Magento, Shopify, and WooCommerce are the three biggest names in the eCommerce industry right now. They have outdone their competitors by a large margin
What is Shopify?
Shopify is feature-loaded, scalable, and offers numerous templates for different niches, Shopify stores are plug-and-play e-commerce.
What is Magento?
Magneto is an open-source e-commerce platform owned by Adobe. Magneto is one of the most popular open e-commerce systems in the network. Magento is by far the most personalizable eCommerce site to be found. It was started in 2007 and very soon went on to have close to 500,000 users and the numbers have been increasing ever since. Magento has two services: One is Open Source, which means anyone can sign up and make a website for free, and the other is Magento Commerce, which is a paid plan that provides all hosting services.
What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is a powerful eCommerce toolkit developed to transform any WordPress website into a beautiful online store. It is a free option, a little difficult to scale but scores well for site visitor experience. A site built on WooCommerce is an alternative to expensive website creation options
1 .SEO Effectiveness
Magento:
Magento platform provides advanced SEO features along with inbuilt analytics. Along with these features, if you have the necessary skill set, you can easily customize SEO to suit your website needs.
Shopify:
Being an eCommerce first store Shopify is definitely optimized for SEO. The only thing is that it gives very less space for customizations. There might be some SEO practices that are unique to your company, but if Shopify doesn’t allow them, you won’t be able to carry them out fully.
WooCommerce:
There is an abundance of plugins and extensions available in WooCommerce, it offers a great degree of SEO. Users can also tweak the settings to suit their website better.
2.Performance & Scalability
Magento:
- Magneto is extremely powerful and can easily accommodate thousands and thousands of products along with huge website traffic.
- If you have a big business or have big plans for future expansion then Magneto’s best robust content management system will definitely complement those plans and you won’t have to migrate to more powerful software. Once you have done your e-commerce site in Magento it is highly unlikely that you will change the platform
- Magneto is also easily scalable, and depending on the website traffic, you can easily increase or decrease the resources for your server needs. This means that during unexpected spikes of traffic you won’t have to suffer any drop in speed or website crashes..
Shopify:
Shopify fares well when it comes to pace and efficiency on the web. Site speed is, in reality, one of its principal advantages. When it comes to scalability it doesn’t do well compared to the other two, which can prove to be a hindrance if your business grows. If you want smooth scalability while your company is growing, then use Shopify Plus, which can increase your costs dramatically.
WooCommerce:
WooCommerce allows for scalability but it can be difficult for people unfamiliar with code to scale their websites according to needs. If you don’t have any experience in coding then you might claim that Woo Commerce isn’t scalable at all.
3. Support
Magento:
Magento has an approximately 300,000 members large community. With both amateurs and professional participants contributing to these groups, if you have any issues it is not hard to find support. But their direct customer service may not be as prompt as one wishes. In practical you need a developer to handle the changes in code and customization. In fact,one cannot maintain a website on this platform without getting a developing expert’s help or hosting service.
Shopify:
Shopify prides itself in its 24×7 customer support. The turnaround time is decent and their answers and suggestions are usually prompt. Their customer support can be contacted via live chat, email or phone.
WooCommerce:
WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, and the WordPress community is huge. You can easily take help and benefit from codes or plugins created by others in the community to enhance your website’s functionality.
4. Ease Of Use
Magento:
Magento has a high learning curve. One cannot maintain a website on this platform without getting a developing expert’s help or hosting service. You need to have a working knowledge of PHP, cloud hosting, HTML, etc, otherwise, it’s impossible to run a website on Magento.
Shopify:
Like we’ve said before, Shopify requires no prior knowledge of coding or website development. The platform provides software and hosting itself, meaning users need only worry about setting up and designing their store (for which plugins and themes are available).
WooCommerce:
If you’re okay with running your WooCommerce websites on its free themes and plugins, then it’s very easy to use.  But, in most cases, you’ll need some customizations, which is where WooCommerce gets tricky, particularly if you don’t have any literacy about coding.
5. Security
Magento:
If you have powerful developers and hosting services at your fingertips, security will not be an issue at Magento. Magento being the first forum for eCommerce is made with security in mind. It keeps issuing security updates, and there are plenty of security extensions and plugins available for a higher security level.
Shopify:
Since everything on Shopify is globally hosted, the platform is quite secure and reliable. Shopify takes care of your server-side maintenance and regulates it. It also provides you a free SSL certificate and takes care of PCI compliance for you.
WooCommerce:
WordPress is continuing to update for bug fixes and stability. Users need not worry about any protection as the WooCommerce team is constantly testing and updating the code to reduce these risks. Managed WordPress hosting provides an extra layer of security now-a-days. Besides that, there are also loads of security plugins that defend your website from hackers and virus attacks.
Magento vs Shopify vs WooCommerce: Disadvantages
Magento:
- Higher costs as opposed to initially.
- Learning curve.
- Need to hire a Magento developer for efficient site management.
- Themes can be tricky to implement.
- Resource hungry. For it to run properly It needs more resources (RAM, CPU).
Shopify:
- SEO is less effective compared to the other two. It is not SEO friendly
- There can be a dramatic increase in subscription costs when your business grows and you need more functions.
- Â There is a monthly subscription fee that can be skipped if you are using open source WooCommerce or Magento.
- An additional transaction fee is charged if you’re using third-party payment gateways that are not installed in Shopify.
WooCommerce:
- Not an eCommerce first platform
- Â Website speed can be a problem, with photos taking time to load.
- Â WordPress is continuing to upgrade its program, meaning that all plugins and extensions installed may not be compatible with the latest version.
- Need coding awareness or configuration support from outside. WooCommerce’s own themes and plugins may not be enough to account for your uniqueness.
- Takes a long time to develop as compared to Shopify. Not as scalable as Magento
Conclusion:
Finally, Considering all aspects, WooCommerce is the clear winner over Magento and Shopify. Moreover, WooCommerce powered shop builders like StoreBuilder by Nexcess come with easy to use yet powerful all-in-one solution for launching an online store. Try StoreBuilder risk free for 30 days to experience the best alternative to Shopify and Magento.