Over the past few decades, Ecommerce has become a fundamental part of our global economy. And with each passing day, it is growing by leaps and bounds. eMarketer confirms that 2023 global retail sales in eCommerce will exceed $5 trillion.
Ecommerce can be defined as buying and selling goods and services on the internet. But in reality, it is much more complex than that. It involves the collaboration of many parties in processing data or currency to complete the transaction.
Selling goods or services online is not easy as it seems. You must know much about the products and services, their niche market, competition, and cost.
If you still feel like getting into this, you first need a website, preferably WordPress. WordPress is the logical choice since it is the most popular open-source platform with endless growth potential.
Once you have your website, you can turn it into an eCommerce store by integrating it with an eCommerce plugin. The eCommerce plugin provides you with unlimited features to run your eCommerce store.
The market is full of these eCommerce platforms, making all kinds of claims the best. Considering this, choosing the right platform for your business can be challenging. In this article, we help you decide by comparing the two most popular platforms; WooCommerce vs. Magento.
Let’s discuss these platforms in detail and dissect them regarding their features, functions, and flexibility.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce made an appearance on the web in 2011. Initially, it was used only for blogging. Later it was acquired by Automattic in 2017. From 2017 to date, the focus has been on eCommerce—wooCommerce powers almost 30% of the eCommerce market, with millions of active users worldwide.
It is an open-source platform built on WordPress that offers flawless compatibility with your WordPress website and turns it into a flexible, highly customizable eCommerce store.
It is versatile and suits almost any kind of online business entity. WooCommerce assures optimum ease of use with all its unlimited features and functions. It guarantees smooth sailing for your eCommerce store in the current competitive market.
Magento
Magento surfaced in 2007. Since then, it has climbed steers of development and achieved more and more each year. Though it has achieved great success, the journey of its success is not smooth as it seems. Over time it partnered with different companies, but finally, in 2017, it was acquired by Adobe.
Being an open-source platform, Magento is adored by developers worldwide. And offers all the flexibility and room for customization. Magento is not short of anything you need; it serves small and large businesses.
Magento offers an advance and innovative digital eCommerce experience. Maybe this is why eCommerce giants like Nike, Coca-Cola, and Ford use it.
Now that we know the background of these two eCommerce platforms, it is time to compare them on some key attributes.
Comparison of WooCommerce Vs. Magento
Simplicity And Ease Of Use
Ease of use is one of the crucial aspects considered before selecting any eCommerce platform. This enables you to start your eCommerce store without being a tech wiz. But since both platforms are open source, they demand someone willing to climb a steep learning curve.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is built on WordPress and has a very simple installation process; you can set up your eCommerce store with a few clicks. WooCommerce also offers a setup wizard. It will guide you through the installation process. It also comes with comprehensive help documentation, dedicated blog sites, and multiple users available worldwide.
But what is said above is true for basic eCommerce needs. If you want to explore and utilize the full potential of your WooCommerce store, there is a steep learning curve ahead of you.
Magento
In the beginning, Magento looks easy to use, which means you don’t need to be an ace with tech knowledge to install and set up your eCommerce store. The managing area is easy to understand without too much knowledge. So you can easily figure it out when building your eCommerce store.
But Like WooCommerce, it also requires expertise regarding the scalability of your eCommerce store. That increases the demand for more features and flexibility, and you need to employ extensions and plugins. This requires advanced knowledge and extensive learning.
Takeaway
Both platforms provide ease of use for basic needs. But to take more out of both platforms, you either acquire professional help or learn the art of coding.
Cost – WooCommerce Vs. Magento
Cost is the first and most vital attribute of all. It is essential for new businesses. But on the other hand, one should not choose a platform that provides less functionality and limit the scaling of the platform as the business grows.
WooCommerce
Here is the good news, WooCommerce is free! You can download and install it for free. That’s a great advantage for new businesses. But it comes without hosting, costing $6.95 to $12.95 monthly. You also need to buy a domain, which can cost around $10 to $15.
WooCommerce offers dozens of free themes for new and intermediate businesses. Professional premium themes can cost around $35-$129, depending on your required functionality and flexibility. Plugins are free for basic sites and cost $25-$100/ year. You can add another $50 to scale your platform for ultimate features. This can include SEO plugins like Yoast, costing $79/year.
You don’t need to hire a developer for basic and intermediate use. Still, for a more advanced store, you may need some professionals, which can cost an extra $1000 or above since security is a priority.
Magento
One can wish to know the exact cost of running an eCommerce store. But that is not possible. There are always plus and minuses in your requirements, resulting in varying costs, and only approximation is possible. Below, we have tried to give you the accurate running cost of Magento.
Magento offers three plans
- Magento open source
- Magento commerce
- Magento commerce cloud
There is no license fee for Magento open source, but Magento commerce charges $22000-125000/year, and commerce cloud goes even higher with $140,000-$190,000/year. Hosting for Magento open source is about $100-$500/year. Magento commerce costs $500-$6500, whereas commerce cloud is free hosting.
An $1800-$10,000 development cost is attached to Magento open source, whereas Magento commerce and commerce cloud can cost you $10,000+. Magento charges $60$-600/extension for all three platforms. Furthermore, for all three platforms, SEO charges are $10,000-$40,000.
Takeaway
It is obvious that cost is a concern just by taking a flying look; WooCommerce is far more economical than Magento. The subscription fee charged by Magento alone makes a huge difference.
Market Share – WooCommerce Vs. Magento
User experience plays an important role in judging the performance of any eCommerce platform. Let’s look at the market share of these two eCommerce giants.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce enjoys a huge market share of total eCommerce. Over 28% of the top one million eCommerce stores are powered by WooCommerce, with 3,121,088 live sites belonging to WooCommerce. That makes WooCommerce a leader in the eCommerce industry, without any doubt.
Magento
Even though Magento came into the market four years earlier, it only contributes 8% of the top one million eCommerce stores. Magento runs 203,021 live sites worldwide. Though these numbers are impressive, they cannot be compared with WooCommerce.
Takeaway
WooCommerce comes out as a clear winner when compared to market share. Magento numbers are not bad, but since we are drawing a comparison here, WooCommerce is winning in this department.
Security – WooCommerce Vs. Magento
Dependable security is the mainstay of any eCommerce store. Security ensures the credibility of your eCommerce store and safeguards your customer-sensitive data.
WooCommerce
By default, WooCommerce comes with moderate decent security. Still, since security in eCommerce should not be overlooked in any way, you can always take WooCommerce security to the next level by employing the services of third-party plugins like Jetpack, Wordfence, etc. The addition of these plugins takes WooCommerce security to the next level, enabling features like
- Uninterrupted monitoring.
- Automate spam filtering.
- Daily scan.
- Malicious IPs are blocked automatically.
- It helps enable two-factor verification.
- Protection against password leakage.
- Prompt site recovery and file protection
It offers a lot more with its plugins, but not all can be written here; in short, WooCommerce offers fail-proof security and credibility but only with added costs.
Magento
Magento also offers dependable security features. Magento offers Magento patches. They are free and ensure frequent scanning to help monitor your eCommerce store. You can upgrade these patches for more cost. You can also integrate Magento 2 security extensions to enhance your eCommerce store. In summary, Magento offers the following security features.
- Enable you to be aware of unauthorized access.
- Constantly monitoring your store.
- Comprehensively scans against malware.
- Offers Magento premium security extensions for more sophisticated protection
Takeaway
Cyberspace is not a secure environment. 40,000 sites are hacked daily. Since WooCommerce and Magento offer comparable security but not without paid extensions or plugins, it’s a tie here.
SEO Optimization – WooCommerce Vs. Magento
It is vital for any successful eCommerce business to have high search engine result pages (SERPs) to reach more people or potential customers. Without effective SEO, your eCommerce store has limited reach and can result in lower sales and awareness.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce provides exceptional optimization of your eCommerce store. This is due to its unlimited flexibility to integrate with SEO plugins like YOAST. A free version is available for this plugin, but if you want to take optimization to the next level, use its paid premium version. This will enable you to get the following features.
- Offers customizable URLs.
- Detailed titles
- Play with many Meta data descriptions.
- Enhanced organic search.
- Improved (SERPs)
Magento
Magento already comes with good built-in SEO capabilities. It also offers Magento 2 for more advanced SEO catering to complex requirements. Magento 2 offers the following features.
- SEO-optimized URLs for pages and products
- The meta description for products
- Provide meta tag for home page
- Optimized media
- Offers Meta Robots and text
- Offer rich Snippets.
Takeaway
WooCommerce and Magento are both open-source platforms that give control to their users or developers; there is no limit to the SEO optimization of your eCommerce store. Both platforms offer excellent SEO, but Magento can cost you more.
Conclusion
And that’s it! Both platforms offer great potential for your eCommerce platform in terms of flexibility, customization, and scalability.
What sets them apart is the cost and ease of use. When comparing WooCommerce and Magento, it becomes evident that Magento comes with a higher price tag. Furthermore, the expenses are constrained by predetermined packages, resulting in a consistent fixed operating cost. Consequently, there’s a possibility of incurring charges for services that might not be necessary.
With WooCommerce, you can expand according to your requirement because you only buy the extensions and plugins you need. Maybe that’s why Magento has a lesser market share than WooCommerce.
I hope this article helps you to choose the right platform for yourself. GOOD LUCK!
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