In a world full of shopping carts, all the platforms are having their own set of positive and negative attributes. While some may disappoint you with feature limitations and some on maintenance. As an amateur, looking out for an e-commerce platform that is cost-effective and reliable can be difficult, especially when you are bombarded with deceptive advertising all the time.
In this article, we will look at some of the interesting features which are provided by Magento and WooCommerce along with their key features, performance, security, pricing, and product management so you can choose the right one for you.
What Does Each Platform Offer?
For all of those who want to have a complete picture of what these e-commerce legends provide, we are going to cover all the information you need to know about them.
WooCommerce
It is a powerful plugin for the WordPress platform which offers all the features you require from an e-commerce solution while retaining the easy usage of its parent platform. WooCommerce is a similar name to most of WordPress users as it is a wildly popular platform and it also comes with several advanced capabilities which can be utilized through its extension system.
Quick Features:
- Provides support to an unlimited number of products
- Supports robust extension system based on the WordPress plugin format
- Allows to choose any payment gateways by using extensions
- Comes with multiple premium and free themes
Positive Side:
- Allows you to set up a free store aside from your web hosting expenses.
- Easy to pick up if are an experienced WordPress user
- Supports extensive documentation and also has a support team to resolve all your queries.
- Easy integration with Google Analytics
- Provides SSL support where you need to get your own certificate.
Is it the Right Option?
WooCommerce becomes a good choice for users with no experience in e-commerce or beginners as if they have a little knowledge of WordPress it is easy to use. Also, it comes with excellent documentation and countless online tutorials which can help you go through it.
If you have not tried your hands on WordPress then you might need to learn two new platforms. Also, premium themes and extensions can cost you more penny. WooCommerce is a fully open-source platform and hence free to use. But, the premium extensions tend to be costly. A handful of quality web hosts which work well with WooCommerce are SiteGround and InMotion for a better e-commerce experience.
Magento
Magento is more utilized by companies as WooCommerce is itself a community solution that adheres to solve everyone’s problem. This does not indicate that small businesses cannot benefit from its functionalities because Magento offers both the free Community Edition and an Enterprise Edition for large organizations.
Quick Features:
- Provides wide support to an unlimited number of products similar to any self-hosted platform
- Supports its own theming and layout system
- Connects with any third-party solution with efficient APIs
- Intuitive admin interfaces with product creation tools
Positive Side:
- Magento is designed for providing scalability to handle large stores as long as you can host and manage them.
- Visitors can check out faster due to the streamlined process. To this, the guest checkout is coming by default.
- Easy integration with payment gateways.
Is it the Right Option?
Magento surely does not fits the beginner’s choice because the users can overcome by referring through the extensive documentation and the platform also offers some additional advantages for those who stick out. It is appropriate for users who want to scale their shops rapidly and have extra time for mastering the platform.
Again, Magento’s Community Edition is open-source and free for anyone to use as it wholly depends on your current hosting provider. On the other side, the Enterprise Edition will make a little hole in your pocket.
What’s The Difference Between Them?
| WooCommerce | Magento |
| Open-source and a free platform. | Comes with a free community version as well as several premium services. |
| You need to find your own web host. | The community version is self-hosted whereas premium offerings include hosting. |
| Provides support to unlimited products. | Allows you to add unlimited products. |
| Choose from multiple WordPress themes and customize them with variant options. | Supports a theme-based system and has a decent variety of options. |
| Offers its own extension system with hundreds of available options. | Comes with an extension by providing a wide variety of them. |
| Provides basic security features to protect your store. | Enables advanced security features and dedicated patches to shut down any vulnerabilities. |
| Remarkably easy-to-use platform. | Requires a little knowledge of the basic level of web development. |
Which One To Go For?
There is no doubt in saying that both Magento and WooCommerce are great platforms for starting an e-commerce website because it depends on the type of online store which one you should select. We recommend going with WooCommerce if you wish to begin a small store and go for Magento for achieving growth in the current business. You can try your hands on both platforms for getting full e-commerce. Keep Learning!
Author Bio:
Olivia Diaz is working in an e-commerce development company eTatvaSoft.com. Apart from her professional career She is more inclined towards blogging and sharing her ideas on a lot of development topics like Magento, Angular and more.
