Are you looking for an ecommerce platform to set up or modernize your online store? 24% of retail purchases are expected to be made online by 2026, creating an urgent need for businesses to have a strong web presence and intuitive platform for customers to shop.
With so many ecommerce platforms, you might have questions about which is suitable for you and your customers. To break it down, we researched some of the most popular off-the-shelf platforms, headless solutions, and custom ecommerce approaches. We reviewed open source and hosting options, SaaS (Software as a Service) and PaaS (Platform as a Service) subscriptions, and more.
The result is this 2023 comparison guide, where we briefly describe each platform and list the pros and cons we’ve experienced or heard from our customers and partners. We aim to give you a top-level view of the leading ecommerce solutions and help you determine the right fit.
How did we determine which ecommerce platforms to review?
We chose to spotlight many, but not all, of the leading platforms by market share. As of July 2023, the most popular ecommerce platforms for usage distribution in the top 1 million sites are as follows:
- WooCommerce Checkout: 28,020 websites
- Shopify: 25,691 websites
- Magento: 8,110 websites
- Shopify Plus: 5,542 websites
- Wix Stores: 3,760 websites
- Squarespace Add to Cart: 3,069 websites
- PrestaShop: 2,589 websites
- OpenCart: 2,413 websites
- BigCommerce: 1,915 websites
- Salesforce Commerce Cloud: 1,733 websites
Source: Built With
After identifying many of the most popular ecommerce platforms, we narrowed the list down to the ones we’ve worked with and our customers have asked us about. We also knew we wanted to talk about headless sites and custom ecommerce solutions, so we added those. When we were done compiling our list, these were the selected platforms and solutions:
WooCommerce
What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is an open-source ecommerce plugin built for WordPress. It seamlessly integrates with existing WordPress sites, making it the most popular ecommerce platform. Like WordPress, WooCommerce is very flexible. Its extensions marketplace has hundreds of plugins and integrations available to create and manage your custom online store.
Pros of WooCommerce
- 100% customizable
- Easy to set up
- Highly scalable
- Responsive design
- Secure (excluding third-party extensions)
- Impressive ecosystem of extensions and themes for enhanced functionality and customization
- Robust developer and user community for troubleshooting and support
- It’s free (many themes, plugins, and integrations cost extra)
Cons of WooCommerce
- Limited built-in features
- Slight learning curve, especially if you are unfamiliar with WordPress
- Security holes with third-party plugins, integrations, and customization
- Update policy can create serious compatibility problems with your plugins and themes if you’re not careful
- Extensive maintenance and configuration issues (especially if you have installed advanced or customized plugins)
- UX challenges stemming from misalignment of requirements and plugin availability
- Unreliable customer support
- It can be pricey, especially if you require advanced functionality or customization for your online store
Shopify
What is Shopify?
Shopify is the second most popular ecommerce platform with similar benefits and challenges to WooCommerce. The difference is that Shopify is a fully hosted platform with online stores, web hosting, and POS systems. It is the most accessible ecommerce platform to start your online store, but it also offers enough flexibility and extensibility to grow with your business. Still, Shopify has some disadvantages, especially if you’re looking for advanced customization.
Pros of Shopify
- Intuitive and quick setup
- Highly scalable
- Secure; Shopify ensures all apps and software are bug-free
- Shopify’s App Store features thousands of apps and integrations by trusted partners for extensibility and customization
- 24/7 support and extensive documentation
- Easy to sync your marketing campaigns with Shopify
- Stable from a maintenance point of view because of its closed ecosystem
- Tiered subscription plans to support businesses at every level
- Supports leading payment gateways
Cons of Shopify
- Steeper learning curve for advanced functionality (Liquid)
- Limited control of store data because of Shopify’s security measures
- No email hosting
- Poor blogging options
- Less room for customization
- Limited number of free themes
- Like WooCommerce, it can be pricey. Costs include start-up fees, a recurring subscription fee, and app fees
- Transaction fees for payment gateways other than Shopify Payments
Magento
What is Magento?
Magento is a leading ecommerce platform that offers three main editions: Magento 2 Open Source (previously known as Magento Community), Adobe Commerce (previously known as Magento 2 Enterprise), and Adobe Commerce Cloud. You might see Magento 2 and Magento used interchangeably depending on who you talk to, as Magento 1 was retired by Adobe in 2020.
- Open Source is the free version of Magento and offers basic ecommerce functionality for small business owners and users who want to explore the platform.
- Commerce offers many more out-of-the-box features and seamless integrations for large stores with high traffic and large product catalogs. This is an on-premise solution and does not include hosting services.
- Commerce Cloud is a PaaS hosted on Magento’s AWS Stack and suitable for complex stores and users who want to have ecommerce software and hosting services under the same umbrella. Both Commerce and Commerce Cloud require a significant license fee in addition to other costs and fees depending on the edition you choose.
Although each Magento edition has its advantages and disadvantages, here are some general pros and cons that users and developers have with the ecommerce platform as a whole:
Pros of Magento
- High flexibility and 100% customizable. The platform benefits from a large ecosystem of extensions and themes
- Rich features list, including multiple store views, multi-language and currency support, SEO tools, and robust analytics and reporting capabilities. Cloud features are available with the Commerce Cloud edition
- Highly scalable
- Customizable security permissions
- Responsive design
- Intuitive mobile app framework
- Dedicated community of users, contributors, and developers who provide support and resources
- Open Source edition is free, but customization will cost extra
Cons of Magento
- Very complicated to set up and maintain; requires significant technical expertise and experience with Magento
- Time-consuming customization due to the complexity of the architecture
- Self-hosted unless you have Commerce Cloud, which is only suitable for complex stores and larger companies
- Requires significant server resources and powerful hosting
- Commerce and Cloud Commerce have considerable license fees and development costs that may be prohibitive for many businesses
BigCommerce
What Is BigCommerce?
BigCommerce is another popular hosted ecommerce platform that allows businesses to set up an online store. As a SaaS provider, BigCommerce offers several subscription plans depending on the features you need and your bandwidth. In our experience, BigCommerce is easy to use and implement in environments you work with, but it might not have the community or support that platforms with a larger market share like WooCommerce, Shopify, and Magento have.
Pros of BigCommerce
- Better out-of-the-box feature set than most other standard editions
- Integrates with popular third-party services
- Intuitive interface and setup
- Highly scalable
- Omnichannel selling across the most popular channels and social media platforms
- Supports multiple payment gateways
- Advanced SEO Capabilities
- 24/7 support
- Several pricing plans are available
Cons of BigCommerce
- Limited customizations and app marketplace
- Page builder is not as intuitive as other platforms
- No built-in abandoned cart recovery feature
- Significant learning curve for advanced functionality
- Lack of substantial community support compared to other platforms
- No free edition and annual online sales caps may force you to upgrade your subscription automatically
Salesforce Commerce Cloud
What is Salesforce Commerce Cloud?
Salesforce Commerce Cloud is a cloud-based ecommerce solution part of the Salesforce Customer Success Platform. It was previously known as Demandware before it was acquired by Salesforce in 2016. Although Commerce Cloud is a beast from a development perspective, its complexities make it challenging for some implementations. Still, it is backed by Salesforce and includes various features and tools to create a unique, personalized customer experience.
Pros of Salesforce Commerce Cloud
- Highly scalable
- Secure and complies with all data privacy regulations
- Integrates easily with other Salesforce products and services
- Personalized shopping experiences
- Responsive design
- Rich features and tools that are frequently updated
- AI and machine learning technologies
Cons of Salesforce Commerce Cloud
- Highly complex and requires significant technical expertise
- Will likely require Salesforce experts or consultants for advanced customization and maintenance
- Integrations are not very easy or intuitive
- Dependent on Salesforce partnership to take advantage of all platform resources
- Inconsistent user interface
- Small market share and limited community support
- Can be expensive, especially if you require third-party assistance and consulting
Headless Ecommerce Solutions
What are headless ecommerce solutions?
A headless ecommerce system has an architecture with an API-first approach that allows businesses to gain greater control of the user experience and also create a consistent shopping experience across multiple channels. It is called headless because the back-end data & logic capabilities are separated from the front-end user interface (head). This provides greater flexibility and control over the user experience and user interface.
Some examples of headless ecommerce solutions include Shopify headless commerce, Spree Commerce, Commercetools, Elastic Path, and Snipcart.
A headless ecommerce solution allows developers to create better front end experiences that resonate with their audiences. It may also lead to new challenges, as a headless system requires a highly technical team to build and maintain your site.
Pros of headless ecommerce sites
- Better user experience and personalization
- Less reliance on a single platform or tool
- Highly scalable
- Incredibly flexible
- Seamless integrations
- Easy to implement new technologies
- Enhanced speed and performance
- Easier A/B testing for developers to optimize design and layout
- Improved conversion rates
- Omnichannel marketing and sales capabilities
Cons of ecommerce headless sites
- Requires a highly technical development team or strong partnerships
- Likely growing pains, especially in the beginning
- Complex maintenance and updates
- Integrations are limited to platforms that support headless sites
- Heavy reliance on your IT team for content management and marketing initiatives. This could create bottlenecks and extend campaign setups
- Can be costly depending on your requirements and hosting fees
Custom Ecommerce
What is custom ecommerce?
A custom ecommerce solution is a tailor-made online store built for a specific business’ unique needs and customers. Your in-house development team or partners will start from scratch to create and customize your code to meet your requirements. This approach enables you with the greatest control over the architecture, functionality, performance, and user experience, but it can be expensive and time-consuming.
Pros of custom ecommerce
- Complete control over your store and code
- Potentially improved speed and better security
- 100% customization
- Greater flexibility than off-the-shelf products
- Supports branding and personalization
- Improved conversions and loyalty
- Highly scalable and adaptable
- Tailored integrations
Cons of custom ecommerce
- Requires significant technical expertise from your in-house development team or partners
- Higher development costs
- Longer development times
- Lack of documentation and guides
- No community or customer support
- Ongoing costs and fees, including hosting and customizations
- Needs a dedicated team for maintenance and troubleshooting
Conclusion
As you can see, many ecommerce options are available for your business, and we only highlighted some. One might be more favorable depending on your budget, requirements, expertise, and existing channels. As you consider what platform will best suit your needs and help you achieve your goals and objectives, our team can help you identify and implement the best solution for your unique needs.
