WooCommerce Vs Shopify: Buyers’ inclination towards online shopping has inspired many startups recently to start their own online store. Many started their online presence with popular platforms like eBay, Amazon or Flipkart. But those who found policies of these platforms stringent and discovered a fear of loosing whole business, if the platform auditors revoke their access to platform, decided to develop their own online stores.
Most popular options for such startups are Magento, WordPress with WooCommerce or Shopify. It becomes very difficult for them to decide as to which of these three platforms is most suitable for them.
We encounter many such queries weekly when our prospects ask us the difference between these options. It certainly depends on customer’s business product range, his vision towards online business, his budget, clientele and IT acumen. Below is a swift and easy to understand comparison between these platforms.
|
S. No |
Magento | WooCommerce | Shopify |
| 1 | Open Source | Open Source | Licensed |
| 2 | Technology: Zend | Technology: PHP | Technology: RoR |
| 3 | Multiple Store: Yes | Multiple Store: Possible | Multiple Store: No |
| 4 | Hosting: Custom Hosting | Hosting: Custom Hosting | Hosting: Cloud based |
| 5 | Code Ownership: Yes | Code Ownership: Yes | Code Ownership: No |
| 6 | Speed Performance: Excellent | Speed Performance: Good for small stores | Performance: Excellent for small stores |
| 7 | Admin Learning Curve: Complex | Admin Learning Curve: Moderate | Admin Learning Curve: Moderate |
| 8 | Scale-ability: Very High | Scale-ability: Very Good | Scale-ability: Poor |
| 9 | Business Size: Good for larger eStores | Business Size: Good for MVPs and Small to medium sized eStores | Business Size: Good for MVPs and Small to medium sized eStores |
| 10 | Development Time: Approx 3 weeks and more | Development Time: Approx 2 weeks and more | Development Time: Approx 1 week to 3 weeks |
| 11 | Community / Support: Very Strong |
Community / Support: Very Strong | Community / Support: Good |
| 12 | Extensions Marketplace: Quite huge. One can get paid and free extensions | Plugins Marketplace: Quite huge. One can get paid and free extensions. Most plugins are indeed free. | Plugins Marketplace: Very limited. All plugins are paid. You pay for everything. |
| 13 | Core Specialty: eCommerce | Core Specialty: Woocommerce is an ecommerce feature rich WordPress Plugin | Core Specialty: eCommerce |
| 14 | SEO: Very Good and extensions are available |
SEO: Excellent and best of the lot. Plugins are available | SEO: Good |
| 15 | Development cost: Developers with Magento experience are costly. | Development cost: Developers with WordPress experience are moderately priced. | Development cost: Developers with Shopify experience are moderately priced. |
Conclusion:
Magento is one of the best solutions for those eStores who sell thousands of products and need a feature rich platform while WordPress is good for mini eShops with good features and excellent SEO. Shopify ensures quick turnaround and easy and very small eShop. We at Yugasa Software Labs work on all three platforms to build elegant and stable eShops.
