Are you looking to compare Magento vs Shopify vs WooCommerce? Read more to learn more about these 3 popular e-commerce content management systems (CMS).
These are some of the best eCommerce platforms where you can create shopping websites. When you start looking for ways to create an eCommerce store, you will find some suggestions to you aof these three platforms. The three platforms are Magento, Shopify, and WooCommerce.
If there is only one platform, it’s easier to make the decision. However, when you get three platforms in the comparison, it becomes quite difficult to make a decision. Therefore, we will be comparing all three platforms here. We will see a complete comparison and see the battle of Magento vs. Shopify vs. WooCommerce.
To make your work easier, we will see all the factors and help you to make your decision accordingly.
Overview of Magento vs. Shopify vs. WooCommerce
Magento vs. Shopify vs. WooCommerce are three different content management systems (also referred to as CMS).
Magento is one of the most robust platforms to create eCommerce websites. It’s known as the most customizable platform. It has been in the industry since 2007 and has been giving amazing performance since then. It’s open-source and free to use. It works on PHP and allows you to code and customizable the changes.
On the other hand, we have Shopify which is the easiest platform among all three. However, there are few customization options. It’s a service-based model (SaaS). Due to this, it’s impossible to code or make any changes in the backend. However, their plugins are there to help you in adding functionalities. You can easily learn Shopify in few hours.
At last, we have got WooCommerce. It works on top of WordPress. It’s the most popular CMS out there that you can use. If you talk about market share, WordPress has the highest number of websites. WooCommerce accounts of total 29.1% of eCommerce websites. This clearly shows the popularity of WooCommerce.
Now that you know about the fundamentals of all three, we can start with the actual comparison.
Ease of Use
We will begin with the most popular question that people are asking.
Like you might be thinking in the overview, Shopify works as SaaS (Software as a Service). Therefore, there are no technical things that you need to handle. In simpler words, you don’t have to worry about hosting the website or worry about the performance. Shopify will handle all the things for you. You can focus on running the website and the platform will handle the rest.
Magento is a bit hard to use as compared to WooCommerce. That’s only because of the extra functionalities Magento has. However, both of them will require you to have technical knowledge. You will have to handle the hosting, performance, and security of your website. Therefore, this might be an issue for some people. The installation part is easy as all the hosting providers have a one-click install facility now. It will install the script in no time.
Themes and Customization
Now, we will talk about the themes and customization part.
Shopify has a couple of free themes where you will get enough customization options. You can try them. However, if you don’t like it, you will have to go with the premium theme. It will cost you a bit more.
On the other hand, WooCommerce has tons of free themes. You can select from free themes. If you don’t like them or want more customization options, you can buy a premium theme.
The same goes with Magento. However, the number of themes is fewer as compared to WooCommerce.
Plugins and Extra Functionality
Most of you are never fine with the inbuilt functionally, we want more, right? Every eCommerce website has its own need and it won’t be fair if we say plugins don’t matter.
In Shopify, there are a few plugins that will cover almost all the important tasks. For example, you will get a plugin for the dropshipping, countdown timer, collecting leads, etc. In this way, you will find plugins for all the users here. There are 4000 different plugins here.
Magento also follows the same thing. However, the number of plugins here is a bit more. There are free and premium plugins available.
WooCommerce has the highest number of plugins here. There are roughly 980 plugins in WordPress official plugin directory. You will find a lot of them outside WordPress. Please note that all the 980 plugins are free. These are just for WooCommerce. If you want extra functionality like collecting leads, etc. You can use WordPress plugins. There are more than 50,000 plugins available from which you can choose the best possible one.
Cost and Pricing
Now, let’s get to the main point. You might be worried about the pricing and cost, right?
We are going to see the same. We will see all the pricing lists here. So, you will get a clear idea of what it will cost you.
Shopify will cost you $29 a month if you go with the basic plan. You don’t have to worry about the hosting here. They will handle it for you. Most of the Shopify premium plugins have monthly subscriptions. So, you will have to pay for it every month. The charges start from $1 and the average is $8. Premium Shopify theme will cost you $180 on average.
Magento and WordPress are free to use. However, both of them are self-hosted. Therefore, you will have to pay for the hosting. Magento hosting will cost you roughly $10 per month. On the other hand, WooCommerce hosting will cost you a bit less.
Magento themes are less in price. It starts from $30 and can go as high as $500. The plugins will cost you roughly $50. WooCommerce on the other hand is the most affordable alternative here. The theme costs are between $39 to $100 (average). The plugins are as cheap as $50.
Please note that it’s optional to pay for themes or plugins. You can always use the free version.
Lastly, if you want to add any extra functionalities, you can hire developers. Magento developers will cost you high.
WooCommerce developers are available in all the ranges. Shopify won’t require any developer. However, you can surely develop a custom plugin if you want. It will cost you the highest.
SEO and Performance
Let’s talk about the performance and SEO of the website. This will determine how good you will rank and how good your website will do. Therefore, both of these are important points that you shouldn’t forget at any cost.
We will see more about it here in this section.
SEO is good on all websites. However, WordPress is mostly known for SEO. There are some of the best plugins available here that you can use. This will increase the SEO of your website. Magento stands second when it comes to the SEO of your website. Lastly, Shopify stores don’t have the best SEO. Most of the Shopify users are taking the help of paid ads to grow their website. Therefore, we can say that SEO of WooCommerce is best here.
The performance of Shopify is great. Your website will load in the least possible time. The performance of Magento and WooCommerce will depend on the hosting you are using. If you are using well-reputed hosting, you will get better speed. If not, you will have to optimize it all by yourself. Some plugins can help you. However, a bit of technical knowledge might be required if you want to do all the things by yourself. There is no final winner when it comes to performance. All of them are great. In Magento and WordPress, it depends on how much you are spending on hosting and server.
Technical and Support
There are two things that we will discuss here. One of them is whether it will require technical knowledge or not and the next thing that we are going to discuss here is about the support and the knowledge base. If you are using any platform, it should have proper support and a knowledge base. These are important.
Let’s start with Magento here. After all, it’s Magento vs. Shopify vs. WooCommerce. We will see more about these. Magento is where you will require the highest amount of technical knowledge. Even implementing themes can be tricky sometimes. Therefore, you need to ensure that you have proper knowledge about the same. The support is not that good but the community is great. You can get the answers with one Google search. Most of the support is handled by the hosting provider.
Shopify is where you won’t need any technical knowledge. The company will handle all the things for you. You can also use the support via chat, phone, and email. They have a 24/7 support service and the team is great here.
WooCommerce is quite similar to Magento here. The official support is not that good but the community is great. You will surely find all the answers here. Even the hosting provider will help you to find the best possible solution. WordPress has one of the largest user databases. Therefore, the community to help you in great. You will find many users who might be facing the same problems.
Also, if you go with dedicated hosting for Magento or WooCommerce, the support team will help you with technical things. Therefore, you can rely on this.
Scalability
You can choose the best scalability options here.
Shopify has a limited option when it comes to scalability. You can choose from one of the plans and then you can choose the best option.
Magento has a complete customization option. You can scale up your eCommerce store with ease if you are using Magento. On the other hand, WooCommerce allows you to have a couple of options when it comes to scalability. It’s not as scalable as Magento but you will still get the ability to scale up.
WooCommerce and Magento allow you to add extra code to your website. In this way, you can hire a developer and ask them to code the functionality you want. There are various hosting upgrading options you can choose from. So, scalability is amazing here.
Which one to Choose?
Now, you might be thinking about which is the best platform you can use to create an eCommerce website. One thing that you need to know is that you won’t get all the things on a single platform. You will have to give up some things or you will have to pay extra for the same. The next thing you should know is that there is no best platform here, it depends on your requirements. For some people, it might be WooCommerce whereas for some people it might be Shopify.
Here are our opinions on which one you should choose.
Go with Magento if
- You want a dedicated CMS that works on only CMS.
- You have technical and coding knowledge but want a ready-made solution that you can use and customize.
- Scalability is one of the important factors for you.
- Want better functionality is a reasonable price.
Go with Shopify if
- You want an easy platform to create the website and handle it.
- Cost is not an issue for you.
- You don’t have the technical knowledge and don’t want to invest your time in running it.
- You don’t want to add a high level of functionalities to your unique website.
Go with WooCommerce if
- You don’t want to spend money and want to use an affordable solution that you can use.
- You love WordPress and want to work on it.
- Scalability is needed for you.
- You are looking for a lot of help and don’t hire a developer.
- You want something technical yet easy to learn.
You can now choose which is the best platform that you can use.
Final Words
To conclude, this was all about Magento vs. Shopify vs. WooCommerce. You can then choose the best platform that you can use. It depends on you. There are no best platforms, it depends on your requirements. In this way, you can choose the best one.
