WooCommerce vs Shopify

If you’ve been searching for an eCommerce solution that will help you launch your online store, WooCommerce and Shopify are too very eligible options. Both solutions have their upsides and downsides and in the end, they are too very powerful tools to help you build your online marketplace.

During this WooCommerce and Shopify comparison, we will look at a variety of items including the technical aspects of each platform, website loading times, integrated features, pricing and more. This will allow you to make an educated decision before settling on just one platform. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to find the best eCommerce platform so you can quickly set up your online store and pay the fewest fees while enjoying top-shelf features.

WooCommerce and Shopify Compared

Comparing Shopify and WooCommerce is like comparing apples and oranges. Shopify is an all-in-one solution that hosts your website and handles everything including the littlest details such as your font preferences. WooCommerce on the other hand is a WordPress plugin which requires you to have separate hosting, a WordPress hosted website and the entire tool is a little more complicated to use. However, once you get the hang of running WooCommerce, you open up a lot more possibilities. We’re going to compare their features and the benefits of each tool.

Technical Comparison

First, let’s take a look at the technical side of things. Uptime is important for an eCommerce platform, it determines how often your website will crash. With Shopify, you get a 99.98%, which is just about the industry average and is highly reliable. WooCommerce on the other hand is a little different - lots of different factors will affect your uptime. With WooCommerce, your uptime will be dependant upon your chosen hosting provider. For website speed, Shopify is pretty good and most websites load in under 3 seconds. However, once again, WooCommerce sites are dependant on many other factors such as your WordPress theme’s optimizations, your hosting provider, whether or not you’re using a content delivery network (CDN) and other such details. Overall, Shopify offers good uptime and fast loading sites out of box and WooCommerce is dependant upon many factors. However, WooCommerce has the potential to be even faster and more reliable than Shopify with proper optimizations.

Customer Support

If customer support is important to you, Shopify is the way to go. As one of the largest and most popular eCommerce platforms online, they offer outstanding customer support channels. Availability is 24/7 and they can be reached via telephone, email and even live chat. WooCommerce on the other hand is more of a “find the solution online” type of platform. They don’t offer any type of support, but as one of the most popular open-source eCommerce platforms, there are tons of forums and helpful articles that can allow you to get the answers you need online. With a quick Google search, you should be able to resolve just about any issue. So if you’re the type of person who needs to actually talk to an expert for help, choose Shopify, but if you don’t mind searching online for answers, WooCommerce is a great solution for you.

Features

The amount of features provided to you by each tool is important. You’ll want to be able to easily use just about any feature in order to be able to enjoy a powerful online store along with the ability to integrate more great functions as you grow. Shopify comes with decent built-in features, but they really shine when it comes to third-party apps. With Shopify, you will be able to explore thousands of third-party integrations, allowing you to easily add all sorts of functions such as support channels, email marketing, custom analytics and much more. WooCommerce is even more powerful - as an open-source platform, you will find more third-party integrations than anywhere else. WooCommerce is one of the most powerful eCommerce solutions that lets add extra functions. While it’s a little more complex to use, WooCommerce gives you a lot more potential.

Ease of use is entirely different though. With Shopify, it can take minutes to set up your online store and add more integrations. WooCommerce can take days to set up since you need to first purchase a domain, pay for hosting, install WordPress, pick a theme, set up your store, then integrate WooCommerce. If you don’t feel like you can do all that, you should definitely go for the easier option - Shopify.

Design

Being able to make your online store look and feel the exact way that you want is crucial. The last thing you want is to have a theme looking the way you want with just one thing a little off and being unable to change it. Fortunately, the amount of excellent themes at Shopify is superb and you will easily be able to find all sorts of great templates for just about any type of online store. WooCommerce is even better - the design will be dependant on your WordPress theme and their are thousands upon thousands of WordPress themes to choose from. Better yet, WordPress themes can even be built from scratch if you know what you’re doing or have the budget to hire an expert. When it comes to themes, WooCommerce is the obvious winner, but Shopify is a good option for beginners or people looking for a simple to use platform.

Prices

Pricing is something that varies a lot with these two platforms. Shopify is an affordable all-in-one solution that brings you everything from your domain name to hosting and even many free features. On the other hand, WooCommerce is entirely free to use, but you still need to purchase a domain name and hosting separately, which can end up costing more than Shopify’s monthly fees.

Another factor to keep in mind is the cost of third-party integrations and themes. Shopify has a few free themes, but you’ll most likely want to opt for one of their premium themes, which can easily cost over $100. WordPress themes are powerful and you can find tons of great free themes. However, even if you choose to pay for a premium theme, the average cost for a paid WordPress theme is $55, making them much more affordable. Overall, Shopify may seem more expensive, but WooCommerce can quickly become way more expensive than Shopify depending on the hosting that you choose.

The Final Verdict: WooCommerce or Shopify

As mentioned earlier, comparing Shopify and WooCommerce is difficult since they are entirely different tools. Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce solution that aims at providing a simple way for new merchants to sell products online. WooCommerce is a plugin for WordPress that provide excellent scalability and customizability.

WooCommerce has the potential to be incredibly fast, incredibly reliable and very powerful, provided you perform the proper optimizations and choose a good hosting provider. Shopify is good right out of the box, but it remains rather limited when compared to WooCommerce.

Both platforms can be very fast, but Shopify excels when it comes to customer support. Then again, WooCommerce may not provide any customer support channels, but finding answers to your inquiries is easy with a quick Google search.

WooCommerce is free to use, but you’ll still need to pay for a domain name and for hosting. Shopify comes with a monthly fee, but it includes all of this. Overall, it depends on what you need and want. If you need a simple, yet powerful website builder that was created specifically for ease of use, Shopify is a good option for you. However, if you’re up for a little challenge and would like to enjoy a powerful eCommerce platform that has incredibly scalability and additional functions, you’re going to truly enjoy using WooCommerce.