GemPages vs Shogun – Which Is Better?

No doubt, Shopify is an apex eCommerce platform, well ahead of its competitors. However, you need to use a reliable page builder to design a Shopify store that meets your style.

Like WordPress page builders, we also have page builder apps for Shopify. In fact, GemPages and Shogun are among the best.

So, in this GemPages vs Shogun post, we will put GemPages against Shogun in a scrimmage, and show you the winner in the end.

What Is GemPages? 

GemPages is an all-in-one tool for building pages on Shopify. It’s a drag-and-drop page builder that requires no coding knowledge from the user’s end. In fact, it features diverse customization options. 

Using GemPages is easy. You just need to set up a Shopify store, pick any theme of your choice, install the GemPages app and start building.

There are several design elements to use when building pages. If you choose not to design from scratch, GemPages features a library of already designed page templates you can use.

Not to mention, the GemPages page builder is also optimized for SEO, which ensures search engine visibility. 

What Is Shogun? 

Developed by Finbarr Taylor and Nick Raushenbush, Shogun is a versatile eCommerce page builder that works with the Shopify CMS. Interestingly, it also works with other eCommerce platforms including BigCommerce, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud.

As a drag-and-drop page builder, Shogun incorporates many useful building elements, which you can drag into your store pages.

With its front end editing option, this page builder can be used as a headless eCommerce tool by developers.

Furthermore, with about 15,000 users, Shogun is a relatively popular page builder amongst eCommerce merchants. 

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How To Install

GemPages 

You should set up your Shopify store before installing GemPages. You can install it from your Shopify admin panel, Shopify App Store, or the GemPages website. Nevertheless, no matter the method, you’ll be redirected to the builder’s page on the Shopify App Store.

Add the app and complete the installation. Afterward, fill in all required configuration details and settings.

Finally, you have to select your preferred plan and make payment to start building pages. Nonetheless, you can delay payment until after the trial period.

Shogun 

The method of setting up Shogun differs for other eCommerce platforms. However, it’s not difficult.

Shogun is featured in the app stores of Shopify and BigCommerce. Therefore, all you need to do is to visit your eCommerce platform store to search, download, and install the app.

Minimal configuration is required before you can access the Shogun dashboard. Then, you can start building your store pages.

Similarly, Shogun is a premium tool, so a monthly subscription is required. Select a preferred plan and pay or wait for the trial period to elapse. 

Verdict 

Installing is simple with either GemPages or Shogun if you have set up your eCommerce store. 

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Page Builder 

GemPages 

With GemPages, you can create a SubPage/Landing Page, Home Page, Product Page, Collection Page, and Blog Posts Page.

From your GemPages dashboard, simply select the page type you want to create and select create a new page. Give your page a name and you’ll be taken to the drag and drop building environment.

Within the building environment, you’ll find the Element’s design tab. This tab features all the building blocks you need. You can choose if you want the header and footer of your store to display while building or not.

Shogun

The Shogun page builder is drag-and-drop and it can be accessed from your dashboard. First of all, you have to choose the type of page you want to create.

Shogun features different page types including product pages, collection pages, checkout pages, etc. Once selected, click on create page and select a blank page. Alternatively, you can choose a page template and customize it to your preference.

Next, you choose your page name, path, and layout. You’ll be taken to the drag and drop builder and you can start building your page with the available elements.

Verdict 

Shogun and GemPages are equal here as both tools are similar. In fact, they are both drag-and-drop page builders. 

Customization & Elements

GemPages 

At the left sidebar of the GemPages dashboard, you’ll find the tab with building elements. These are the elements you can drag and drop into the editing space.

There are many building elements featured which are separated into different categories. This includes basic, banner, stack, base, product, social media elements, etc. In total, there are 34 building elements.

Furthermore, there’s the design and settings tab where you can adjust settings of elements or global page settings. You can customize visibility, spacing, background, border, shadow, and interaction settings from this tab.

Shogun 

Shogun features building elements and blocks. There are elements of different types available including content, structure, forms, media, social media, and other advanced elements. The total elements available are over 33.

The building blocks are also broken down into 4 categories. They include a hero section, call to action, testimonials, social media, and value proposition. There are up to 28 building blocks.

The building blocks were designed using the page elements, so you can fully customize them. From the Controls and Styles tab, you can customize the page’s global appearance and individual appearance of the elements.

Verdict 

With building elements and pre-made blocks, more customization is possible with Shogun than GemPages. 

Page Templates 

GemPages

GemPages features a library with professionally designed page templates. These pages were meticulously designed using factors like typography, CTA styling, image visibility, colors, etc. 

Not to mention, there’s a template for all Shopify page types. This includes landing pages, home page, product page, collection page, contact page, blog posts page, etc.

When you design pages from scratch, you can save them as templates as well. That way, you can reuse them at any other time.

Shogun 

With Shogun premade templates, you can create pages faster. As mentioned earlier, you can access the templates when creating a new page, instead of selecting a blank page.

There are four page template categories featured: standard, product, collection, and blog posts templates. Before applying a page template, you can preview it.

There’s also a “Your Templates” category. Here, you can find pages you designed and saved as templates. They can be applied like other Shogun templates.

Shogun gives you the flexibility of disabling premade templates such that you won’t see them when creating new pages.

Verdict 

In this Shogun vs GemPages comparison category, Shogun takes a slight lead as it features more templates. 

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Responsiveness 

GemPages 

GemPages supports responsive designing. You can make your store pages appear differently on different device screens – desktop, laptop, mobile, tablet.

In fact, pages you create with GemPages in desktop mode will automatically adjust to fit mobile, laptop, and tablet screens. The same goes for the page templates.

Therefore, you might not necessarily need to build separate pages for each device type. Nevertheless, you can edit page responsiveness for each device type from the settings tab after switching the view.

Settings to adjust include typography, column sizes, spacing & margins, and visibility where you can choose to hide or show some elements.

Shogun 

While building with Shogun, you can quickly switch the page view from the top to customize for different screen sizes. Featured screen sizes include desktop, tablet, mobile, and widescreen.

You can edit responsive design settings by editing the column element for each screen size. Here, you can set the margins and maximum width of each column. Also, you can make use of flexible spacing and screen settings.

Notably, all of Shogun premade page templates are auto responsive. Without individually editing the settings for different device types, the pages you create will also auto-adjust to fit their screens.

Verdict 

Both page builders are responsive by default; hence, it’s a draw for this round. 

SEO

GemPages

GemPages is an SEO-focused page builder with pre-made templates that are search engine optimized. As mentioned earlier, they were built based on extensive research with several factors being put into consideration.

Not to mention, GemPages page templates are mobile responsive. Hence, they will fit appropriately on mobile devices, which is essential for ranking on search engines.

Furthermore, GemPages incorporates blog functionality so you can publish blog posts on your Shopify store. That way, you can publish quality content for SEO purposes.

Shogun 

There are many features in place to ensure that your eCommerce store is friendly to search engines. First of all, the scripts don’t load concurrently. Hence, your pages load fast.

Next, the pages are coded using semantic HTML codes, which makes them readily accessible to users and search engines. 

Images are served via Uploadcare to further increase page speed. With the advanced setting feature, you can set a meta description and separate page title for your store blog posts.

Verdict 

Although both page builders are search engine optimized, Shogun has more SEO features than GemPages. 

Developer Support  

GemPages 

As a developer, you can customize your store pages with codes using the GemPages Custom Code Editor. The Custom Code Editor accepts HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and other codes.

You can apply codes that affect individual pages or the entire website at large. Another way of adding your codes as a developer is using the Liquid Element.

This element is featured in the elements tab within the drag-and-drop builder and it can be used to add custom designs on specific parts of your pages.

The element accepts Liquid, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript codes and there are different panels for the different code types.

Shogun 

With the HTML element, you can add custom codes to your Shogun pages. Despite being an HTML, you can also include CSS and JavaScript codes by adding their respective tags.

If you are a skilled developer, you can include Liquid codes within the HTML element as well. You do this by replacing the Liquid tags.

As a developer, you can create custom elements that you can add to the builder elements tab. This is possible using the Shogun template editor and there’s a concrete guide on how to go about it.

However, only higher Shogun pricing plans allow you to create custom elements.

Verdict 

With Shogun, you can develop reusable elements and this gives it an upper hand over GemPages for developers. 

Split Testing

GemPages 

From your GemPages dashboard, you can split test your pages. The A/B testing option is featured at the left-aligned menu. Hence, you click on it to initiate a new A/B test campaign. 

Next, you’ll have to select the pages you want to split-test. You can select landing, home, product, collection, and blog pages. For an A/B test, you should select at least two pages.

To run your test, you’ll have to configure the campaign settings; duration, timeframe, etc. Once completed, you can view the campaign report.

Shogun

The Shogun split testing option is featured within the drag and drop builder. From the top-right menu of the editor, click on Start Test to begin a split test.

Click the new original and variant tabs and select the two pages you want to split test respectively. You can compare and contrast these pages based on 3 keys metrics which are; clickthrough, sales, and add to cart.

The first metric tracks user traffic from the original page to the variant page. The second metric tracks sales from add to cart to checkout and purchase while the third metric tracks just add to cart clicks.

Verdict 

Split testing can be carried out efficiently on both GemPages and Shogun. 

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Synchronization 

GemPages

GemPages doesn’t have a native feature for synchronizing your Shopify store with other stores. For instance, if you run multiple Shopify stores and would love to sync your products, elements, designs, etc.

Nevertheless, since it’s a Shopify-only page builder, you can use the default method of synchronizing Shopify stores. This requires setting up and exporting data from Store A to Store B from your Shopify settings.

However, GemPages should be installed on both stores. Also, you have to pay for different subscriptions unless you are on the highest plan.

Shogun 

Shogun facilitates synchronization between different stores. It works for Shopify and BigCommerce stores. That way, you can seamlessly manage multiple stores from one dashboard.

Elaborately, you can sync blog posts, collection pages, products, snippets, data collections, and custom elements between multiple stores.

You can access the Sync feature from your account dropdown menu, under the site manager. However, both stores must be on a Shogun premium plan with the same email address to work.

While data collections and custom elements are automatically synced, you can select the specific pages, products, posts, etc. that you want to share.

Verdict 

Since GemPages doesn’t natively support store syncing, Shogun wins here.

Analytics 

GemPages 

The native way for getting page analytics with GemPages is via A/B testing. From the campaign report, you can view important metrics about the two pages being tested.

For site-wide analytics, you’ll have to connect your GemPages account to Google Analytics. Simply navigate to your Account Settings to do this.

After connecting your Analytics account, you have to complete the configuration via the A/B testing settings. Once done, Google Analytics can start tracking your data. 

Shogun 

From your page list, you can view the analytics of each page by clicking on the page option and then select Analytics.

For each page, Shogun tracks and reports all activities, sales, referrers, etc. Although this gives you a deep insight into each web page, you can get an analytics rundown from the dashboard.

Conversely, you can still connect Shogun to Google Analytics for elaborate tracking.

Verdict 

With native analytics, Shogun is the winner in this GemPages vs Shogun comparison category. 

Third-party Integrations 

GemPages 

GemPages works with Shopify alone; hence, it will work with other apps in the Shopify App Store. This includes apps like Oberlo, Mailchimp, Klyaviyo, and Bold.

Natively, GemPages integrates with Ali Reviews, Growave, and Judge.me – all three are review platforms. With these integrations, you can collect reviews for your products via any of these platforms.

After installing these apps, they appear as widgets within the drag and drop builder. As previously discussed, GemPages integrates with Google Analytics for tracking and metrics. 

Shogun

Shogun integrates with a handful of third-party platforms. You can view all available integrations from the Integrations section in your account settings. 

Here, you can connect integrations by entering their API keys. Some platforms Shogun integrates with include Yotpo, GetApp, Notso, ReCharge, Google Fonts, Google Analytics, etc.

Likewise, the Shogun page builder works with other apps in the Shopify and BigCommerce app stores on their respective platforms.

Verdict 

Both page builders support third-party integrations, but Shogun supports more. 

Customer Support & Resources 

GemPages 

To get help, you can make use of the GemPages Help Center. From the help center, you can access support articles on all you need to make use of GemPages.

To contact support personnel, you’ll have to make use of the LiveChat. 

Apart from their FAQ page, they also have a community for interacting with other GemPages users.

Shogun

Shogun has a reliable support team. You can reach them by submitting a contact form or via live chat. Live chat is only available from your dashboard.

Resources available on Shogun includes a blog, updates section, remote work guide, and tutorials. The tutorial section acts as the Shogun help center as it has articles that cover all its functionalities. 

You can connect with Shogun on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

Verdict 

Both platforms feature similar customer support channels. However, Shogun features more resources. 

Shogun vs GemPages – Pricing

Shogun Pricing 

Shogun facilitates a 10-day free trial for their new users. Also, they have three pricing plans featured, which include:

• Build Plan – $39 per month
• Measure Plan – $99 per month 
• Optimize Plan – $149 per month 

Note: The above pricing plans are for the Shogun Shopify page builder. Different pricing plans are featured for other eCommerce platforms. 

GemPages Pricing 

As a new user, you can use the GemPages page builder free for 10 days. After that, the following pricing plans are available for subscription:

• Starter Plan – $15 per month 
• Professional Plan – $29 per month 
• Advanced Plan – $59 per month 

Similarities & Differences

Similarities

• Both GemPages and Shogun are drag-and-drop page builders 
• They both work for Shopify 
• They both feature page templates 
• Both Shogun and GemPages mobile responsive
• They are both SEO-friendly 
• They feature split testing functionality
• Both GemPages and Shogun integrate with third-party platforms

Differences 

• GemPages works for Shopify alone, but Shogun works for Shopify, Salesforce Cloud, and BigCommerce 
• Shogun features building blocks and elements, while GemPages features only building blocks
• Shogun supports store synchronization, unlike GemPages
• Unlike GemPages, Shogun features a native analytics dashboard

Pros & Cons

GemPages Pros

• Easy setup 
• Drag and drop builder 
• Page templates 
• Up to 34 building elements 
• Mobile responsive 
• SEO friendly 
• Split-testing functionality
• Third-party integrations 
• Reliable support 

GemPages Cons 

• Doesn’t support other eCommerce platforms 
• Doesn’t support synchronization 
• No native analytics 

Shogun Pros 

• Easy setup
• Drag and drop builder 
• Page templates 
• Works for Shopify, BigCommerce, and Salesforce
• Building elements and blocks 
• SEO-friendly 
• Mobile responsive 
• Split-testing 
• Store synchronization 
• Native analytics 
• Third-party integrations 
• 24/7 customer support 

Shogun Cons 

• High cost 
• Some features only accessible with higher plans

GemPages vs Shogun – Which Is Better?

To build professional Shopify store pages, you can go with either GemPages or Shogun. However, Shogun is recommended as the best page builder. 

In essence, Shogun is easy to use and it features page templates, building elements, and more features than GemPages.

Additionally, Shogun takes the upper hand because it incorporates building blocks, built-in analytics, synchronization, and supports more eCommerce platforms.