Both WooCommerce and Magento have been growing in popularity thanks to the companies’ dedication to constant product improvement.
Given these two titans’ relative strengths and weaknesses, choosing a victor is no easy task. There are, however, a number of options to consider when choosing an eCommerce platform to build your future e-commerce store.
I’ll compare WooCommerce vs Magento and highlight their differences. In the end, you’ll be able to find the best one that suits your business.
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So, without any further ado, let’s jump into the comparison.
On This Page
Overview
I’ll first provide an overview of both options to help you choose the best platform for your business needs.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the most used eCommerce plugin for WordPress. It makes it easy to turn any WordPress website or blog into an online store.
About 28.19% of all online stores in the world are run by WooCommerce, and Statista says that WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform in the world. It has more than 5 million installations.
You only need a domain name and web hosting to start a WooCommerce store up and running.
Because WooCommerce is free and open-source, developers worldwide constantly work to enhance the platform.
This results in a long list of WooCommerce capabilities, covering pretty much everything you’d want in an excellent e-commerce solution.
Magento
Magento is a PHP-based, free, and open-source e-commerce software solution. The application is built on top of additional PHP frameworks like Laminas and Symfony.
As an e-commerce-focused CMS, Magento was developed in 2007 with the needs of the industry in mind. After its acquisition by Adobe in 2018, the company rebranded the service as “Adobe Commerce.”
Magento is available in two distinct forms: Magento Open Source (sometimes referred to as “Magento Community”) and Magento Commerce (also called Magento Enterprise). This article will compare Magento Open Source and how it stacks up against WooCommerce.
Current Google Trends Comparison
Although it has been around for a while, it is still a popular option for online stores. However, WooCommerce, a more recent option, is a powerful competitor to Magento.
Take a look at the Google Trends graph to observe the shift in focus between the two platforms. It’s clear that WooCommerce is developing much faster than Magento.
WooCommerce vs Magento What’s the Difference?
Now that we know a bit about these popular eCommerce platforms, let’s dive into the comparison.
1. Ease of Use
Ease of use is the first thing you should see in an eCommerce platform, especially if you’re a beginner.
As I mentioned in the overview, Magento focuses more on developers and technical knowledge.
While on the other side, to get started with WooCommerce, you don’t need any technical knowledge. You just need to have a hosting domain, install WordPress and then install WooCommerce to create an online store.
You don’t need that much technical knowledge to get started with WooCommerce.
It gives you a simple setup wizard that you can follow to launch your store quickly.
While with Magento, even if you are familiar with coding, you may face difficulties customizing themes, changing extensions, and more.
Product management is straightforward on WooCommerce. You can easily and quickly add, remove, and edit any product.
| WooCommerce | Magento | |
| Hosting | ✘ | ✘ |
| Easy to Setup | ✔ | ✘ |
| User-Friendly | ✔ | ✘ |
| Manual Database Setup | ✘ | ✔ |
| Automatic Backups | ✘ | ✘ |
| Dashboard | ✔ | ✔ |
| More Customization Options | ✔ | ✘ |
| Products Management | ✔ | ✔ |
2. Scalability
Both self-hosted platforms are very strong competitors when it comes to scalability. To scale a WooCommerce store, you just need more space on your hosting provider’s server.
On the other hand, if you are using the free, open-source Magento, then it may be limiting. But with the enterprise version, you can get as many orders as you want.
So you need to purchase the enterprise version to scale it, which can be an issue if you are just starting. That is why I’ll point to WooCommerce because it is easy to scale.
Despite the above facts, ensure that you choose a very good eCommerce hosting so it can easily handle thousands of traffic.
To whatever extent your web host allows, you can scale your store.
| WooCommerce | Magento | |
| Scalability | ✔ | ✔ |
| Easy to Scale | ✔ | ✘ |
| Themes and Plugins | ✔ | ✔ |
3. Security
As an online store owner, you must prioritize the safety of your store’s transactions. The potential for security breaches is unprecedented. Select a method to safeguard your business’s and customer’s sensitive information, such as financial data.
WooCommerce and Magento are both free and open-source e-commerce solutions. Therefore, shop owners must take preventative measures to ensure the safety of their websites.
As both platforms are open source and self-hosted, you need to install an SSL certificate and plugins to enhance the security.
Your hosting provider can handle SSL certificates as most good hosting providers like Hostinger gives you a free SSL certificate which you can easily enable to secure your site.
If your store doesn’t need extensions to grow, there will not be many security issues. Buti If your business uses third parties plugins, security issues may arise.
Magento’s Security Scan Tool increases eCommerce site security. Magento is safe as it has dedicated patches. It has more built-in security extensions to prevent cross-site scripting and click fraud.
To keep your site secure, you need to ensure that you do not use pirated extensions and keep your extensions and themes up to date.
| WooCommerce | Magento | |
| SSL Certificate | ✘ | ✘ |
| Security Plugins | ✔ | ✔ |
| Built-in Security Scan Tools | ✘ | ✔ |
4. SEO Friendly
SEO and online marketing help increase store traffic and sales. Magento vs WooCommerce marketing and SEO options are also important.
WooCommerce uses a blogging CMS. It includes many features and functionality needed for posting and content marketing. It can be used with dozens of marketing and SEO plugins, like Yoast SEO, to optimize content.
Magento doesn’t include blogging by default. An extension is needed. Similar to WooCommerce, you can use add-ons to optimize your site and integrate it with Google Analytics.
Magento has marketing tools. However, only the Enterprise version has them.
| WooCommerce | Magento | |
| SEO Friendly | ✔ | ✘ |
| SEO Plugins | ✔ | ✔ |
| Blogging | ✔ | ✘ |
5. Ecommerce Tools & Features
Magento and WooCommerce have several built-in features that can help you with essential features you want to add to your store.
If you want a custom feature, you will need to hire a developer to help you with it.
Both platforms have many design and customization options to help you create an online store that matches your preference.
Moreover, the checkout page is decent, but you can do more with the WooCommerce checkout page by using a checkout editor plugin like AIO Checkout.
Bonus: You can follow the Essential Checklist to Start an Online Store article to start a successful eCommerce store.
| WooCommerce | Magento | |
| Multi-Channel Integration | ✔ | ✔ |
| Limitless Design Options | ✔ | ✘ |
| Blogging | ✔ | ✘ |
| Optimized Checkout | ✔ | ✔ |
| Abandoned Cart Recovery | ✔ | ✔ |
| Order Management | ✔ | ✔ |
| SEO | ✔ | ✔ |
| Analytics Report | ✔ | ✔ |
| Commissions Per Sale | ✘ | ✘ |
6. Payment Options & Fees
With both platforms, you can accept payments from popular payment methods like PayPal, Apple Pay, Stripe, etc.
Both platforms have built-in payment options, but you can configure more methods by using third-party apps.
If you use WooCommerce Payments, they will charge additional transaction fees. The same goes for Magento payments.
Both platforms charge you a standard fee of 2.9% +$0.30 per transaction.
| WooCommerce | Magento | |
| Paypal | ✔ | ✔ |
| Credit & Debit Card | ✔ | ✔ |
| Stripe | ✔ | ✔ |
| Apple Pay | ✔ | ✔ |
| Google Pay | ✔ | ✔ |
| Square | ✔ | ✔ |
| Transaction Fees | ✔ | ✔ |
7. Multilingual Support
Both platforms support multiple languages. If you are using WooCommerce, then you need to install the WPML plugin to integrate multiple languages.
Magento lets you create store views in your preferred language. Your Magento store can support multiple languages if you define them.
| WooCommerce | Magento | |
| Multi-Lingual Support | ✔ | ✔ |
8. Pricing
Both platforms are open-source and free. Your domain and hosting will cost $20 per year, depending on your web host.
Magento also has a premium version. You can also install plugins for both platforms, but some are free, while others are paid.
| WooCommerce | Magento |
| $0 | $0 |
9. Customer Support
Magento and WooCommerce both have large, supportive communities. This makes online research and question-answering easy.
WooCommerce’s knowledge base has tutorials and guides. You can get dedicated support for paid extensions.
Magento’s free version has online help. Its paid extensions will get you additional support. Magento Commerce plans include dedicated support.
While WooCommerce, is an open-source platform, it has a big ecosystem of developers and online learning platforms. For core plugin issues, you can visit the WordPress.org WooCommerce support forum or the WooCommerce website. These support forums allow you to post and view solved issues.
The WooCommerce support page has extensive documentation, tutorials, and guides to help you solve problems.
| WooCommerce | Magento | |
| Phone Support | ✘ | ✘ |
| Email Support | ✘ | ✘ |
| Live Chat | ✘ | ✘ |
| Call | ✘ | ✘ |
| Community | ✔ | ✔ |
| Tutorials & Documentations | ✔ | ✔ |
WooCommerce vs Magento: Final Thoughts
I hope this article helped you choose the best eCommerce platform between, WooCommerce vs Magento.
I have tried to mention the essential things you need to know. WooCommerce can be an excellent choice for you and your business if you are looking for an easy-to-use and scalable platform.
But if you are comfortable with a bit of a learning curve and want to experience advanced eCommerce features, then Magento is a good choice. You can get the Magento Enterprise version if you wish to use premium features. It all depends on what your business demands.
