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The fundamental difference
A plugin is PHP that runs inside your Shopware process. An app is an external service that Shopware talks to over HTTP, using webhooks, the Admin API and app scripts. The plugin can do anything; the app can only do what the app system exposes — and that limit is exactly what protects you.
Why apps age better
An app talks to a versioned API. A plugin talks to Shopware's internals, which move. When Shopware releases a minor version, apps usually keep working while plugins need a compatibility pass. If your extension will live for five years, that difference is the whole argument.
Where apps genuinely cannot help
Deep template work, performance-critical code in the request path, or anything that must run inside a database transaction. An HTTP round trip during cart calculation is a latency budget you probably do not have. There, a plugin is still the honest answer.
Our default in 2026
Start with an app. Fall back to a plugin only when you hit a wall you can name. And if you ever want to run on Shopware's cloud offering, the decision has already been made for you — apps are the only option there.
- Apps survive updates; plugins survive nothing for free.
- Anything in the cart's hot path stays a plugin.
- Shopware Cloud means apps only.
We do this for a living — Shopware, Node.js, React, ERP integration and automation for B2B.
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