eCommerce today is becoming one of the fastest-growing industries. With people turning to online platforms more and more, developers are striving hard to get more innovation and create robust solutions for businesses. However, to stay in trends and develop robust solutions it is necessary for developers to use the best eCommerce platforms like Magento or WooCommerce. These platforms are scalable, functional, agile, and can offer great designs. If you too are thinking of developing your eCommerce store, you might be considering which one to for. Thus, in this post, we have made a comparison between these two platforms to help you make a decision and go with the right platform.

Introduction to Magento

Magento is an open-source eCommerce platform developed by Varien Inc that is widely used for online businesses.  With a flexible modular design and several control options, Magento helps the developers to build user friendly and SEO optimized websites without hassle. This platform allows you to get complete eCommerce solutions that are simple, quick, versatile to use, and also allows you to update the website automatically. The platform is fully responsive that supports all the devices and screens and also offers you to integrate different payment options to allow your users to make payments through their preferred gateway. Supporting many extensions for the development of an online store, several businesses hire Magento developers for developing their robust eCommerce store.

Introduction to WooCommerce

WooCommerce is another powerful eCommerce platform providing easy to use solutions. This platform is typically used to transform any WordPress website into an online store perfectly. Implying the best WordPress practices, WooCommerce acts as a reliable eCommerce plugin if you are looking forward to building an online store out of your existing website or blog. As it is simple to use, you don’t necessarily have to be much experienced in its coding to use this plugin. This plugin is gaining huge popularity among WordPress users due to its functionality, simplicity, and flexibility. It also includes several themes and extensions with exciting customization options. As you hire a WooCommerce developer, you can have a fully customized website, just as you have desired.

Features of Magento

• Magento is completely SEO optimized and is known for its SEO capabilities. Being SEO friendly, your store will raise the rank in the search engines and attract more and more traffic.
• It allows you to integrate different payment options to your website such as PayPal, credit card, Google Checkout, money order, etc. to allow your users to make payment as per their convenience.
• Magento supports multiple languages and different currencies that help you to reach a wider audience.
• This platform helps you to manage the orders easily via an intuitive admin panel.
• Magento includes features like image zoom in and checking of stock availability that makes it easier to browse the product on your website.
• It filters the product and displays an on-grid and list format.
• Magento provides the history and order status of the product.
• Has efficient APIs for the third party integration

Features of WooCommerce

• WooCommerce is an open-source that allows you to modify and customize  your website just as you like
• This platform comes with a completely integrated & easy to use coupon configuration.
• WooCommerce has pre installed cash on delivery, PayPal, and the BACS payment method.
• It allows easy management of products with the help of WordPress centric UI.
• It provides several shipping options that configure as soon as it is installed.
• WooCommerce comes with an extension system and offers hundreds of options.
• A free platform that supports unlimited products.

Magento Vs WooCommerce in terms of:

As both the platforms are strong and offer robust solutions in developing an eCommerce store, the question arises “which one to choose?”, well here is a comparison between the two platforms that can help you decide which one to go for based on your requirement:

Pricing:

While you make a decision to go with one of these great platforms, the budget is the most critical consideration. Also mentioned earlier, WooCommerce is a free extension that gives you all the basic e-commerce features. On the other hand, Magento Community Edition is also free which offers even more basic functions. However, Magento Enterprise has more premium options.

Another factor that adds up to the cost is the hosting cost. This cost depends directly on your service provider and the size of your online store. The bigger you are planning to develop your online store, the more space it will require. Thus, to host a large online store is more expensive than a small or medium one. In this process, extensions are another point where costs can increase quickly. Both the platforms have free extensions for both platforms still, the premium extensions are more advanced.

Ease of use:

Magento platform is created for developers and the advanced setup requires proficient developers as it is complicated for beginner developers. If you have a skilled developer on your side, you can use tons of built-in features offered by this powerful platform. If you have simply no experience with Magento, it can be hard for you to install it without a developer.

On the other hand, WooCommerce is an easier option. Before you set up WooCommerce, you will have to install WordPress. Most of the hosting providers automatically install it but in case your hosting provider does not automatically install WordPress, you can do it easily using auto-installer. You can then set up payments and shipping, creating pages, and choosing the currency. Similarly, the plugins and themes are also easy to install.

Scalability:

Since Magento is a resource-intensive software, you will have to hire a Magento developer to scale up your eCommerce website using Magento Community edition as you will have to look after the backup management, website optimization & caching, and do other technical routines. This will also cost you to further scale up your operations.

While scaling up the WooCommerce store, you might face some technical challenges. But the best part is, you can grow your store without having to spend much on your budget.

As you plan to scale up your store, you should move to WordPress hosting providers to help you meet your business goal.

Security:

One of the essential factors to consider is security. You should keep in mind that no platform is 100% safe, but you can take several measures to ensure that your eCommerce store is secure. WooCommerce offers an SSL Certificate on the other hand Magento gives users dedicated security patches to boost the security of their e-commerce websites. Just like in other cases of integrating something with the Magento website, you will have to take assistance from e-commerce developers.

Extensions & Integrations:

Magento platform has a huge community of developers and agencies. You can avail a number of free and paid plugins depending on your requirements.

You can pick any add-on and enrich your existing feature list with a new one whenever you want. If the existing extensions do not meet your requirements, you can hire a developer to create a custom extension for your particular needs.

WooCommerce is an extension of websites powered by WordPress. Thus, to add more features to your online store, you can use any WordPress plugin from thousands of paid and 55,000 free plugins. As there is a huge choice of extensions, it allows you to connect your website to any third-party services, including CRM software, payment gateways, etc.

Conclusion

Comparing both the platforms, it is evident that both the platforms have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. It is clearly hard to say which one is better but depending on your needs and requirements of your eCommerce store, you can compare their offerings and certainly choose the right one. Once you choose your platform, you can hire your developers and can get started with your own eCommerce store!