Magento vs WooCommerce: Detailed Comparison

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Today’s brands of various sorts are taking a great interest in the Magento vs WooCommerce debate. This is usually because they are seeking the right open-source eCommerce platform.

True, both of these platforms have their own set of strengths and limitations, which makes them the right choice for a host of online stores.

If you are also interested in this debate, then read on. This blog is exactly what you need.

It will do a detailed comparison of both of the platforms. Then, it will leave it to the readers to decide which platform they should go with.

Some of the questions addressed here are:

• What makes each of these platforms unique in their own regards?
• How do you make the choice between them?

Now, let’s take a deep dive into the matter:

An Overview of Magento vs WooCommerce

Both Magento and WooCommerce are immensely used open-source eCommerce platforms. Each of them presents robust features to both create and manage every type of online store.

Here is an overview of their comparison:

The following is what you can expect from these platforms:

Magento vs WooCommerce: The Pricing

There is little denying the fact that pricing is one of the biggest factors when selecting between Magento and WooCommerce. It is also important to highlight that both Magento and WooCommerce follow different models.

Magento is available as a licenced software. This means that you have to buy one of its paid plans.

When we look at WooCommerce, this comes as a WordPress plugin that can be installed for free. However, in this case, the user has to bear the responsibilities of extensions, custom development, domain management, and hosting.

Here is an interesting table that will show how pricing differs when looking at the Magento vs WooCommerce comparison:

After going through this table, it can be easily concluded that Magento comes as a rather costly option. Also, understand that WooCommerce’s pricing can also vary to a certain extent. The above table may give you an idea of the costs associated with the platform, but the final cost will depend on the users’ decisions regarding hosting plans, plugins, and other things.

Magento vs WooCommerce: The Usability Factor

You may be an eCommerce expert or someone who has just entered the field. There can be no denying that user-friendliness is a highly critical point when choosing the appropriate platform for your business processes. Let’s see both Magento and WooCommerce where they stand in ease of usability, starting with WooCommerce:

WooCommerce

So, you are a beginner or simply someone who wants a platform that does not demand plenty of technical skills. In this case, it will be best for you to go with WooCommerce. This is because the platform can be set up in a straightforward manner, and the same can be said regarding its customisation.

Additionally, you will easily find plenty of tutorials and documentation that will aid you.

Moreover, there is a highly useful setup wizard, which will be your guide when you are at the beginning stages of your store creation, such as selecting a currency, setting up payment options, and page creation.

You have the option of managing your store via the WordPress dashboard. This includes altering your theme’s look with your respective business-affiliated colours, including videos and pictures of your offered goods, and including all those functions that you require for your store.

On top of this, a piece of good news is that WooCommerce allows you to easily utilise shortcodes to include elements to your widgets and pages.

After you are finished with customisation, it is best to thoroughly test the website and make adjustments wherever required till you are happy with its looks.

Magento

It is a well-known fact that Magento has a steeper learning curve. Additionally, the majority of its functions are complex, such as the customisation of themes.

Any user who is not a web development professional should have a basic level of technical knowledge to create a robust eCommerce store on Magento.

There is a good degree of supporting documentation present, but the bulk of it is created keeping developers in mind.

Our Choice

Both of the platforms have their own speciality. This is what makes the whole Magento vs WooCommerce debate rather exciting with regard to the usability factor.

In terms of ease, WooCommerce definitely has an edge over Magento as it is a more appropriate choice for small businesses and start-ups that prefer to avoid dealing with the cost of developers.

Looking at Magento, it is definitely complicated for anyone who has no tech skills. Regardless, this complication also hints at its greatness, especially in regard to making a reliable eCommerce store for big businesses.

Magento vs WooCommerce: A Glance at Features

Let’s discuss the feature aspect in some detail:

B2B

Any B2B company requires an eCommerce utility that has features to support the following:

Magento

It has B2B features that are out of the box for premium subscribers.

WooCommerce

Here, businesses can get B2B features, but they are required to buy a plugin. There are around 50 B2B WooCommerce extensions ready for installation.

Product Management

When we discuss inventory management, these are features that make organising and monitoring inventory easier. This includes features such as shipping and sourcing.

Magento

• Users can add as many items as they require.
• It has out-of-the-box multi-store management.
• It presents a highly reliable order management feature for high product volumes.
• It offers real-time visibility of a product inventory. This ensures that the customers are given what is required every time.

WooCommerce

• Users can attain multi-store management with a plugin.
• It facilitates an unlimited amount of products.

Payment System

One of the foremost things that build your customers’ trust as they make a purchase is the right payment gateways.

These can make payment a smooth process. Let’s see how the discussed platforms do in this regard:

Magento

• It offers you out-of-the-box integration with Braintree, Authorize.net, and PayPal.
• You can integrate Magento with many other payment systems using third-party software.

WooCommerce

• The platform offers built-in integration with a host of today’s famed platforms, such as PayPal and Stripe.
• There are more than 70 plugins available to add payment processors of a user’s choice.

Themes and Templates

These are the bases of an eCommerce store design as they highlight user-friendliness, attractiveness, and layout.

Magento and WooCommerce offer a host of paid and free plans.

WooCommerce

There are more than 90 ready-made WooCommerce themes categorised by industry. This makes it rather easy for any business to get the right design.

Magento

This platform’s marketplace has a host of themes, though fewer in numbers than WooCommerce.

Our Choice

WooCommerce is our clear choice here as it offers a greater number of themes, as well as obvious categorisation, to assist users in making the right selection. This point is also appreciated across the eCommerce industry.

APIs, Plugins, and Extensions

Both Magento and WooCommerce are open-source platforms that offer the required core features to get a given store up and running.

There are a host of third-party developers that offer paid and free plugins and extensions. Magento offers more built-in features than WooCommerce, but the latter would require more plugins and extensions to match.

Additionally, stores are advised to install the required plugins and extensions, as this will ensure optimal performance. Also, integration with a host of software solutions can raise the functionality levels of an eCommerce website.

An API is required for this integration.

Magento

The platform offers a host of built-in extensions for the Commerce Cloud and Commerce plans. Note that the Magento marketplace presents more than 4,000 paid and free extensions.

The extensions take into account a host of fields, such as:

• Payments
• Security
• Customer support
• Analytics
• Marketing

Magento’s extensions are rich in features and do a very good integration with the associated APIs

WooCommerce

This platform offers more than 800 free and paid extensions that are associated with:

• Merchandising
• Marketing
• Payments
• Shipping, and more.

Since WooCommerce is built on WordPress, users can access a host of extensions and plugins presented by WordPress.

Our Choice

We have no clear favourite here as both Magento and WooCommerce offer highly beneficial third-party plugins and extensions that cater to all business areas.

In terms of integrations, both platforms seamlessly integrate with third-party software to enhance functionality and ease the management of a given store.

SEO and Marketing

Productive SEO and marketing are immensely important for eCommerce stores. Here is what both platforms present in this regard:

Magento

• Product recommendations depend on user behaviour.
• Customer segmentation for targeted campaigns.
• Visual merchandising for associated products.
• Templates and email marketing for campaigns such as welcome series and abandoned cart.
• A/B testing for landing pages and emails.
• Integrations with a host of email providers such as Dotdigital and Omnisend.
• SEO enhancements.
• Additional advanced SEO functions can be added via plugins and extensions.

WooCommerce

• A/B testing demands dedicated plugins.
• SEO relies on plugins like Yoast SEO.
• Email marketing demands extensions like Omnisend.
• Product recommendations require different plugins.
• Lack of built-in sitemap generation.
• At least 160 marketing extensions and 9 SEO plugins.

Our Choice

We select Magento here as it offers more advanced built-in SEO and marketing features.

Security

A host of security threats affect both consumer and online stores:

• Phishing
• Fake eCommerce stores
• Identity theft
• Data theft

The core of Magento and WooCommerce is very secure in dealing with the mentioned and other threats. Note that third-party extensions could bring in some vulnerabilities.

WooCommerce needs more plugins and extensions to increase its functionality. This can increase security vulnerabilities.

On the other hand, Magento has a host of beneficial built-in features and demands a lesser number of extensions.

However, when it comes to security, things are not straightforward with both platforms.

Our Choice

Since things are not straightforward, this is a tie between the platforms as they actually do well overall with regard to security.

Support

A reliable eCommerce software solution featuring a good support feature ensures that the users get the best possible help with problems and solutions. This point is often highlighted by a WooCommerce development company, as other development solutions providers engage in the Magento vs WooCommerce debate.

Support also guarantees that a user makes the most out of an eCommerce platform.

Magento

• Premium users enjoy access to live support and email.
• A massive community is present (featuring developers) that offers assistance to users.

WooCommerce

• Account holders of WooCommerce.com can interact with the support team.
• A huge community can assist with any issue.
• There is a massive knowledge base present on the platform’s website.

Wrapping it Up

If you are a business owner who has yet to make a judgment call with regard to the Magento vs WooCommerce issue, it is important to understand that this may not be an easy one to make.

Before you choose a winner in Magento vs WooCommerce, you must understand that no platform is the perfect solution.

This is why it is important for you to thoroughly analyse both Magento and WooCommerce’s strengths and weaknesses.

Whatever you decide, it should be based on your existing and potential needs.

Many eCommerce stores that consult with the best ecommerce developers often ignore their future business needs. This can lead towards drastic results as you may be required to switch platforms either in the near or far future. This switching can actually be a costly affair.

These are the reasons why Magento will be a wonderful choice for your eCommerce site:

• It requires a major custom eCommerce feature
• It has B2B requirements
• It has a massive catalogue
• It is categorised into medium-to-large businesses

WooCommerce is the right option when:

• Your eCommerce store is of small stature and can do with limited features.
• You have a small budget at hand.
• You have limited tech skills, cannot get a developer, or this is your initial eCommerce store.
• You have a content-heavy eCommerce website.

Having stated all of this, there is little denying the fact that Magento is considered to be a wonderful choice for any eCommerce store by today’s leading webapp development, eCommerce development, and other agencies.

This is because Magento makes it rather easy for you to manage a B2B or large store. Moreover, Magento presents advanced features that will allow your company to grow in the future.

Lastly, it is important to state here that if you need the right recommendation while going through the Magento vs WooCommerce debate, contact FuturByte. They come as a reputed web and application developer who enjoys a globally-situated client base. They will love to assist you with your relative concerns.