WooCommerce Vs Shopify: Which One is Right for You?

Written by

Darren DeMatas

Updated

[show_reviewed_by_link]

Written by

Darren DeMatas

Updated

Reviewed By Our team of writers and content creators are experts in ecommerce and we fact-check every claim in our work to ensure it’s accurate and up-to-date. (Learn about our editorial guidelines.).

In addition to receiving commissions generated through affiliate marketing, we are able to fund our independent research and reviews at no extra cost to our readers. Learn more.

Which one is better WooCommerce or Shopify?

WooCommerce powers 22% of online stores and Shopify powers 17%. These two are ecommerce solution giants.

If you want to set up an ecommerce store, it can be daunting to decide which is best; there are tons of reviews and customers comparing WooCommerce vs Shopify, and preaching either.

Product
Pros and Cons
Ratings
Fast Loading & Easy To Use
Excels With Multichannel Sales
1-Click Selling Apps Available
Weak at SEO/Content Marketing
Checkout Not Customizable
Apps Are Expensive
Overall 4.2
Value 4.0
Features 3.8
Integrations 4.6
Performance 3.9
Design & Themes 4.0
4.2
Overall Score
User Rating
2.6
27 reviews
Woocommerce
Woocommerce
Try For Free Review
Best Platform For SEO
1-Click Selling Apps Available
Lots of Service Providers
Hosting Can Be Expensive
Difficult To Troubleshoot
Needs Lots of Extentions
Overall 4.0
Value 4.5
Features 3.9
Integrations 4.1
Performance 3.1
Design & Themes 4.3
4.0
Overall Score
User Rating
4.8
3 reviews

Frankly, neither is the “best” for everything and everyone. It’s all about your specific need. I have used both but moved several stores back to WooCommerce because of SEO.

In this post, we will compare these two popular ecommerce platforms to help you find the one that meets your needs.

Here’s what you need to know.

Choosing WooCommerce Or Shopify

WooCommerce

If you are comfortable with WordPress, you’ll love the WooCommerce plugin. Best single platform to run ecommerce and affiliate site under one roof. Awesome design and themes with enough features to sell, and integrations for marketing automation.

WooCommerce is better than most other WordPress plugins. However, it requires a bit of technical information to start up and getting customer support can become a circle jerk; due to an issue with not processing orders, I contacted WooCommerce, they directed me to Braintree (payment gateway) where I was directed to PayPal, and Paypal sent me full circle, back to WooCommerce.

Pros:

  1. You have full development control over your store and content
  2. The cart and WP are free
  3. WordPress is good for content marketing through SEO
  4. 1-Click Selling Apps Available
  5. Sizable community with lots of WordPress experts available

Cons:

  1. Apps, WordPress plugins, and hosting can be pricey.
  2. Have to deal with blame game for troubleshooting
  3. Need a bit of technical knowledge to operate
  4. Getting relevant support can be a hard game

Shopify App Store

Shopify is the best platform for dropshipping and multi-channel selling. If you are going to rely on Facebook Ads or IG marketing – this is the best choice. It’s more turnkey and beginner-friendly. Shopify has a ton of social media integration apps.

However, it isn’t all that great for large stores and the SEO features for content are not as great as WooCommerce’s. It also doesn’t have enough design flexibility in the blog section. For that type of power, you’ll need Shopify Plus, an enterprise solution.

Pros:

  1. You don’t have to deal with technical maintenance and security
  2. Easy integration with multiple selling channels
  3. Super easy setup
  4. Lots of certified partners to help you
  5. It has chat and phone support

Cons:

  1. Rigid product URL
  2. Less customization and design flexibility like WooCommerce’s
  3. Very few free themes.
  4. Apps can add up and become costly
  5. Share the wealth mentality

Key Aspects Of WooCommerce And Shopify

Before you get started with either of them, you need to understand how they work. Both will allow you to create an online store, collect payments, process orders, and add your content.

Shopify Vs WooCommerce

WooCommerce runs on WordPress and WP is an open source self-hosted platform. That means that hosting, domain, and your files are your business. Finding a good hosting company can be a challenge. I’m paying $300/month on hosting just for this basic WordPress website.

You will need to handle all of that and most security deets all by yourself. For an in-depth analysis of the platform, you can check out the WooCommerce review.

Shopify, on the other hand, is hosted. So the platform handles web hosting and security. You only have to come in, get your domain name and start designing.

If you’re a large enterprise, you might want to take Shopify given the all in-house software solution. You’re not dependent on an external server, and you wouldn’t have to worry about server failure.

Most small and medium-sized online shops can take a hosted shopping cart. That’s not to say either can’t be interchanged though. Sure, large stores use WooCommerce and a hosting provider, but their cost might be on a high side given that good hosting is never cheap.

Don’t be deceived by GoDaddy and other tiny priced solutions; most don’t flow well with ecommerce. If you plan on pushing up the traffic volume, you will need managed WordPress hosting.

One downside to hosted carts though – which is one thing Shopify faces – is design flexibility. On WP, you can edit practically every part of your site; it’s flexible. However, you’ll be sacrificing security.

WordPress sites are less secure. With every update that WordPress releases, they fix bugs. If you don’t update, hackers look to exploit these bugs.

I have a moment of panic every time WooCommerce updates. Plugins and integrations can break. Having a staging area like what WPX hosting offers is key for testing updates. But that’s not much assurance like the security Shopify offers.

How To Choose An Ecommerce Platform

Choosing the right ecommerce platform to power your store is more than knowing the general pros and cons. There are certain features that you must pay attention to, including:

  • load time
  • ease of use
  • support
  • design flexibility and mobile-readiness
  • site search
  • SEO tools
  • upselling & cross-selling
  • product options
  • robust content management system
  • integrations and apps

I’m diving deep into these and more. By the end of this article, you’ll know which is best for you and if neither, you can go through the best online store builders and make your choice.

Pricing & Value Comparison Between Shopify And WooCommerce

WooCommerce and Shopify differ greatly in pricing:

WooCommerce

WooCommerce Compared To Shopify

WooCommerce is a free WordPress ecommerce plugin. WP is free too. So you’ll spend nada to get both in your store.

After this, your price can either run high or not. The good thing is that it can be pocket-friendly because you can match what you pay for to your pocket. For example, on Shopify, you might only want real-time shipping rates on your site, but you will need the top plan for that. You might not need every other extra that comes with the top plan.

You escape that on WooCommerce, pay for only what you need. However, things like hosting and security might cut into your purse.

If you’re running a very simple store, a $3 a month hosting might work. Anything more than that will need more. Out of most of the vendors I’ve used, I like WPX hosting for higher traffic sites and Siteground for low traffic.

Despite that initial price chit, many things are free like the most payment gateways, Cross/Upselling, and some themes.

Awesome WooCommerce Plugins

Some functionalities don’t come built-in or with a free app so you might have pay for extensions to extend your store. One-click upsells and subscriptions are part of them. Check out how much you’ll spend:

Shopify

Shopify Pricing and Fees

Shopify offers several plans. One is Shopify Starter for $5/month, but that’s only for businesses using the buy button only, Facebook store or selling offline.

If you want a full solution to sell on your website, you will need any of the $39/month – $399/mo plans. With any of them, you’ll get a fast loading website, free SSL certificate, abandoned cart recovery, inventory, and taxes.

But once you tally up all the Shopify apps and add-ons, the price can get high. If you need help deciding on a Shopify plan, check out our pricing breakdown.

Payment Gateways

Payment methods for both are pretty similar. On both platforms, you’ll be able to accept credit cards, connect with Stripe, and PayPal. The main difference is Shopify has their own gateway, known as Shopify Pay.

Anytime you take credit card payments online, you incur transaction fees. In fact, I tell all my students to pad credit card fees into your pricing strategy. What you have to look out for is additional transaction fees by your ecommerce platform.

One massive issue for Shopify is transaction fees (which you can avoid if you use Shopify payments). Some platforms do not charge this, and you wouldn’t see it on WooCommerce. On the three plans, you’ll be charged 2.0%, 1.0%, and 0.5% respectively from the Basic plan to Advanced plan.

However, if you use Shopify Payment gateway, you wouldn’t pay anything but if you set up certain cross/upselling apps, you can’t use that gateway. So, you’re back to paying.

In addition to Shopify fee, some apps have their own.

Shopify App

Just like WooCommerce, you’ll have to bother with your domain name. That’s not expensive though. Shopify charges about $9/year.

Certain features require the highest plan like third-party real-time shipping. That’s important for many ecommerce stores. Some other essential features will cost you.

You’ll need to pay extra for cross/upselling, one-click upsells, and subscriptions. Here are some apps that can give you those functionalities:

Here’s what the cost breakdown looks like if you wanted to build sales funnels on your ecommerce website:
[elementor-template id=”9013219″]

Winner = WooCommerce

In terms of value WooCommerce’ is the winner. While the apps with Shopify are much more headache free than the ones with WooCommerce, you’ll also pay a premium. I hate how the best Shopify apps take a cut of your sales. Doesn’t seem right.

Compare The Performance Of Shopify Vs WooCommerce

In terms of overall performance, Shopify performs higher than WooCommerce. It has the load time and speed edge – both on desktop and mobile. But it’s not the best for SEO. WooCommerce performs better in our overall rating for average organic traffic, and that’s because of the flexibility and SEO tools that come with it. See the table below:

PlatformPerformanceLoad TimeMobile SpeedDesktop SpeedAvg SEO Traffic
Shopify3.91.3637511717
Sellfy3.11.446.872134
Zyro3.32.15189128
Nexcess StoreBuilder4.01.93537258,645
ShopWired4.31.385680717
Pixpa2.31.622.6665.572
Freewebstore3.51.895379927
Ecwid3.55.0508215,517
Square Online2.82.031.03.065,317
BigCommerce4.52.2638033626
Woocommerce3.13.4425272968
Shift4Shop3.02.850589703
Volusion2.93.5485615779
Adobe Commerce2.84.8394319408
Prestashop2.94.62505233851
SquareSpace3.53.542635678
Wix3.93.26981543
Weebly2.634959186

Load Time Rating

Shopify is the best ecommerce platform for speed. Shopify sites tend to load in 1.3 seconds while WooCommerce sites load in around 3.4 seconds. WordPress websites can run slow.

You can optimize the load time of your WooCommerce store though. That takes lots of money and time, and your hosting provider also matters in this case. If you choose to go for those cheap $2 hosting, don’t expect the fastest site no matter how much you pay SEO experts to optimize your site for you.

Pay attention to this ‘cos faster sites do better in Google and at converting visitors into customers.

Product Page SEO

SEO is one of the best ways to ensure your customers to find you. Without them finding you, you make no sales. It will be a waste of time, effort, and money on your part. Sadly, Shopify lags here.

In our scores, it was about 50% below average. It is solid when it comes to product page SEO. You can optimize your meta descriptions for search. My only reservation is the rigid parts of the URL. It’s better to have full control over your URLs. It sticks with /collections/ and /products/.

On WordPress, you’ll have to install a plugin to be able to add meta descriptions. But, you can optimize your title and product description while adding your product. Meta data is basic stuff that I wouldn’t want to install a plugin for, so this is a tiny downside to Woo. However, most of the plugins for this functionality have a free version.

Blogs And Content

WooCommerce is more solid for content SEO. It integrates with the robust content marketing system of WP. Sure, you’ll still need that plugin for meta data, but you have a big hand when it comes to making awesome link bait content.

You can make the templates of blog posts look pretty and easier on the eyes, which can lead to more time spent on your site. If you’re creating long-form content, having a nice design is a big plus.

However, Shopify doesn’t allow you to do that sort of thing. You’ll need an app like Shogun Page Builder for that, but it costs at least $19/month.

The good thing is that both platforms generate sitemap.xml, bulk editing, and allow the use of canonical tags. Little things like social sharing buttons though, you’ll need to code those in yourself or get an app for that – both on WooCommerce and Shopify.

Google Speed Score

If your site isn’t fast, visitors will bounce, and you’ll lose potential sales. No one is willing to snooze off waiting for a page to complete tasks.

WooCommerce doesn’t even reach the average, which is not high by the way. It’s 51.5/100 on mobile on 61.9/100 for desktop. Yet WooCommerce failed to get there. Customers expect more than that.

On the other hand, Shopify loads fast on desktop and mobile.

Winner = Shopify

Once customers get to your site, they expect a fast loading site. When it comes to speed, Shopify is a clear winner. However, if you are going to be putting much effort into SEO through content marketing, I’ll advise you to stick with WooCommerce and spend money and time optimizing your speed.

WooCommerce Vs Shopify: Features

Both provide the features you need to build an online business. Some are built-in; others are not.

WooCommerce Features

WooCommerce offers SEO tools built-in. Customers can sell unlimited products, both digital and physical, good site search too, ratings and reviews, zoomable product images, and upselling and cross-selling. All built-in, no need to pay extra.

WooCommerce stores will enjoy the site search. What’s built-in is not exactly the best, especially for those with many products. But it works, and if you need better, there are tons of free plugins for that.

But then, your pocket will feel the impact of one-click upsells, personalized products, importing/exporting your products with a CSV file, and subscriptions. Some of these are essential ecommerce site features. Too bad they are not free.

I hate that you have to pay for basic things. Except if you’re selling one or two products, uploading with a CSV file makes life easy. But no, you have to pay or manually edit one after the other.

Offering personalized products and 1-click upsells are features I wouldn’t want to give up either, but again, you need cash for that.

Woocommerce Features and Plans

1-Click Upsells
Landing Page Builder
Abandoned Cart Email
Digital Products
Personalized Products
Product Export/Import
Product Search
Ratings & Reviews
Real Time Shipping Rates/Tracking
Reward Points
SEO Tools
Subscription/Recurring
Zoomable Product Images
Upselling & Cross Selling
Free Download (Hosting Not Included)
1-Click Upsells :
Landing Page Builder :
Abandoned Cart Email :
Digital Products :
Personalized Products :
Product Export/Import :
Product Search :
Ratings & Reviews :
Real Time Shipping Rates/Tracking :
Reward Points :
SEO Tools :
Subscription/Recurring :
Zoomable Product Images :
Upselling & Cross Selling :

Shopify’s Features

Despite WooCommerce’s shortcomings, Shopify didn’t do much better in features.

Sure, it offers abandoned cart email out of the box which in WooCommerce, you’ll need a plugin for; the more plugins you add to your WordPress store, the more negative effect it has on your load time and security.

That said, you can export/import your products, have real-time shipping, ratings and reviews, zoomable product images – all out of the box.

But you have to pay for many things too. Cross/upselling, 1-click upsells, great product search, and more SEO tools. If you want to give reward points or take subscriptions, you pay.

If you’re planning to take your marketing up a notch with personalized products, you would have to pay for that. It looks more as if Shopify only built in the most basic tools. Some of those tools that don’t come out of the box are things that every store will need – the site search for example.

Also, digital product sellers will have to use an app. It’s not built-in, but it’s free. However, I’d like to see an integrated software solution for this simple thing.

Shopify Features and Plans

1-Click Upsells
Landing Page Builder
Abandoned Cart Email
Digital Products
Personalized Products
Product Export/Import
Product Search
Ratings & Reviews
Real Time Shipping Rates/Tracking
Reward Points
SEO Tools
Subscription/Recurring
Zoomable Product Images
Upselling & Cross Selling
Basic Shopify $39/month
1-Click Upsells :
Landing Page Builder :
Abandoned Cart Email :
Digital Products :
Personalized Products :
Product Export/Import :
Product Search :
Ratings & Reviews :
Real Time Shipping Rates/Tracking :
Reward Points :
SEO Tools :
Subscription/Recurring :
Zoomable Product Images :
Upselling & Cross Selling :
Basic Shopify $105/month
1-Click Upsells :
Landing Page Builder :
Abandoned Cart Email :
Digital Products :
Personalized Products :
Product Export/Import :
Product Search :
Ratings & Reviews :
Real Time Shipping Rates/Tracking :
Reward Points :
SEO Tools :
Subscription/Recurring :
Zoomable Product Images :
Upselling & Cross Selling :
Advanced Shopify $399/month
1-Click Upsells :
Landing Page Builder :
Abandoned Cart Email :
Digital Products :
Personalized Products :
Product Export/Import :
Product Search :
Ratings & Reviews :
Real Time Shipping Rates/Tracking :
Reward Points :
SEO Tools :
Subscription/Recurring :
Zoomable Product Images :
Upselling & Cross Selling :

Winner = WooCommerce

WooCommerce has a slight edge here. More things are built-in or come from free apps. However, if you are going to do dropshipping or POD, Shopify has more options. Having said that, WooCommerce dropshipping plugins are getting better.

Head To Head: Integrations

Regardless of what any ecommerce cart provides, you’ll always need to integrate something else from an app store.

No cart is perfect; even with the app store, you wouldn’t get everything. Both Shopify and WooCommerce have apps and plugins to integrate many third-party services. Let’s look at them.

WooCommerce’s Integration

If you get your products from Alibaba, you can migrate them and sync orders with your suppliers’ inventory, but you’ll need a paid app.

For drop shippers, you’re better off with Shopify; AliExpress and Spocket– two big platforms for this – need paid apps to integrate into WooCommerce.

There are many free integrations though. Marketing automation is one of them. Both Shopify and WooCommerce do this, so no edge over each other here. You can use popular email marketing services like Klaviyo, Drip, and even MailChimp (Shopify cant). Integration with USPS is built-in as well.

If you want to sync your online shop to your social media store to have shoppable posts on Instagram and Facebook or Google, you can have that in a few sweet clicks. However, Shopify does this better, especially if you’re going to use Pinterest. There’s no way to integrate your WooCommerce store, as of yet, to have Shoppable pins.

Some other things are not built-in but free. Syncing with Amazon and eBay, marketing automation, and printing on demand are one of those.

However, there’s no way to integrate FBA. You’re clearly on your own and will have to use manual processes to manage things.

Woocommerce Integrations and Plans

Amazon 2 Way Sync
Amazon Checkout
Amazon FBA Integration
Fulfillment Center Integration
Drop Shipping Integration
Ebay 2-Way Sync
Facebook Sync
Google Ecommerce Analytics
Google Product Data Feed
Review Snippet Structured Data
Email Marketing Automation
Paypal Checkout
Printing On Demand Integration
USPS Integration
WordPress Integration
User Generated Content Automation
Free Download (Hosting Not Included)
Amazon 2 Way Sync :
Amazon Checkout :
Amazon FBA Integration :
Fulfillment Center Integration :
Drop Shipping Integration :
Ebay 2-Way Sync :
Facebook Sync :
Google Ecommerce Analytics :
Google Product Data Feed :
Review Snippet Structured Data :
Email Marketing Automation :
Paypal Checkout :
Printing On Demand Integration :
USPS Integration :
WordPress Integration :
User Generated Content Automation :

Shopify

Shopify works so well for integrations. It offers more opportunities either out of the box or with a free app.

You can sync with other channels (Facebook, Amazon, Google, eBay), integrate USPS and even WordPress.

For dropshipping and multi-channel selling, Shopify is better; Dropshipping directories and syncing with suppliers come with a free app. Amazon, Facebook, eBay, and Google. Those your other selling channels; you can sync them easily with no sweat. That feature is built-in.

The only thing you will have to pay for with Shopify in this aspect is integrating Alibaba and Google customer reviews.

Shopify Integrations and Plans

Amazon 2 Way Sync
Amazon Checkout
Amazon FBA Integration
Fulfillment Center Integration
Drop Shipping Integration
Ebay 2-Way Sync
Facebook Sync
Google Ecommerce Analytics
Google Product Data Feed
Review Snippet Structured Data
Email Marketing Automation
Paypal Checkout
Printing On Demand Integration
USPS Integration
WordPress Integration
User Generated Content Automation
Basic Shopify $39/month
Amazon 2 Way Sync :
Amazon Checkout :
Amazon FBA Integration :
Fulfillment Center Integration :
Drop Shipping Integration :
Ebay 2-Way Sync :
Facebook Sync :
Google Ecommerce Analytics :
Google Product Data Feed :
Review Snippet Structured Data :
Email Marketing Automation :
Paypal Checkout :
Printing On Demand Integration :
USPS Integration :
WordPress Integration :
User Generated Content Automation :
Basic Shopify $105/month
Amazon 2 Way Sync :
Amazon Checkout :
Amazon FBA Integration :
Fulfillment Center Integration :
Drop Shipping Integration :
Ebay 2-Way Sync :
Facebook Sync :
Google Ecommerce Analytics :
Google Product Data Feed :
Review Snippet Structured Data :
Email Marketing Automation :
Paypal Checkout :
Printing On Demand Integration :
USPS Integration :
WordPress Integration :
User Generated Content Automation :
Advanced Shopify $399/month
Amazon 2 Way Sync :
Amazon Checkout :
Amazon FBA Integration :
Fulfillment Center Integration :
Drop Shipping Integration :
Ebay 2-Way Sync :
Facebook Sync :
Google Ecommerce Analytics :
Google Product Data Feed :
Review Snippet Structured Data :
Email Marketing Automation :
Paypal Checkout :
Printing On Demand Integration :
USPS Integration :
WordPress Integration :
User Generated Content Automation :

Winner =  Shopify

Almost every integration we checked is free. That’s less cost unlike using WooCommerce. Plus, things like FBA integration is impossible with WooCommerce which is an important feature for those using fulfilling with Amazon.

Head To Head: Design

We based our design comparison on the modern designs we could find among their themes, the Google mobile UX score, number of free themes, and cost of premium themes. Design is very subjective; you might like something and others don’t. So I based my comparison here on data.

Both WooCommerce and Shopify have themes that look great on both mobile and desktop.

WooCommerce Themes

Shopify Themes Compared To WooCommerce

WooCommerce has more free themes that you’ll see on most other platforms. Over a thousand. Also, there are many WordPress themes that although not built for WooCommerce are compatible with it.

However, many of the free themes do not give you everything. In most cases, you have to buy a pro version or look for another theme. Some of them are very cheap, but others might cost more. So you can’t really compare the free WooCommerce themes to the paid Shopify ones.

Fortunately, you can choose to get a custom theme or get a developer to help you tweak the WooCommerce theme files to fit what you want. So, lots of flexibility but at a cost. You can also find a good theme at a site like ThemeForest.

But many WooCommerce themes don’t have modern designs. The median score is 4.4, and Shopify topped that, scoring a full 5, however, WooCommerce landed at 3.

Regardless of that score, you should note that how great your site looks depends on how much work you’re willing to put in and the theme you choose.

I like Astra themes in this angle, even with the free version, you get a free hand with the design, unlike most themes that hide the way to change one part of your site with three more codes so that you’re forced to buy the pro.

With Elementor or its built-in builder – beaver, you can take your mobile, tablet, and desktop design to new heights even without knowing one bit about coding.

Shopify Themes

Shopify Themes

You’ll only find 10 or so free templates in the Shopify theme store. That’s much smaller than WooCommerce. The premium themes cost $140 – $180. Plus, Shopify doesn’t have many themes in its store, so no many choices like it is on WooCommerce.

However, Shopify themes are more cutting-edge and stylish. They are very polished for ecommerce, and it’s not surprising given that it’s a dedicated ecommerce platform.

For Google mobile UX though, it’s a tie between WooCommerce and Shopify. Both scored 97/100. With the median at 95.2, they did well.

PlatformDesign & ThemesVisual DesignMobile UXCost Of Premium Themes# of Free Themes
Shopify4.05.097$1409
Sellfy5.0593$05
Zyro5.05.092$050+
Nexcess StoreBuilder4.33.094$20-$1004
ShopWired4.3593$3495+20
Pixpa4.35940131
Freewebstore4.35920100+
Ecwid4.35.093$601
Square Online3.75.092$01
BigCommerce3.85.094$15012
Woocommerce4.33.097$391000+
Shift4Shop4.34.095$200+50+
Volusion3.7492$18018
Adobe Commerce3.75.05$300+1
Prestashop3.2494$29+0
SquareSpace4.35.05100.00%14
Wix4.75.092072
Weebly4.3597$4515

Winner = WooCommerce

This was a tough one, but I’ll choose WooCommerce here because of the design flexibility at a low cost.

Head To Head: Ease Of Use

Let’s face it; most of you reading this article are not expert web developers. So it’s important to consider ease of use when we compare WooCommerce vs Shopify.

With WooCommerce, you’re on an open-source self-hosted platform with nothing being turnkey. You have to set up hosting, connect your SSL certificate and domain name, install WordPress and tweak the setting, install WooCommerce and every other plugin that you need, install your theme and all of that.

Everything will take you at least a full weekend of work. Most people spend two weeks or more. If you’re a beginner to WordPress, you’ll spend more time. Sure, there’s a setup wizard, but it wouldn’t teach you how to tweak PHP when you have an error on line 101. It wouldn’t install WordPress and other apps for you.

You’ll need to learn the basics before you can do anything. And lots of trial and error.

With Shopify though, it’s easier to get the grips as you get in. Everyday regular people can get into the dashboard and know what to do immediately. Setting up your store might only take a few hours. If you need to do some HTML editing, you’ll need to hire a developer experienced with Liquid, Shopify’s programing language.

Another important thing is customer support. With WooCommerce, you can easily end up in a “ support circle jerk.”

Recently, I had a problem with a payment gateway on a WooCommerce site. Here’s how it went down.

  1. Contacted WooCommerce Chat Support
  2. WooCommerce Support Told Me To Contact PayPal
  3. PayPal Support Told Me To Contact Braintree
  4. Braintree Support Told Me To Contact WooCommerce

On the other hand, Shopify I’ve NEVER had this issue with Shopify. And if you do have issues, someone is one call or chat away to help you fix it.

Needless to say, Shopify users deal with less integration headaches and plugin conflicts than WooCommerce users.

PlatformEase of UsePhone Support24/7 SupportChat SupportCommunity Rating# of Apps/ Plugins
Shopify4.9YesYesYes55,000
Sellfy3.5NoYesNo44
Zyro3.7NoYesYes4.730
Nexcess StoreBuilder4.5YesYesYes3.650,000+
ShopWired4.5NoNoYes4.972
Pixpa3.7YesNoYes4.7103
Freewebstore3.4NoNoYesNone25+
Ecwid3.65.01.05.04.7100+
Square Online4.05.01.05.04.225+
BigCommerce4.8YesYesYes4.01000
Woocommerce3.3NoNoYes4.0250+
Shift4Shop4.3YesYesYes3.0~250
Volusion4.1YesYesYes2~20
Adobe Commerce2.2NoNoNo43000+
Prestashop2.9YesNoNo33000+
SquareSpace3.8NoYesYes3.010+
Wix4.2YesYesNo4.5700
Weebly3.6YesNoYes2~350

Winner = Shopify

It wasn’t a battle at all. Shopify is more turnkey and beginner friendly, has better customer support and even more apps and plugins.

WooCommerce Vs Shopify: Which Should You Choose?

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this article, choosing one over the other is all based on your needs. You have seen the features and other relevant details to tell you what kind of ecommerce business will thrive on WooCommerce and what type will thrive on Shopify.

None of them are the best for large stores though. I have seen complaints regarding the backend of WooCommerce slowing down when there are lots of orders, and Shopify works better for smaller to medium-sized stores. For large stores, I’ll stick with BigCommerce or even WooCommerce.

Neither platform doing it for you? See how WooCommerce and Shopify compare to the top alternatives:

Why Choose WooCommerce Over Shopify

If you’re looking to double dip with affiliate marketing and selling products, I will go for WooCommerce. Also, if you want more hand with your design, don’t mind tinkering, or your major marketing plan is to drive traffic through content for search engines, then choose WooCommerce.

Product
Pros and Cons
Ratings
Woocommerce
Woocommerce
Try For Free Review
Best Platform For SEO
1-Click Selling Apps Available
Lots of Service Providers
Hosting Can Be Expensive
Difficult To Troubleshoot
Needs Lots of Extentions
Overall 4.0
Value 4.5
Features 3.9
Integrations 4.1
Performance 3.1
Design & Themes 4.3
4.0
Overall Score
User Rating
4.8
3 reviews

Why Choose Shopify Over WooCommerce

Product
Pros and Cons
Ratings
Fast Loading & Easy To Use
Excels With Multichannel Sales
1-Click Selling Apps Available
Weak at SEO/Content Marketing
Checkout Not Customizable
Apps Are Expensive
Overall 4.2
Value 4.0
Features 3.8
Integrations 4.6
Performance 3.9
Design & Themes 4.0
4.2
Overall Score
User Rating
2.6
27 reviews

If you’re new to ecommerce or you don’t want to bother about technical details, go for Shopify. The learning curve for WordPress, let alone WooCommerce is much steeper than Shopify. If you’re dropshipping, use Shopify. Also, if you’re looking to test things and try a few products, set up a Shopify store. Either way, I hoped this WooCommerce Shopify comparison helped you in some way.

About the author

Photo of author
Darren DeMatas
Darren has an MBA in Internet Marketing and 10+ years of experience marketing retail, manufacturing and Internet marketing corporations, 7-figure brands and startups online. Follow him on TwitterLinkedIn

Leave a Comment

Featured on

BigCommerce
Entrepreneur
The Next Web
Shopify
X-Cart
Forbes
SEMRUsh
Econsultancy
Hubspot
Backlinko
Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap