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WooCommerce vs Magento: Which Is Better for Ecommerce?

If you’re starting an ecommerce site, you’ll need a platform that can help you run your online business efficiently. There are many options available, but WooCommerce and Magento (now Adobe Commerce) consistently show up on short lists – and it’s for a lot of good reasons. However, trying to decide between WooCommerce vs Magento can get confusing. 😕

To cut through the fog and simplify things for you, we’ve put together a detailed comparison of these two popular ecommerce platforms.

WooCommerce vs Magento.

We’ll look at 🔎 the features of each one, as well as their pricing, ease of use, and other offerings. If you carefully review how they stack up against one another, you should be able to select your own personal winner in the WooCommerce vs Magento face-off.

Let’s get started! 🤩

WooCommerce

WooCommerce homepage.

First up in our WooCommerce vs. Magento comparison is WooCommerce. This is the most popular ecommerce plugin for WordPress. It turns your website into a self-hosted, fully-functional store. What’s more, you can expand its functionality with plugins and extensions.

Key features ⚙️

WooCommerce is packed with all the features you need to run an online store. These include:

  • A large library of ecommerce themes
  • Seamless transactions, with support for PayPal, Apple Pay, and other payment methods
  • Shipping management, including USPS and DHL labels
  • A WooCommerce Blocks plugin that adds essential elements to your site, including Cart and Checkout blocks

With WooCommerce, you’ll also get access to analytics and reports. For example, you can monitor your stock, revenue, and orders.

Ease of use 🖱️

As we mentioned, WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin. WordPress is a free Content Management System (CMS) that enables you to build any type of website. If you’ve never used the software before, you’ll want to spend some time familiarizing yourself with the dashboard before getting started with WooCommerce.

For example, you’ll need to install a WordPress theme and learn how to use essential plugins like Yoast SEO. You’ll also need to purchase your own web hosting.

Once you’ve learned how to navigate WordPress, you should find WooCommerce quite easy to use. As you can see, you can create and manage products from your dashboard:

Managing products in WooCommerce.

From the plugin settings, you can configure your tax rates, shipping zones, payment methods, and more:

Configuring taxes in WooCommerce.

If you select a block theme for your WooCommerce store, you’ll be able to customize it with the WordPress Site Editor. For instance, you can design your shop and product pages with blocks:

WooCommerce vs Magento, WooCommerce single product template.

WordPress has tons of benefits. For example, it’s highly accessible and customizable. However, keep in mind that running a WooCommerce store may require a little more work than all-in-one solutions. Since your website is self-hosted, you’ll need to take care of hosting, domain name registration, security measures like SSL certificates, and other essential tasks.

Integrations and add-ons 🧩

Out of the box, WooCommerce enables you to build a basic yet fully functional store. However, you may want to add more features to your shop, such as live chat, product swatches, and other useful tools.

Fortunately, WooCommerce offers a large selection of extensions. These range from payment and shipping tools to customer service and marketing solutions:

WooCommerce extensions store image in WooCommerce vs Magento comparison

Since WooCommerce was built with the WordPress REST API, it can integrate with virtually any third-party service. This includes payment platforms like Stripe, PayPal, Square, and Amazon Pay.

Plus, WordPress is a powerful platform with thousands of plugins to choose from. That means you’ll be able to add more features to your store easily, including contact forms, social media feeds, pop-ups, and more.

Pricing 💳

WooCommerce is a free plugin. However, you’ll need to purchase web hosting and a domain name for your WordPress site.

There are plenty of hosting providers that offer ecommerce plans for WooCommerce stores. You can shop around and choose the most suitable option for your business.

Meanwhile, the prices for WooCommerce extensions can vary. For example, you’ll find some add-ons that are available for free, while others may cost anywhere between $20 and $300.

👉 Here’s an in-depth look at what it actually costs to run a WooCommerce store in a couple of popular scenarios.

Magento

Magento.

Now that you are familiar with what WooCommerce has to offer, we bring you Magento. As you can see in the image above, Magento was bought out by Adobe and is technically now known as Adobe Commerce. However, most people still refer to it as its original name – as do we.

As you already know, it’s an ecommerce platform designed to help you launch an online shop. That’s the expected part, but it also has some unique features that might interest you. For example, it enables you to offer a seamless omnichannel experience to your customers, whether those customers are individuals (B2C) or businesses (B2B). It is also a more enterprise-focused platform than WooCommerce, making it perhaps a better tool for large stores with hundreds of orders every hour or even minute.

Key features ⚙️

Magento uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data-sharing technologies to facilitate B2C and B2B transactions from a single platform. It also offers various powerful features, such as:

  • A drag-and-drop page builder
  • AI-powered product recommendations to help you increase conversions
  • Efficient inventory management and order fulfillment tools
  • In-depth reports on your sales and performance
  • Ability to manage multiple channels and brands from one platform

Additionally, Magento lets you offer a quick and mobile-friendly checkout process, without the need for customers to sign in. This can help you reduce your cart abandonment rate.

Ease of use 🖱️

Compared to other ecommerce platforms, Magento has a steeper learning curve. Its interface may require more technical knowledge and web-building expertise.

Also, the setup and configuration process is not very straightforward. For example, you’ll need to use a command line to install it and configure your own server.

However, if you have some web development experience, or you’ve used other Adobe products in the past, the process may not be difficult. Plus, with Magento, you’ll be able to easily scale your ecommerce site by integrating shopping experiences across all digital touchpoints.

Integrations and add-ons 🧩

Like other ecommerce platforms, Magento has its own extensions library. Here, you’ll find a large selection of tools for different areas of your store, including accounting, marketing, shipping, and payments:

Image of Extensions for Adobe Commerce in WooCommerce vs. Magento comparison

Additionally, Magento integrates seamlessly with other Adobe products, such as Analytics, Real-Time CDP, Experience Manager, and more. These integrations can provide you with an in-depth analysis of your store’s performance, and valuable insights into your marketing campaigns.

Pricing 💳

Magento offers two packages: Adobe Commerce Pro and Managed Services:

WooCommerce vs Magento comparison- Magento (Adobe Commerce) pricing page.

With the latter, you’ll get planned event management support, development assistance, a designated cloud infrastructure resource, and more powerful features.

Unfortunately, prices for Magento are not publicly available. You’ll need to get in touch with Adobe for custom pricing information. You can also request a demo. But just to give you an idea as to the range of pricing you’re in with Magento, before the platform was acquired by Adobe, users in the know reported prices in the $50,000 a month range.

WooCommerce vs Magento: Which one should you choose?

So we’ve compared WooCommerce vs Magento, but maybe you’re still wondering which one to use for your online store. At the end of the day, your choice will depend on a number of factors, including your budget, the size of your business, and your web development skills.

For example, if you want maximum control over your store, then WooCommerce is a more suitable platform. Plus, if you already have a WordPress site or you’re familiar with the CMS, this tool can help you create and manage your shop more efficiently. Furthermore, if you opt for WooCommerce, you’re not restricted to a fixed plan. You’ll have the freedom to shop around for an affordable web host and upgrade to a more powerful hosting plan as your business grows. Lastly, WooCommerce is a much, much more budget friendly solution than Magento. You can get started with it by investing literally under $10 a month.

Magento (aka Adobe Commerce) is a powerful solution, but it requires considerably more web development experience compared to WooCommerce. If you are willing to dedicate more time to designing and expanding your store and you also need a more enterprise-ready solution, this platform might be the right fit for you. It’s also ideal for facilitating an omnichannel experience and catering to both customers and businesses. Plus, the elephant in the room – Magento is really, really expensive.

WooCommerce vs Magento (now Adobe Commerce)
WooCommerce Magento
Pricing The software itself is free, hosting and domain is from $50-$60 annually Must Contact Adobe, but reported to be in the range of $50,000 monthly
Ease of Use Beginner-Friendly More Complex
Drag-and-Drop Page Builder Available via Plugins Yes
Integrations + Addons WooCommerce Extension Library + WordPress Plugins Adobe Extensions Library + Integration with Adobe Products
Suitable for Small- to mid-sized online stores on a budget Enterprise-level ecommerce businesses with big budgets
DIY-friendly? Yes, you can build your WooCommerce store all on your own Not really – you’ll need an experienced developer to handle the rollout

Final thoughts on WooCommerce vs Magento (now Adobe Commerce) 🏁

When choosing between WooCommerce vs Magento, you should consider the features offered by each platform, as well as their available addons and whether any of them are relevant for your ecommerce operation. Pricing will also be a consideration – and a huge one. Even though Magento doesn’t make its pricing public, reports from users don’t make it out to be much of a budget-friendly solution.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you have to consider your own expertise and overall resources. If you’re going to be running a one-person online store and you don’t have extensive web development experience or the budget to bring someone on board who does, then it’s pretty easy to see that WooCommerce would be the way to go.

Here’s a final, quick recap of both platforms:

  • 👉 WooCommerce: A powerful WordPress plugin for self-hosted, highly customizable stores; it supports plenty of extensions and integrations. (The most common way to get started with WooCommerce is to actually pick your hosting company first and ask them to set WooCommerce up for you. Here are the best options for WooCommerce hosting.)
  • 👉 Magento (Adobe Commerce): A scalable ecommerce service that’s best suited for large businesses and web developers.

Do you have any questions about WooCommerce vs Magento? Let us know in the comments section below!

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Martin Dubovic
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