\EventListener\OrderPlacedListener:
        tags:
            - { name: kernel.event_listener, event: sylius.order.post_create, method: onOrderPlaced }

That’s the same event-listener pattern used throughout Symfony (see Shipping Background Work), applied to commerce events instead of custom application events.

When to reach for this

A storefront with genuinely custom pricing rules, order workflows, or B2B logic (tiered pricing, approval workflows, multi-warehouse fulfillment) that would mean fighting a generic plugin system elsewhere.

When it’s the wrong fit

A straightforward catalog of products with standard checkout needs. That’s a great deal more setup and Symfony familiarity than WooCommerce requires for the same practical result.

Under the hood: Sylius is built almost entirely from reusable Symfony components (the Form component, the Workflow component for order state machines, Doctrine for persistence), the same building blocks covered in Chapter 2, assembled specifically for commerce rather than invented from scratch.