If you are looking for an eCommerce platform to build your web store on, you have landed spot on! It is no more unusual these days, when your smartphones are bombarded with ads from companies offering e-commerce platforms. Most of them are lying through their teeth by flashing cheap offering baits. Their true colours begin to surface shortly after your online store goes live. Amongst the common challenges would be your website running slow and at times being inaccessible, the code being outdated, navigation issues, difficult to extend, and so on and so forth. However, if you put your bet on either Magento or WooCommerce, it is unlikely they will fail you!
The question still remains unanswered as to which eCommerce platform is the most appropriate for your business. Of course, you can’t build your e-store on both, right? To help you choose the better between the two, we have done a comparative study of their strengths and shortcomings:
| Feature | Magento | WooCommerce | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ease of use | It is not a child’s play to be able to install Magento as the installer language may leave rookies a bit confused about certain significant settings. Once the setup is done, one has to invest sometime in learning the basics. What can be a trouble for the developers is customizing themes or installing extensions. One has to seek external help. | In comparison to Magento, WooCommerce can be effortlessly installed by the beginners. In fact, a non-technical person can also get the job done in a breeze. WooCommerce comes with a setup wizard that guides you step-by-step, thereby, making the installation process easier. | WooCommerce |
| Payment options | By default, Magento comes with cash on delivery, PayPal, bank transfer, Authorize.net, and purchase order payment methods. In addition, its APIs comprise options for the developers to integrate payment gateways. What’s more, Magento flaunts extensions for payment gateways such as Google Checkout, WePay, Braintree, and more. | WooCommerce offers PayPal and Stripe payments by default. It also supports all major payment gateways through extensions and addons. WooCommerce even supports many regional and lesser-known payment companies. Since it is so easy to extend, any payment company can create an add-on for WooCommerce and provide support for it. | Tie |
| Security | Magento wins the race in this aspect. It offers dedicated security patches to its users. It enables advanced security measures manually and through extensions. | As far as advanced security measures are concerned, WooCommerce stands at par with Magento. However, it does not offer dedicated security patches for its users. | Magento |
| Support | Magento has an edge over WooCommerce when it comes to 24/7 support. Additionally, there is a big Magento Community, ever-ready to offer help. Not to mention, the paid Magento Edition offers superior, dedicated support. | On the other hand, WooCommerce lags behind in terms of support. It was introduced in the market four years after Magento, thus, it lacks that head start. Unlike Magento, WooCommerce does not have a massive community of developers who provide instant support. | Magento |
| Plugins and Extensions | Magento in-built plugins and extensions come with various features. You can make use of them for customizing new functionalities and speeding up your business. However, you need Magento developers for seamlessly installing the extensions and plugins. | By the same token, WooCommerce allows you to install various plugins to customize your website according to your business requirements. When compared to Magento 2, it is way cheaper to install simple plugins for your WooCommerce store. However, the Magento extensions are way more powerful than WooCommerce ones. Another drawback is that you have to buy WooCommerce plugins as they are not in-built, unlike Magento. | Magento |
| Cost | Magento is a self-hosted open source software and is available in two editions – community edition and enterprise edition. Magento Commerce, the small business plan, comes with a monthly subscription coupled with a revenue-based license cost. Magento’s paid plans are are pretty costly. In addition, the cost increases if you hire a developer to work on your Magento store and install paid extensions and themes. |
WooCommerce is a free software that can be downloaded and installed by anyone. To start a WooCommerce store, you just have to register a domain name, WordPress hosting account, and an SSL certificate. This is cheaper than the Magento community edition. | WooCommerce |
| Scaling your business | Scaling your business with Magento includes additional cost and technical challenges. If you are making use of the community edition, you have to do it all by yourself. What’s more, you have to optimize your store for caching, use a firewall to protect against denial-of-service attacks, manage backups, and more. The misery multiplies, if you are inexperienced in managing big websites. In such a case, hiring Magento specialists is the only option you are left with. It is better to go for Magento’s paid enterprise plans if you are ready to bear all the cost. | Similar technical challenges are faced by WooCommerce too, however, you have multiple options to keep the growth going while controlling costs. First of all, you can move to managed WordPress hosting providers that allow easy scaling of your online store. Secondly, for improving performance, you have various easy caching options that keep your server resources low and allows business to grow. In addition, WordPress specialists are cheaper than those of Magento. Therefore, your e-store can perform at much lower costs even at the enterprise level. | WooCommerce |
Conclusion
Announcing a winner between WooCommerce and Magento is not an easy pick. To put it bluntly, speaking, each of them comes with its own pros and cons. While Magento flaunts powerful extensions, WooCommerce steals the show in its ease of usage. Magento is the perfect e-commerce platform for you if you want to scale up and expand your business on a global level. On the other hand, if you are a start-up or a small business, WooCommerce is your pick as it is easy to use.
It is extremely important to analyse the nature of your business and your requirements before making a choice. Get in touch with i95Dev for eliminating your confusion. We will help you choose the right platform and build your webstore from scratch!
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