The world of e-commerce can be overwhelming. There are so many platforms, each with its pros and cons. This post should help you decide which platform to use by comparing the most popular ones: Magento, WooCommerce, Shopify, and PrestaShop. Let’s get started!
What is Magento?
Magento is an open-source e-commerce platform written in PHP. It was launched on March 31, 2008, and is now one of the most popular platforms available, with over 280,000 online stores running it today.
Magento features
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Themes and Design
Magento comes with many themes that you can use to customize your store’s look and feel according to your brand identity or existing website design. The best part about this is that you don’t have to be an expert web developer or designer, since most templates are bundled with easy customization options right inside the admin panel.
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Ease of use
Since Magento has many code contributors worldwide, new updates are released regularly, which means fewer bugs for merchants to deal with when running their stores.
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The Costs
Since Magento is an open-source eCommerce platform, it doesn’t come with any licensing fees, unlike Shopify and WooCommerce. This allows merchants to save money in the long run since they don’t have to pay for monthly or annual service subscriptions like most other platforms where you only get basic features but no customization options.
The hosting costs are also cheaper when compared to hosted solutions provided by other marketplaces.
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Apps and Add-Ons
One of Magento’s most significant advantages over any other eCommerce platform is its massive free and paid apps collection.
There are thousands of third-party extensions that can help you achieve your business goals faster without having to code anything if you’re not a developer yourself.
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Payment Processors
Magento supports all major payment gateways, which means merchants don’t have to worry about PCI compliance, since their sensitive data won’t be saved on Magento’s servers by default.
You can also connect new payment provides easily with just an integration extension, so there’s no need to look around for compatible software or go through extended configurations before accepting card payments online as some competing platforms might force upon users.
What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is an ecommerce platform that runs on WordPress, which gives it a significant cost advantage over its competitors.
A WooCommerce website with a standard set of features doesn’t require any additional hosting fees and is ready for business as soon as you install WordPress on your domain.
Since ecommerce platforms are built using open source technologies, they have more developers working on them than commercial products like Magento, so the code base develops faster and usually has fewer bugs.
WooCommerce features
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Themes and Design
With themes, you have plenty to choose from, both free and premium. Since WooCommerce runs on WordPress, you can easily install a theme readily available on the WordPress.org Themes Directory or from other sources like Elegant Marketplace.
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Ease of use
WooCommerce users rave about how easy it is to set up and run their online stores, with some saying they were able to have their website ready in under an hour! WooCommerce also has a ton of support docs, so even if you get stuck at any point during your store setup process, there should be plenty of resources for finding help.
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The Costs
A basic WooCommerce site running standard features should incur no additional hosting charges beyond what you’re already paying for WordPress (and its underlying stack). There are also no additional licensing fees, and you can use any hosting provider.
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Apps and Add-Ons
WooCommerce has a vast library of apps to choose from that continue to grow as the platform becomes more popular. You’ll find options for everything from adding social sharing features to customizing your checkout process or integrating with other ecommerce platforms like Shopify.
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Payment Processors
WooCommerce is compatible with all the major payment gateways, including PayPal and Google Wallet. You can also use WooCommerce to build your payment gateway for accepting custom forms of online payments like Bitcoin or EDU tokens (for educational institutions).
What is Shopify?
Shopify is a hosted ecommerce platform, so you don’t have to worry about hosting for your store. This makes it much easier and more affordable for new businesses to launch an online storefront while not having the technical know-how to set up a website from scratch.
Shopify features
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Themes and Design
Lt’s easy for any non-technical person to build their store using the one-click import option. Still, they have a quality control team that evaluates each theme before it goes live on Shopify, so you don’t have to worry about buggy or poor-performing themes.
Shopify also offers professional Shopify development service if you you can also hire a freelance shopify expert on your own.
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Ease of use
Shopify’s drag-and-drop editor is straightforward to use, and it only takes a few minutes for someone with no coding experience to build their store. You can choose from hundreds of professionally designed themes or customize your theme if you have the time, talent, and desire. Alternatively, you can look for a Shopify development agency for guidance.
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The Costs
After entering some basic information about your business, Shopify has three plans available: Basic ($14/mo.), Professional ($29/mon.) & Advanced ($79/mo.). The cost goes up as more products are added, but there isn’t a limit on how many items you can sell online with each plan. All accounts come with a 14-day free trial, so sign up today!
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Apps and Add-Ons
When it comes to add-ons, Shopify is the most well-known and widely used platform. There are over 500 apps currently in their app store, offering tools to help you with shipping, taxes and accounting, inventory management and reporting, marketing and SEO (of which hiring a Shopify expert is the best way to go), as well as many others.
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Payment Processors
Shopify integrates easily with many payment processors, including Stripe (the best option for accepting international orders), PayPal Pro, or Amazon Payments. It makes it easy to accept credit cards online from your customers no matter where they live!
The integration is done through Shopify’s built-in checkout system, but if this isn’t enough, then there are also plenty of options available through third-party provides that you can add on top too.
What is PrestaShop?
PrestaShop is an ecommerce marketplace that you can use to set up an online store. PrestaShop is written in PHP and uses either MySQL or MariaDB as its back-end database engine, which means that it requires a LAMP stack for your site to run on.
PrestaShop features
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Themes and Design
The themes and design elements are all written in CSS, so any changes you make to the look of your site will be a matter of changing a few lines of code.
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Ease of use
PrestaShop is highly customizable from top to bottom, so it can take some time for beginners to get used to. However, once they have become familiar with this brilliant platform, then they’ll find it easy enough to use!
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The Costs
The costs really depend on what type of plan you sign up for, but generally speaking, the price should be around $25 per month (depending on tier).
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Apps and Add-Ons
There are over 12000 PrestaShop apps available through the official marketplace, and it is effortless to install them by yourself.
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Payment Processors
PrestaShop supports all major payment methods, including PayPal, Skrill (formerly MoneyBookers), Authorize.net DPM, Stripe.com, Google Wallet for Checkout, and PayPal Pro (Direct Payment).
Conclusion
The best platform for you is the one that will work with your current hosting provider and has a flexible design to grow as needed. We recommend Magento, WooCommerce, or Shopify if you need an eCommerce store now.
If you want more control over everything from templates to features, then PrestaShop might be suitable for your business needs.
If you want to build a custom Shopify website, we at Endertech are Shopify experts Los Angeles with a team of certified engineers. You can contact us today for a free consultation!
