Magento vs. WooCommerce
Brief summary
WooCommerce is easy to use, will cost you less and will be a great choice for smaller stores. But Magento, on the other hand, will provide you with high performance, wide customization options and the ability to scale the store, which is more suitable for large stores.
Similarities of Magento 2 and WooCommerce
Magento 2
- Free Community edition
- Open-source
- Over 5000 extension with custom features
- Self-hosted
WooCommerce
- Free
- Open-source
- Hundreds of plugins and themes for customization
- Requires your own web host
Both of these platforms are free and open sources. That means they have unlimited customization opportunities. Magento 2 and WooCommerce allow you to extend their default functionality with plugins and create your store based on an attractive UI/UX theme. Though both these platforms require to find your web host, Magento 2 has premium offerings that already include hosting.
Differences between Magento 2 and WooCommerce
Magento 2
- Has multiple paid editions
- Requires technical knowledge or a professional developer
- Built-in functionality for international stores
- Offers advanced security and payment features
- Strong brand community
WooCommerce
- Based on WordPress
- Easy to use without technical skills
- Comes only with basic security and payment features
WooCommerce special features
WooCommerce is based on WordPress that makes this platform easy to use if you don’t have any technical knowledge. But at the same time, if you are not familiar with WordPress, you’ll need to learn two new platforms instead of one.
As soon as the security of your store is one of the most important moments, both WooCommerce and Magento allow you to enable additional security measures through extensions. But WooCommerce has limited capabilities in this area.
Magento 2 special features
Unlike WooCommerce, Magento 2 has several editions:
- Open Source
- Commerce
- Commerce Cloud
They have different features and serve different needs.
Also, Magento isn’t simple for beginners and requires at least basic technical knowledge and skills. If you want to add custom features, you may need to hire a professional developer or agency. But if you get any troubles besides the usual support team, Magento has a strong brand community with supportive people who are always ready to help.
This platform is more suitable for fast-growing and international businesses because it comes with various features for multi-stores, different languages, currencies, and shipping carriers out-of-box.
Finally, Magento 2 is a more secure platform. Their development team constantly issues new security patches to keep your store safe.
The difference between WooCommerce and Magento is that Magento has several options. Magento Community is a free platform that powers 25% of all e-shops in the world and suits small businesses. Magento Enterprise is a paid platform that powers the official online stores of many well-known brands and suits medium and large businesses.
Magento vs. WooCommerce: final verdict
The choice of platform depends on the needs of your business and your current situation. If you're already familiar with WordPress and want to open a small online store, it's probably best to choose WooCommerce.
But if you're looking for a solution that gives you great customization options and allows you to scale your store as your business grows and conquers new markets, Magento 2 will suit you better.