WooCommerce vs Magento

WooCommerce vs Magento

If you have an online store, you probably know that there are different eCommerce platforms. They all have their advantages and disadvantages so it can be hard to choose the best one for you. That’s why today we’ll compare two of the most popular options: WooCommerce vs Magento.

Both WooCommerce and Magento are top eCommerce platforms that provide a high-quality solution for selling all kinds of products. However, selecting the best one for your store is extremely important so it’s worth taking the time to choose the right option.

When it comes to eCommerce sites, you can either develop one from scratch and code it yourself or use a Content Management System (CMS). There are many advantages to using a CMS as it provides all the tools to create, manage, and maintain websites in a much easier way.

There are many CMS to choose from such as WooCommerce, Magento, Prestashop, Serendipity, Chamilo, OpenCart, OsCommerce, just to name a few. However, today we’ll focus on the two most popular platforms: WooCommerce vs Magento.

WooCommerce

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WooCommerce is a plugin for WordPress that allows you to sell anything online. It’s present in 33% of all websites in the world.

Even though it’s free, if you want to add some features beyond the basic eCommerce sites you’ll need extensions. There are nearly 400 official extensions for WooCommerce, and each one of them improves specific aspects of your store.

WooCommerce inherits all the WordPress features so when you install it, you’ll get an eCommerce site and a blogging platform where you can post news or articles related to your products. This means that along with an online store, you can also build your own website with the most popular CMS.

But that’s not all. The best about this platform is its flexibility. There are thousands of plugins that you can install as well as numerous themes that can use to give your website a professional look. Choosing the right ones can be overwhelming so we’ve already analyzed the best plugins and WooCommerce themes for you.

Now that we have a better idea of what WooCommerce is, let’s have a look at its advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages

  • Open source: This means that anyone can have access and modify the code to customize it. This is perfect for those with programming skills. The best part is that there’s a huge community behind WooCommerce that’s constantly improving the code and making contributions.
  • User-friendly and powerful interface: WooCommerce aims to provide an easy-to-set-up eCommerce solution. It comes with a virtual assistant that helps you get everything ready in less than five minutes.
  • Developed by WordPress: WordPress powers more than 30% of all existing websites so a high level of quality and performance is guaranteed. Additionally, there’s a huge community that’s constantly publishing hacks, tutorials, and how-to posts so there are tons of content about WooCommerce and WordPress. This makes it easier when you’re looking for support or need to improve your store up.
  • Support and updates: WooCommerce has a very good support service and there are also many virtual communities that can help you.

Disadvantages

  • Database architecture: This can be seen as a weakness for some. For most websites, it’s not a big deal. However, if your store grows and turns into a giant player, the database structure can put a limit to that growth and make things a bit more complicated.
  • Plugins required: If you want to stand out from your competitors, you’ll need to add plugins to your site. They add certain features but they tend to be very specific. This means you’ll often need more than one to achieve what you want.
    The problem is that too many plugins can generate conflicts between them and can have a negative impact on the overall performance of your store.
  • Unknown budget: You can start a WooCommerce website with a very little budget, just paying hosting and domain. But when you start adding premium plugins and themes, the budget can increase to unwanted levels if you’re not careful. Most of the best plugins and themes are paid but there are also some great ones that are free.

Magento

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Magento is an online platform owned by eBay, one of the kings of eCommerce. It was created specifically to be an eCommerce website whereas WooCommerce was born as a blogging CMS. However, after years of development, both have improved a lot and nowadays they both offer similar features.

Magento is a very powerful and scalable platform. It’s ideal for big stores that aim to have a huge amount of sales and customers. Its multiple features allow you to set up different kinds of online stores with in-built features without adding any extensions. Magento offers many customization and configuration options such as creating special offers, managing shipping methods, customizing products, prices and much more.

Advantages

  • Multi-store: It allows you to handle multiple stores from a single dashboard.
  • In-built features: Besides the many extensions available, Magento comes with many options specially created for eCommerce.
  • Scalable and powerful: This platform supports a large number of customers and accounts so you won’t have any issue if your online store grows.
  • Marketing tools: Product reviews, up-selling, special offers based on customer segmentation and SEO tools are just some features that Magento offers.

Disadvantages

  • Heavyweight software: As it’s built for large volumes, Magento requires a dedicated server to run smoothly and it consumes a lot of resources.
  • Complexity: Magento isn’t a platform intended for people without technical skills. Its high complexity makes it harder when trying to perform advanced tasks.
  • Expensive: It comes with a free version that’s enough to start, but if your online store grows you’ll need to upgrade and the subscriptions aren’t cheap.

TIP: Take enough time to analyze the eCommerce platform options carefully. This is crucial because once you’ve started with your store, it’s very complex to switch to another platform. Keep in mind your products/services, your requirements and how big you expect it to be.

WooCommerce vs Magento: Conclusion

This has been our comparison between WooCommerce vs Magento. So which one should you choose? That depends on what features you want and on your business. If you’re just starting with your online site, WooCommerce is probably the best choice. It’s an excellent plugin that has plenty of features, it’s free and very easy to use. However, if you have several stores, you have experience in the eCommerce world and you don’t mind paying for advanced features, Magento is probably the best one for you.

What do you think? Which one is best? Are there any other things that we should have analyzed? Please let us know your thoughts!

If you already have an online site, don’t forget to check out some of our tips to increase conversion rates and sales. They’ll help you get some good ideas.