Magento vs WooCommerce: Which one was developed for you?

Magento vs WooComerce is one of the two most compared couples among ecommerce platforms. Both are popular. But, is there one that does better than the other? 

In the range of this post, the full comparison between Magento vs WooCommerce will drive you to a conclusion, regarding features, performance, security, pricing, support, and more. 

If you are wondering between other platforms, don’t quit the following topics for more comparison. 

• Magento vs nopCommerce
• Magento vs Shopify 
• Magento vs PrestaShop 
• Magento vs OpenCart
• Magento vs Drupal

I – Overview 

In brief, both Magento vs WooCommerce are used to create online stores with the most fundamental ecommerce features like product management, payment, and so on. However, they differ from each other in many aspects. 

Magento is an independent ecommerce platform with an open-source code base. First launched in 2007 by Varien, Magento has continuously gained popularity with a lot of products and versions. The number of ecommerce websites using Magento has passed 250,000+. 

Magento offers 2 editions, which have been explained in the post Magento Open Source vs Magento Commerce (also called Magento Community Edition vs Magento Enterprise Edition). Besides, Magento Commerce Cloud (Magento ECE) is the most premium edition with additional features that differentiate it from Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce.

 

	Magento Open Source	Magento Commerce	Magento Commerce Cloud
Core Functionalities	Yes	Yes	Yes
Advanced Native Functionalities		Yes	Yes
Technical Support		Yes	Yes
Hosting & Performance			Yes

WooCommerce, on the other hand, is a plugin that can change a WordPress-based website into an online store. First known in 2011, but so far, WooCommerce has powered over 28% of all online stores according to stats. This portion is not a surprise since WordPress occupies about 50% of CMS market share over the globe. 

Then, the usage does not state the winner. A smart choice should be based on an overall comparison of the following aspects. 

II – Magento vs WooCommerce: Full Comparison 

2.1  Key Features 

Magento has a free community feature-rich version that are not commonly available in other platforms. Such as the ability to manage multiple storefronts, multi-language and multi-currency support. Magento does exactly the way you want since it is open-source, so you can customize and develop the functionality you need by coding.

Especially, Magento Commerce is much more premium with a lot of exclusive features, including: 

• Category permissions 
• Gift cards
• Advanced catalog search 
• Customer segmentation 
• Email reminder
• Reward & loyalty
• Store credit 
• …

When it comes to running B2B businesses, Magento Commerce stands out from the others. Uses can access built-in B2B features like Shared Catalogs, Company Accounts, Quick Order, Quotes, Company Accounts, and so on. Accordingly, it is worth considering for wholesalers. 

Let’s take a look at this article to understand better the default B2B features supported by Magento Commerce: Magento 2 B2B User Guide In One Place.

In case you want to use the Open Source edition, you need to install more Magento B2B modules separately depending on your business demands.

On the other hand, WooCommerce introduces no Enterprise edition besides the free one. Unlike WooCommerce, Magento (especially premium editions) supports more built-in features and does not require as many additional extensions as WooCommerce. 

>> Winner: Magento 

2.2  Scalability 

When things come to scaling, businesses will face new costs and technical challenges. That’s why scalability is an aspect you need to think about before engaging with any ecommerce platform. 

 How scalable is Magento?

Magento is a robust ecommerce platform, so scalability is not outside of its reach. The truth is that this platform can host hundreds of thousands of products at once. With Magento 2, you can count on Varnish Cache – the leading caching tool that allows you to expand your online store without sacrificing its performance. The addition of new features or algorithms will not suffer your website’s speed. 

Furthermore, Magento 2 is compatible with a vast number of 3rd-party statistical tools like Google Analytics, New Relic, MixPanel, etc. It is the most powerful ecommerce platform in terms of discovering future trends, providing valuable insights for scaling both up or down. 

WooCommerce offers the same scalability compared with Magento. It is the matter of if your WordPress hosting’s resources can handle it. Usually, users are offered a variety of solutions from hosting providers, including getting your dedicated server. There are also Managed WordPress options from providers like SiteGround, WP Engine. 

2.3  Magento vs WooCommerce SEO & Marketing 

As a WordPress Extension, WooCommerce users will find SEO capability quite similar to WordPress. 

At this point, Magento definitely goes head to head. You can find most of the critical features needed to optimize your website’s visibility in search engines like URL modification, 301 redirects, sitemap, etc. What’s more? It also offers built-in Sitemap and Google tools, while WooCommerce requires extensions for these features. 

If you’re finding a powerful tool to level up your rankings in SERPs, Magento 2 SEO Extension will be the best solution. Everything you need to have better SEO performance is already in this package

>>> Experience it now to get the discount!

Regarding marketing, Magento 2 is invincible with a premium set of features like catalog promotion pricing, flexible coupons, newsletter management, and more. Since these features are part of Magento’s core, they are all easy to use. 

>> Regarding to Magento vs WooCommerce SEO & marketing, the winner is Magento  

2.4  Performance  

Both Magento and WooCommerce are not a light-speed platform, but no winner is concluded. 

Compared with WooCommerce, Magento needs more server power to run properly. Since your hosting server location can affect loading time, the platform requires a dedicated server, which can be a little heavy on your budget. However, we can not forget that Magento can easily handle a larger number of products than WooCommerce.

On average, the Magento pages that compose a classic user’s sales funnel waste 665 milliseconds to load, which exceeds the “under 500 milliseconds” goal set by Google.

When it comes to using WooCommerce, a stand-alone plugin obviously cannot improve WordPress websites’ performance unless you install additional plugins that can enhance the speed and other performance-related parameters.

Here comes the downside that might significantly affect performance: Since WooCommerce features are limited, WP-based online stores usually need more additional plugins to fulfill business needs, which will slow down the speed. The average loading time of all monitored WooCommerce stores reached 776 milliseconds. 

Whether you choose Magento or WooCommerce, your website performance also depends so much on:  

• Hosting provider. 
• Size of the application and number of functionalities 
• Image size 

2.5  Security 

Ecommerce websites are always one of the most lucrative targets of cybercrime, where hackers can steal user credentials like payment details and use them for bad intentions. If that is the case, not only customers are the victims but businesses also gain a bad reputation. For this reason, every online business should give security adequate attention. 

Magento takes the lead  terms of security because the platform offers dedicated security patches to close any vulnerabilities that arise. Magento websites should be updated regularly to ensure the highest security. However, applying Magento security patches is a task for those who have a technical mind. If you have no idea about coding, your solution is getting help from a reliable Magento agency. 

Meanwhile, WooCommerce’s security features are more basic and quite limited.  

>> Winner: Magento 

2.6  Pricing 

Pricing is one of the key considerations when choosing between Magento vs WooCommerce. There are significant differences between an independent ecommerce platform while the other is a plugin for WP websites.  

Magento 

We all know that Magento offers a FREE edition known as Magento Community Edition. The program code of this edition is free for download and then can be edited and configured to meet business needs. Obviously, you still have to pay for imperial services like web hosting, domain name, SSL certificate (estimated in Ecommerce Development Cost Breakdown). 

On the other hand, the cost to use Magento Commerce and Magento Commerce Cloud escalate with your annual revenue. With Magento Commerce, the cost starts from $22,000 if your revenue varies between $0. Similarly, Magento Commerce Cloud costs around $40,000 according to the relevant range of revenue. 

For higher revenue levels, CHECK All Must-Know Magento Costs to build a basic to custom website for detailed pricing. 

WooCommerce 

Though WooCommerce is a FREE plugin to download, extensions to fulfill its limitations tend to be expensive (some even require annual subscriptions). Additionally, WooCommerce offers less basic ecommerce features in comparison with the free option of Magento. So, which one is more optimal for your business? 

There’s no doubt that WooCommerce is more affordable than Magento, but problems will arise when the number of your customers increases and your business scales. Accordingly, middle to large businesses are recommended to use Magento because of the great scalability of whatever edition you use. Or if you have had a clear growth and expansion target, here comes the same advice. 

>> Winner: Depends on your business needs 

2.7  Extensions and Plugins 

An ecommerce platform itself has limitations. This is where extensions come to fulfill advanced and custom business needs. Fortunately, users of both ecommerce platforms can access thousands of extensions/plugins to extend functionalities on their websites. Both Magento and WooCommerce cater to all issues through third-party plugins.

While the Enterprise plan integrates many premium functionalities, Community edition users can be assured when purchasing extensions from Magento Marketplace for out-of-the-box features.  This is a huge store of more than 3.600 free and premium Magento extensions. Each one has to pass a strict review process of Magento’s QA team in technical and content aspects before it is officially listed on the marketplace. 

Likewise, WooCommerce also has an extension store that gathers hundreds of plugins across all your logistical, technical, and marketing needs. 

2.8  Support 

Both Magento and WooCommerce have a vast community of users worldwide to support store owners when they run into problems. 

Magento support significantly differs between editions. Magento Community users can only consult and seek help from official documentation and communities solely. Magento Help Center, Magento DevDocs, Magento Forums or technical blogs written by certified Magento partners like BSS Commerce Confluence are the most commonly-used sources. On the other hand, businesses using Magento Enterprise are offered the official full-fledged support via email or live support. 

Like Magento Community Edition, WooCommerce users will not experience any official support aside from sources like WooCommerce Docs, WooCommerce Blog, WordPress Support Forum, and so on. 

>> Winner: Magento 

2.9  Ease of use 

Regarding friendliness for beginners, WooCommerce wins users’ hearts. The plugin adds basic ecommerce features to WP websites while retaining the ease of use of the parent platform. WooCommerce provides users with a straightforward user interface and pretty good customizability from the WordPress dashboard. For store owners having no experience in ecommerce, this point is a small plus. 

In contrast, Magento users tend to be people who have at least basic technical knowledge. Amateur users might find it challenging to use the platform for customization, which involves coding skills. This will be a big problem if you handle technical things yourself. But if you are not a tech-minded person, it’s advisable to have a specialized technical team or get dedicated support from Magento agencies like BSS Commerce. 

> Winner: WooCommerce

More importantly, for merchants, you can’t miss the available B2B features of Magento vs Shopify vs BigCommerce – three giants in the eCommerce world.

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III – Magento vs WooCommerce: Which one wins the battle? 

In a nutshell, both Magento vs WooCommerce have their own perk, but their target users might differ. Before building your store with one of these two platforms, you need to define what type of user base you are. 

Magento is a robust platform usually used by medium to large-scale businesses. The excellent scalability makes it ideal for large sites with a huge inventory and visits. In case premium functionalities are not necessary to your needs, the free edition is a good option. If you are preparing for a Magento web store, it’s advisable to find support from experienced Magento development agencies. BSS Commerce is an instance you can reach out for consultation. 

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In contrast, WooCommerce is a simpler platform for those who are already familiar with WordPress. The solution best suits small businesses that need a medium level of scalability, functionality, security, and so on.