While starting an eCommerce business, the most confusing question is, “Which e-commerce platform to choose?” And Magento Vs WooCommerce, being an age-old debated topic, put the users in an even bigger dilemma.
Both, Magento and WooCommerce, are powerful platforms for the businesses of all sizes. However, when it comes to choosing one, you start scratching your head.
So, to make it easy on you, we drilled deeper to draft this detailed overview and comparison of the two best e-commerce platforms, of all times. Let’s get started.
Magento Vs WooCommerce -The Comparison
The following traits and features will help you decide your winner.
1. Ease of Use
2. Pricing
3. Hosting
4. Payment Modes
5. SEO & Content
6. Themes & Add-Ons
7. Marketing Features
8. Customers
9. Support
10. Trial
Note: Magento 1 support is ending soon. We highly recommend our users to migrate from Magento 1 to Magento 2 for a better experience.
Now let’s go through the detailed article on Magento vs Woocommerce.
1. Ease of Use
Ease of use is the very first thing that someone seeks today.
Especially, the beginners with no (or little) technical knowledge desire a platform that offers everything at fingertips, without needing them to touch a single line of code.
Let’s see how easy it is to build and run your e-commerce store on WooCommerce and Magento.
WooCommerce (Ease of Use)
If you’re already using WordPress, you can sign up for WooCommerce straightaway using your WP account.
There are 3 ingredients for getting started with WooCommerce: a domain, web hosting, and WordPress Install.
WooCommerce is beginners’ best friend. It’s considered the most intuitive and user-friendly eCommerce platform for building your online business.
Highlights
- Easy to Use
- Customizable
- Guide for store owners and developers
Magento (Ease of Use)
Magento is an amazing e-commerce platform that holds a strong portfolio of cloud-based omnichannel solutions.
It has accomplished a lot in 2018: released a brand new version and completed many big projects, which speaks for its success!
Also, Magento empowers merchants to successfully run and expand online shopping businesses with tons of features and flexibility.
However, to the most beginners, getting started with Magento can look a little scary. But once you gain technical knowledge, using Magento will be easy and fun.
Note: For the stumbling blocks in Magento coding, you can anytime hire a Magento developer, and build an awesome, user-friendly e-store.
Highlights
- Highly flexible
- A wide range of customization
- Offers extensive user-guide and case studies
2. Pricing
The second dominating factor while deciding on Magento vs WooCommerce is the Price.
Let’s compare their plans.
WooCommerce Pricing
WooCommerce, by WooThemes, is an opensource platform offered for Free to all the WordPress users.
When you develop your website on Woo, buying a domain and web hosting for WooCommerce is a necessity. Only the cost of hosting and domain would be there.
The costing can be anywhere between $10-$250 annually.
Highlights
- Free of cost
- 56,806,431 downloads
- Free and Paid Extensions
Magento Pricing
Since Magento is a self-hosted platform, you will have to find a good Magento hosting provider after purchasing a domain.
Magento is an open source software that’s available for Free. However, if you want to enjoy its Cloud solution, better known as Magento Commerce, you will have to purchase a plan.
The cost of hosting may differ as per your hosting needs and plans.
Highlights
- Plans for your needs
- Allows you to host multiple stores
- B2B functionality (Pro),
- advanced marketing tools (Pro)
- Visual Merchandising (Pro)
3. Hosting
Hosting plays an imperative role in your online success and factors like website security, page load speed, uptime and more.
Therefore, you need to be very careful while choosing the right web hosting for your e-Commerce website.
It clearly becomes a point for comparison between Magento vs WooCommerce.
WooCommerce Hosting
You have to take up a domain and hosting for your website when you choose WooCommerce.
Unlike Shopify, it doesn’t offer self-hosting service. Means, WooCommerce doesn’t provide its own hosting. You have to find out a good hosting provider for you.
Highlights
- Not a Self-hosted platform
- Works well with any good hosting
- Focuses on Building up e-stores only
Magento Hosting
When you choose Magento, you get two hosting options:
i) Open source
ii) Cloud (Magento Commerce)
In Open Source hosting, you are free to choose the domain and hosting provider of your choice. This means you can do some research, and find the best Magento hosting provider for your store.
Also, you can build your website, customize it and work on it the way you want.
In Cloud hosting, your site is hosted on and maintained completely by Magento. This hosting is also good, but you’ll have to contact the Magento team everytime you face an issue regarding site security or site speed.
What We Recommend: We advise going for fully managed Magento hosting for stress-free business management.
Highlights
- Full control
- Two Hosting options
- Customer Support
4. Payment Modes
The next big discussion on Magento Vs WooCommerce is the payment methods used by each. Let’s see what both of these e-commerce platforms integrate.
WooCommerce (Payment Modes)
WooCommerce integrates seamlessly with Stripe and Paypal.
Howbeit, there are more payment modes including Amazon Payments, Authorize.net etc. that can be integrated when required.
When it comes to payment security and responsibility in Woocommerce, it’s you, who take care of the connection with the payment processors.
Highlights
- Extensions to support 4 payment types: offsite, form, direct and iframe
- Can be integrated with Amazon Pay and authorize.net
- You take care of the integration
Magento (Payment Modes)
Talking about the payment modes integrated by Magento, the process is entirely different.
Magento payment process is quite easy but slightly longer.
Here’s what you need to do:
- Go to Magento marketplace
- Search for the payment process/integration extensions
- Download the extension that’s most suitable
Highlights
- You can add major payment processors
- Multi-languages support
- Covers International market
5. SEO & Content
As soon as you establish your e-commerce business, it adds to the stress.
This is, when there is the direct need for SEO compatibility with your eCommerce platform.
Both Magento and WooCommerce understand this need and have a lot to offer. Let’s compare Magento vs WooCommerce and see which platform is more SEO optimized.
WooCommerce (SEO & Content)
WooCommerce is quite SEO friendly.
As WooCommerce is an extension for WordPress, you will get SEO compatibility quite similar to WP.
When you go for Woocommerce, you can add pages, write blog posts, and install WooCommerce add-ons too.
Highlights
- Customizable
- SEO optimized
- Creating content is easy
Magento (SEO & Content)
Magento is the clear, better choice when SEO compatibility comes in.
Being a self-hosted platform, Magento allows its users to optimize e-stores for better SEO strategy and maximum output.
Also, Magento offers more tools and extensions, in comparison to WooCommerce. These extensions can help you out, even if you don’t have much SEO know-how.
For an extended knowledge, refer to our detailed post on best Magento SEO tips of all times.
Highlights
- Easy access to redirects, and canonical tags
- Edit permalinks and meta tags
- Allows you to change URLs
- Super SEO optimization
6. Themes & Add-ons
Themes are a vital part of any website that can make or break your hard work.
You need to pick the right theme, especially when you are going to kick-start your e-commerce empire.
Both WooCommerce and Magento offer their own themes to their users. Let’s unveil the difference.
WooCommerce (Themes & Add-ons)
Themes
WooCommerce has a long list of attractive, responsive eCommerce themes for its customers. [Though none of the Storefront themes are free, compare well before buying.]
Some amazing themes by WooCommerce that you must check-out are Bistro (for organic products and consumable), PetShop (for pet industry products), Galleria (Fashion and Design stores) and Deli (natural, handmade goods).
Add-ons
When it comes to add-ons (WooCommerce extensions), you’ll be stunned.
There is one for each need.
Most famous add-ons are Ninja forms, Paypal checkout, and Product add-ons etc.
Highlights
- Clean, Responsive themes
- Customizable
- Updates & support
P.S. Talking about Magento vs WooCommerce 1hemes and Add-ons, you’d like to prefer Magento over WooCommerce. Here’s why:
Magento (Themes & Add-ons)
Themes
Magento has hundreds of responsive themes, both free and paid.
In Magento Theme Marketplace, you would find a theme for every kind of eCommerce business. Whether you have a fashion store, bookshop, organic products, or any other e-commerce website, Magento has a solution for all.
If you’re using Magento 2, here are the cool Magento 2 themes for your e-store.
The best part?
You will get unbelievable customization freedom even with the free themes.
Even the themes that come with a price tag are pretty attractive, super-responsive, fully-customizable and worth the price.
Add-ons
Magento offers 4,000 plus add-ons to its customers.
These are both free and paid, and available in Magento Extensions Marketplace.
Highlights
- Super responsive themes
- Drag and Drop in theme manager
- Full Customization
- You can add animations
Check out the best Magento 2 Extensions for an instant e-commerce boost.
P.S. You can also choose extensions as per your choice, budget, Magento version, edition (Community/Enterprise) and platform.
7. Marketing Features
Marketing features play a critical role in e-commerce exposure and business growth.
You can’t take it lightly when you wish to run an E-store.
Talking about Magento vs WooCommerce, both of these platforms offer fabulous marketing features; though there are some differences.
WooCommerce (Marketing Features)
One can easily integrate an affiliate program on his WooCommerce e-store.
How?
By installing FREE extensions!
Yes, you can use plugins for Newsletter subscription, follow up emails, social media, discounts and more.
Highlights
- Have many marketing features
- Free WooCommerce plugins
- iPhone app for Woocommerce
Magento (Marketing Features)
When it comes to marketing features, Magento is invincible.
Since these features are the part of Magento’s core, they are easy to implement and fun to use.
In a nutshell: Magento has a lot of nice stuff inside, especially when marketing features are considered. For instance, catalog promotional pricing and flexible coupons with the ability to restrict to stores, categories, products and more.
Highlights
- Minimum Advertised Price (MAP)
- Multi-tier pricing for quantity discounts
- Landing page for categories
- Customer groups
- Newsletter management
- Send wish lists by email.
8. Customers
If you want to know which brands and companies are using which e-commerce platform, let’s reveal it.
But before we move forth, I must tell you that both of these e-commerce platforms are doing amazing and have big brands as their existing or former clients.
Woocommerce Customers
When talking about WooCommerce clients, there are many famous names which are or have been satisfied clients.
Here’s the list:
- All Black: New Zealand national rugby union team
- Orange Amplification: Music Electronic Company
- Ghost Bed: Mattress for Supernatural Comfort with Cooling Technology
Many other brands like Singer, GoodDYEYoung, and Airstream also rely on WooCommerce for their e-commerce business.
Highlights
- 7 years of experience
- Trustworthy
- Compatible for WordPress users
Magento Customers
Magento is a fantastic e-commerce solution. Several big brands ranging from Samsung, Links London, and Harvey Nichols etc.rely on Magento for running and managing their online stores.
Brands like Brown Forman, Zumiez, and Burger King have also chosen Magento this year.
The former/existing customer list also includes:
- Nike: American multinational corporation for footwear, apparels, accessories and more.
- Lenovo: A multinational technology company
- Coca-Cola: A carbonated soft drink manufacturer
- BevMo: Corporation based in Concord, California, selling mainly alcoholic beverages
- Ford: American multinational automaker
P.S. Magento outshines Woocommerce when it comes to scalability and support. This makes it an ideal choice for big companies and booming e-commerce businesses.
Don’t believe us? Ask Bulgari – they’re proud Magento users:
Highlights
- Over 10 years of experience
- Great for big brands
- Superior e-commerce platform
- Highly scalable
- Frequent Updates/Upgrades
9. Support
The next strong point of comparison between Magento vs Woocommerce is Technical support.
Whether you will use WooCommerce or you go with Magento, in both the cases, you’ll need active community users and skilled experts for help. Let’s discuss how each platform provides tech support.
WooCommerce Support
When you use WooCommerce and stuck at any point, you can ask your queries in the open WordPress community.
Yes, the sad part is you will have to perform everything on your own. If you don’t want to do it by yourself, you can hire a developer to solve your issues.
Highlights
- Open WordPress community
- Available 24*7
- Experts and Amateurs both available
Magento Support
Magento offers great community-based support.
Both Magento experts and developers are there to assist you when you’re confused.
If you want group discussion and support, you can become a member of Magento Forums and Magento partner agency.
Also, joining this community can be helpful and is free. Else, you can hire a Magento Developer anytime who will be dedicated to your e-business.
Highlights
- Free and paid support
- Forum for discussion
- User guides and Technical sheets for help
Note: When you take managed Magento hosting, you don’t have to deal with complex coding, problems, and confusions. With a good Magento hosting, you get round-the-clock support from their experts.
10. Trial
You can get a Free Trial service almost everywhere today. WooCommerce and Magento are no different.
They do so, for their customers can evaluate their product or service. Users will also want to see how their e-store looks and works like before buying the service.
WooCommerce Trial
WooCommerce is open source and totally ‘free’ for all. If you have (or haven’t) got a web hosting plan, you can start creating your online store today. How? Just by installing WordPress on your local-host.
No trial is needed as it’s free, and you can try it anytime by signing in and installing WooCommerce.
Highlights
- Free of Cost
- Try anytime you want
- Just need WordPress installation
Magento Trial
Magento offers a free demo for all its customers who want to try it before buy it. You just have to fill a form and submit. It’s this simple.
Most of the users do buy Magento’s service after taking up its demo. You can also try it and see how your e-store will look and feel on Magento.
Highlights
- Free demo
- Smooth experience
Note: Both, Magento and WooCommerce are great Shopify alternatives. Read our separate post on Magento vs Shopify comparison.
A Quick Recap
Comparing Magento Vs WooCommerce was not an easy nut to crack.
Both Magento and Woocommerce have a lot of advantages that raise them above their competitors.
The above side-by-side comparison discusses the strengths and weaknesses of both the eCommerce platforms. However, at some points, one can be better than the other.
The following image summarizes our Magento vs WooCommerce detailed comparison:
Still confused?
Here’s a quick recap on When to choose Which:
When choose WooCommerce?
1. WooCommerce is for those who can do everything on their own and may want to change their website design according to their needs.
2. WooCommerce is free to use Open Source WordPress plugin available online. It’s great for those who want to try add-ons for free and learn to create, design, modify and more.
3. Moreover, if you’re tight on the budget and looking for a Free e-commerce platform, going with WooCommerce is the right choice. However, you will still need a good managed web hosting to manage your WordPress.
4. If you are on Magento, you can use LitExtension to migrate your store to WooCommerce.
When choose Magento?
1. Magento might have a little complex user interface, but it is best for commercial growth.
2. Also, if you want your business to become a brand down the road, you might want to get along with Magento.
3. For unbeatable services and scalability, always choose Magento.
Post Script:
We hope this article helped you compare the pros and cons of Magento vs WooCommerce. For any queries leave a comment below, or reach out to us. We’ll be glad to help you!
