Magento 2 vs WordPress plugin – WooCommerce

Magento vs WooCommerce extension for WordPress

When starting your online store you are probably confronted with a crucial question: how to choose the right e-commerce platform for your store. Basically, you can select from eCommerce platform of two kinds:

• Open Source ecosystems (like Magento and WooCommerce)
• Saas (Software as a Service) (eg. Shopify, BigCommerce)

e-Commerce platform configurations 

Each e-commerce platform no matter if it’s open-source (Magento and WooCommerce) or SaaS (eg. Shopify, BigCommerce) consists of three elements, configured in different ways. It’s good to know, especially when you consider one of two open-source eCommerce platforms choosing between WooCommerce and Magento.

• Front-end framework is the user interface responsible for user interaction with the application.
• Back-end supporting online store management through the control panel.
• Infrastructure holding the e-commerce platform including server and network components.

Using Magento or WooCommerce online store you have an influence on all these areas and can decide on the details adjusting them to your business and market situation with Magento or WordPress extensions and plugins.

WooCommerce vs Magento Open Source for eCommerce

These kinds of ecosystems for the online store are free of charge and have large communities around, supporting the website owners. Magento Community gathers over 260 000 developers. It may be important when you start the business and your budget is not too large. Nevertheless, they may require development support and your engagement in some issues like server or web hosting provider infrastructure.

What is important as self-hosted platforms Magento and WooCommerce websites could be fully controlled, customized, and optimized whenever you want. You also have huge possibilities for business scalability.

SaaS (Sofware as a service) solutions (e.g. Shopify, BigCommerce)

Such platforms are good for online store owners who prefer to receive everything arranged and have nothing against using standardized solutions, out-of-the-box features like templates that resemble many other web pages.

As the owner of the store, you rely on the system, which is similar for all users, and apart from some customizations, you have no influence on many features like SEO, infrastructure, control panel. SaaS also charges a monthly payment and a transaction fee when using a third-party payment gateway.

Recognize your eCommerce business needs 

To make the right decision on which eCommerce platform to choose, first of all, it’s good to know what kind of e-commerce you want to run and what are your needs. According to many business success stories, having full control over the store has a positive impact on ROI and allows the business to scale and better customize.

All these factors help to gain a competitive advantage which is extremely important when the market is more and more overcrowded.

What you can expect from the e-commerce platform. Here is a list of some basic online stores features:

• content management system (CMS) with integrated blog section,
• user-friendly interface: smooth checkout procedure and multiple payment options,
• marketing and merchant support: features to create promotions, product presentation and catalogs, discount tools, and email marketing integration, CRM integration, reporting, and analytics,
• search engine (SEO) friendly structure,
• customization and extensibility options.

Both Magento and WooCommerce fulfill these functions in different ways. As mentioned above they are both open source systems programmed in PHP language but their origins are specific.

Magento Open Source 

Magento Community edition was invented from the very beginning in 2007 as an eCommerce platform and became popular very fast with a score of 500 000 users. In 2015 Magento 2. was introduced as a more advanced version focusing especially on SEO, security, speed, and more advanced features for merchants and still is being developed as an open-source environment by a vast and devoted Magneto Community.

Magento also profits from Adobe technological support and has a paid edition based on some SasS functions, called Adobe Commerce, formerly Magento Commerce (Enterprise). Its source is still Magento but it additionally uses Adobe technology like Adobe Cloud.

For whom Magento 2.? 

As a powerful and reliable eCommerce platform, Magento is the right choice for all kinds of eCommerce middle, large and global ones. The most common applications are:

• retail and wholesale,
• apparel and fashion,
• computer software,
• information technology.

WooCommerce for WordPress

WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, enabling website owners to develop an online store. WordPress is first of all CMS – Content Management System, delivering smooth functionalities for content creation and management. It is very popular among bloggers and websites based on a large amount of content.

For whom WordPress? 

Because WooCommerce is based on CMS, it is recommended for small and mid-size e-commerce business owners, familiar with WordPress. The most common applications are:

• publishers,
• service pages,
• content-heavy websites,
• healthcare & biotech.

E-commerce security features. Magento 2. vs WooCommerce

As open-source platforms, WooCommerce and Magento can be vulnerable to hostile action from hackers and viruses. To prevent them Magento and WooCommerce have security options and patches the user should implement systematically.

Magento is PCI Compliant out of the box, which makes it secure and reliable, while WooCommerce is not completely PCI-DSS compliant but it can be configured to be compliant with the right plugin or a knowledgeable developer.

If you have a WooCommerce website it’s up to you as a manager to ensure your site is configured to be PCI compliant.

Magento takes the lead in terms of security because the platform offers dedicated security patches to close any vulnerabilities that arise. WooCommerce’s security features are more basic and quite limited.

SEO friendliness – WooCommerce vs Magento

Magento strongly supports SEO actions. You can expect advanced features and analytics out of the box as Magento well aligns with e-commerce business needs. There is also the option of implementing more complex extensions if needed. Magento Community edition realizes how important it is to be flexible in this area.

Magento online stores generate SEO-friendly URLs and meta descriptions supporting Google search ranking as well as site maps which are auto-generated in websites.

WooCommerce allows you to follow the SEO rules at a good level. Plugins and extensions make it possible to settle the features adjusted to your business-specific.

Both WooCommerce and Magento are good solutions when you have needs of SEO features customizations to your business-specific. This is one of the strongest advantages in comparison to SaaS solutions.

Magento and WooCommerce Costs

Both e-commerce platforms require domain purchase and server space. As Magento is dedicated to all sizes of stores, it is resource-consuming and needs a larger server size than WooCommerce which does not predict big amounts of products and e-commerce functionalities.

Magento Community version and WooCommerce are free of charge but require programming involvement. Engaging developing experts generate costs depending on the business-specific.

If you want to know how costly it will be to develop your eCommerce in Magento contact us.

WooCommerce vs Magento Conclusion 

Magento is more suitable for a scalable business, it allows avoiding migration to a stronger platform when the business is growing. It generates cost but also lets us achieve satisfying ROI.

Magento store with no limits

Magento is a powerful solution for selling an unlimited number of products, simple and configurable ones. It allows creating catalogs, personalized offers, promotions on many B2B and B2C markets in different languages and countries, managed from one control panel with great analytics and data tracking capabilities.

With Magento multi-store functionalities you will not have to worry about international expansion when you decide it’s the right moment. Magento marketplace delivers over 5000 extensions enhancing the store in the way you wish.

With Magento, you will probably need a larger budget but on the other hand, you will not need to migrate for a better platform when scaling up the business. Magento is an excellent solution for long-term business growth.

WooCommerce store limitations

WooCommerce is a good solution when it comes to WordPress store owners developing a limited-scale store. As it is a free plugin it allows you to start with eCommerce with no investment besides programming. When growing your WooCommerce store will suffer loading delays with large amounts of products.

With the WooCommerce plugin applied to WordPress you can easily sell anything: physical, digital, subscriptions, bookings, appointments, e-books, courses, etc. You can expose your product and services to be downloaded. WooCommerce platform is very flexible and adjustable to many purposes of modern markets.

If you are interested in more e-commerce comparisons, have a look at the following article Magento vs Shopify.