According to Nasdaq, 90 percent of all purchases will be made online by 2040. The eCommerce industry is one of the biggest online industries with about 4.8 billion sales and counting in 2021. In fact, it is expected to reach above 6 billion in 2025.
If you’re thinking of joining the industry, there’s no better time to start than now. With eCommerce platforms like Magento and WooCommerce, launching an eCommerce store is very simple.
Here, I will compare Magento vs WooCommerce. In the end, you’ll discover which is the better eCommerce platform among the two.
What Is Magento?
Magento is a popular eCommerce platform. Launched by Magento Inc in 2008, it is currently owned by Adobe after a $1.68 billion acquisition in 2018. The platform is also known as Adobe Commerce.
Not to mention, Magento is flexible; hence, it is used by notable brands across the world. It’s an all-in-one solution with core eCommerce features including business intelligence, cloud deployment, cloud hosting, etc.
The platform is managed by over 150,000 innovators who ensure that it’s up to date with the latest eCommerce standards. Since its launch, Magento has generated more than $155 billion in gross income.
What Is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is among the notable eCommerce platforms in the world. About 28 percent of online stores run on WooCommerce which is 10 percent more than the second platform. This isn’t surprising as this eCommerce platform was launched in 2011 as a plugin for WordPress – the most used website builder.
WooCommerce is open-source and another reason it’s popular is that it’s very simple to install and use. The platform is optimized for small to large-sized online businesses.
You can build your preferred eCommerce website with WooCommerce. The only downside is that as an exclusive WordPress plugin, you cannot use WooCommerce on non-WordPress websites.
Initial Setup
Magento
Magento doesn’t support WordPress natively. The platform is used mostly by non-WordPress website owners. To set up Magento, you first need to download the software version compatible with your device, run the software, create a database, and configure it for your website.
Next, configure the language, time zone, and currency. You have to create an admin account with a username and password. Finally, you can install it. There are six steps in total that you have to complete.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a popular WordPress plugin for eCommerce, so setting it up is very easy. You first need to have your WordPress website set up.
From your WordPress dashboard, you can install WooCommerce from the plugin section. Simply search for “WooCommerce”, then, download, install, and activate the plugin.
Once you launch the plugin, it brings up the Setup Wizard. You’ll find it easy to set up WooCommerce by following this Setup Wizard. WooCommerce can also be installed on multisite networks.
Verdict
As a plugin for WordPress, WooCommerce is relatively easier to install than Magento.
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Adding Products
Magento
Magento enables you to upload both simple and configurable products. You can add products from the Catalog section of the dashboard. For simple products, you have to complete settings like attribute set, product name, SKU, price, and weight amongst others.
It’s almost the same for configurable products. The only major difference is that you get to create different variations of configurable products. With Magento, you can also add virtual and downloadable products or services. For such services, you can set up memberships and subscriptions.
WooCommerce
Adding products to your WooCommerce website is like adding a new post to your WordPress website. With WooCommerce, you can add more than six different product types. This includes simple, grouped, virtual, downloadable, external/affiliate, and variable products.
You can set up subscriptions for related products using WooCommerce extensions. While adding products, the basic details to set up include the product category, attributes, and SKU. You’ll also provide the product data including name, price, tax status, weight, dimensions, and shipping class amongst others.
Verdict
This WooCommerce vs Magento comparison category is a draw; both platforms support various product types.
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Customizations
Magento
Magento makes customizing your store front end very easy. You get a blank theme and you can customize it to your dream eCommerce store the platform’s UI components. You can customize your store using coding and styling tools. Magento features four storefront customization levels.
This includes Extend Magento-Provided CSS, Replace Magento-Provided CSS, Replace PHTML template files, and Replace Magento-Provided CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. Magento also features an Admin Pattern Library. This is a library of UI design patterns with various form elements including tabs, container, and sign-in form.
WooCommerce
At first, you have to customize your store’s identity including your logo, tag line, and colors. Before installing a theme, if you must, your store will be blank. You can customize your storefront from scratch yourself by coding.
From the WordPress Appearance section, you can add your custom CSS codes. WooCommerce makes it easy to outsource your store customization tasks. There are verified WooCommerce expert agencies you can contact and also an exclusive freelancer platform.
Verdict
Both WooCommerce and Magento are highly customizable platforms although WooCommerce is a little easier to customize.
Page Builder
Magento
The Magento page builder lets you improve your store’s shopping experience. You can control all your store pages and how they appear. The page builder is simple to use because it’s a drag-and-drop model.
It will also save you time as the changes you make are previewed live. You can add different elements such as images, buttons, videos, banners, text, etc. to your pages. These are outlined in the left-hand section of the page builder environment.
WooCommerce
With WooCommerce, you can build pages with almost any page builder that WordPress supports. This offers flexibility as you get to use a page builder that you’re most familiar with. A lot of popular WordPress page building plugins have native support for WooCommerce stores.
Some notable examples are Elementor, which is the most used WordPress page builder, and WP Bakery. Both page builders are drag and drop so they’re easy to use. Elementor features every widget you’ll need for your product pages while WP Bakery lets you edit the frontend and backend.
You might want to check out this interesting comparison between Elementor vs WP Bakery.
Verdict
While Magento features a native page builder, WooCommerce supports a variety of page builders via WordPress.
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Themes
Magento
Thankfully, there are many available Magento themes. These are majorly premium themes because they are developed by third parties. You can purchase Magento themes via the Magento marketplace and there are over 140 themes available in this marketplace.
Magento themes are also available on third-party marketplaces like ThemeForest. After downloading your preferred Magento theme, you should install it on your Magento store automatically using the Composer tool.
You can also manually extract the theme code to the Magento file system. All installed themes are available under Designs from the Magento dashboard.
WooCommerce
From the WooCommerce marketplace, you can access many eCommerce themes including free and paid ones. These themes are also available in other marketplaces like ThemeForest.
As the most popular eCommerce platform, there are so many WooCommerce themes available. More than 1,300 WooCommerce templates are available on ThemeForest.
Page builders like Elementor and WPBakery mentioned earlier also feature themes and page templates for WooCommerce. The same applies to popular WordPress page builders as well. Not to mention, most WordPress themes also work well with WooCommerce.
Verdict
There are more themes available with WooCommerce due to the platform’s popularity.
Product Recommendations
Magento
With Magento product recommendations, you can increase conversions and boost revenue. This feature is powered by Adobe Sensei. It uses machine-learning algorithms and artificial intelligence to analyze your product list and present the best-related products to your customers.
These product recommendations are displayed in the “Customers who viewed this product also viewed” section of every product page. Magento also gives you the option to specifically set which products you want to recommend to your customers. You can access this setting from the Promotions section under Marketing.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce provides smart, data-driven product recommendations to your customers. With these, you can carry out upsells and cross-sells to increase your store profit. The feature uses a cutting-edge search algorithm to uncover relationships between multiple products. It also considers seasonal patterns and product trends.
You have the option to create your own recommendation engine by assigning rules. From product pages, you’ll find these product recommendations under the “Frequently Bought Together” section. With one click, customers can add these products to their purchase cart.
Verdict
Product recommendations on Magento and WooCommerce are similar. Both platforms sort the product automatically or you do it yourself.
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Payment Options
Magento
With Magento, your customers can pay you via various methods. The basic built-in payment options available include check/money order, bank transfer, payment on account for B2B accounts, cash on delivery, purchase order, and zero subtotal checkout.
These built-in payment options can be managed offline. You can also assign different payment actions. This includes authorize, authorize and capture, charge on order, charge on shipment, not capture, sale, and order. Magento integrates with several third-party payment solutions like PayPal and Braintree amongst others.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce features a native payment option – WooCommerce Payments. This built-in payment option lets you receive payments from any major credit or debit card and there are no set up cost or monthly fees. You’re only charged per transaction.
In addition to WooCommerce Payments, this eCommerce platform supports about 65 third-party payment solutions. This includes gateways like PayPal, Stripe, Amazon Pay, Square, Braintree, Affirm, and more. The majority of these third-party payment gateways can be added for free but transaction charges may apply.
Verdict
WooCommerce takes the lead here as the platform supports more payment providers than Magento.
Shipping Options
Magento
Magento stopped users from creating Shipping accounts in 2019. You can manage shipping using the shipping extensions from the Magento marketplace. There are over 100 shipping extensions in the Magento marketplace and some are premium while others are free.
The platform also natively integrates with different shipping carriers including DHL, FedEx, USPS, and UPS. Other shipping offers you can access with Magento include Flat Rates and Table Rates. Magento makes it easy for you to work with your existing shipping provider.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce comes with a built-in shipping manager accessible from your WooCommerce dashboard. That way, you don’t have to copy and paste order details.
Conversely, the shipping manager lets you print your own shipping labels.
You can also connect with DHL and USPS and print labels at discounted rates. This can save you up to 67 percent and 40 percent on shipping rates respectively with these shipping companies.
From the WooCommerce extensions marketplace, you have over 60 shipping extensions you can also use.
Verdict
In this WooCommerce vs Magento comparison section, the winner is WooCommerce due to its built-in shipping manager.
Analytics
Magento
What you get with Magento is more than just analytics; it’s Business Intelligence. This is powered by a data warehouse and data pipeline technology and is integrated into your Magento dashboard. You can turn your everyday analytics into visualization.
This business intelligence dashboard features a report builder. It’s easy to schedule reports and easier to share them with others. You can allow others direct access to your analytics while setting different permission levels. The dashboard facilitates quick connections with other platforms.
WooCommerce
With WooCommerce analytics, you get a reliable data analysis and reporting tool. Some of the data you can find here include gross sales, total sales, net sales, average order value, number of items sold, number of orders, and more.
The analytics dashboard features advanced filtering and segmenting tools. There’s the Date Range picker that lets you choose the dates to display in your reports. You can customize the dashboard to focus on only the important metrics and you can download every data as a CSV file.
Verdict
This one goes to Magento as its business intelligence dashboard is more advanced than WooCommerce analytics.
Mobile Support
Magento
You can manage your store, while your customers can make purchases from the comfort of their mobile phones with Magento. Aside from the stores and themes being responsive on mobile, Magento features mobile apps for Android and iOS devices.
You can use the app builder to easily build an app for your online store and feature it for your customers to download. The app features all the basic features your customers would need.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce allows you to run your store from anywhere using the mobile app. You can easily create and publish products, process orders, and monitor your store analytics from the mobile app. Notably, the WooCommerce mobile app is compatible with both iOS and Android mobile devices.
With the WooCommerce app, you’ll never miss an important event as the app will immediately send you a notification. The app is free to download. It works with JetPack, which you can install on your WordPress website for free too.
Verdict
Both platforms have a reliable mobile app but the WooCommerce app is free, unlike Magento.
Third-party Integrations
Magento
Magento allows endless integrations. You can integrate the eCommerce platform with any other platform or website using the REST or SOAP Web API. These APIs are already optimized to work seamlessly with marketing automation systems. You just need basic PHP knowledge.
There are more platforms to integrate with from the Magento marketplace. The marketplace features thousands of extensions and plugins, both free and premium. You’ll only find quality extensions in the Magento marketplace. They were all reviewed to be relevant.
WooCommerce
You can find all the extensions you need from the WooCommerce extension store. There are extensions for payments, shipping, marketing, subscriptions, enhancement, store management, themes, and more. Some of the extensions are free while you have to purchase the rest.
WooCommerce also features a REST API. As a WordPress plugin, you can use WooCommerce along with any WordPress plugin. WordPress has over 54,000 plugins. Like earlier mentioned, a lot of these other plugins are optimized to work with WooCommerce.
Verdict
Both WooCommerce and Magento feature tons of integrations and APIs.
Security
Magento
Magento is built on a cloud architecture that is relatively very safe. It offers CDN and DDoS protection. The Fastly Web Application Firewall (WAF) protects your customers from application-layer attacks.
Magento regularly tests its platform via penetration to check for vulnerabilities. You’ll be informed by email if any security patch is released. If you want your Magento store to be secure, you must have the latest software version installed at all times.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is built to be secure but securing your store has more to do with WordPress CMS. WordPress is secure but one of the easiest platforms to hack. This is because many WordPress users don’t follow security practices.
If you follow WordPress security practices, you’ll have nothing to worry about. A very important practice is to keep the plugins, CRM, and themes up to date. Likewise, you should install a WordPress security plugin to safeguard your WooCommerce store.
Verdict
Magento and WooCommerce (or WordPress CMS) are secure by default. It’s up to you to maintain your online store security.
Customer Support
Magento
Magento provides a resources library, tech resources, videos, webinars, help center, and developer documentation for customers to get help. Also available are the developer portal, security center, and customer case studies.
As a Magento user, you can access the Magento community and forum to interact with other users. You can directly reach the Magento support team by phone. There are different helplines for different countries.
WooCommerce
With WooCommerce, you can help yourself or contact the help team. You can help yourself via the WooCommerce documentation or using the pre-sales FAQ. The WooCommerce documentation is extensive and contains everything about using the platform.
You can reach the WooCommerce support team by opening a support ticket.
Verdict
You get reliable support from WooCommerce and Magento.
WooCommerce vs Magento Pricing
WooCommerce Pricing
Notably, WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin. You only need to pay money in buying store items and extensions like themes, add-ons, shipping, payment options, etc. For example, using the WooCommerce Payments option attracts a 2.9% + $0.30 charge for US card transactions. Non-US cards attract an extra one percent charge.
Magento Pricing
You can use Magento for free as a startup. The Pro option, Magento Commerce, is available for established eCommerce merchants. To subscribe, you have to contact the sales team to discuss a pricing plan. Your average order value and annual gross merchandise will determine the pricing.
Similarities
- Both Magento and WooCommerce are open-source.
- Both can be used for free.
- With either Magento or WooCommerce, you can sell both digital and physical products.
- Drag and drop page builder
- Supports themes
- Third-party integrations
- With either WooCommerce or Magento, you are provided with a mobile app.
Differences
- WooCommerce is available for WordPress CMS alone, while Magento supports non-WordPress websites.
- Magento has a native page builder, while WooCommerce works with any WordPress page builder.
- Magento analytics – business intelligence – is more advanced than WooCommerce’s.
- WooCommerce mobile app is free but you pay for the Magento mobile app
Pros & Cons
Magento Pros
- Open-source
- Available for free
- Supports physical and digital products
- Drag and drop page builder
- Supports themes
- Third-party integrations
- Advanced analytics
- Mobile app
- Reliable support
Magento Cons
- No native support for WordPress
- Premium app builder
- Expensive extensions
WooCommerce Pros
- Open-source
- Available for free
- Supports physical and digital products
- Supports various page builders
- Works with various WordPress themes and plugins
- Third-party integrations
- Free mobile app
- Reliable support
WooCommerce Cons
- Only supports WordPress websites
- Expensive extensions
Wrapping Up Magento vs WooCommerce – Which Is Better?
They both support almost any type of product; however, WooCommerce takes the upper hand because it works hand-in-hand with WordPress CMS. This makes WooCommerce a lot simpler than Magento.
As a WordPress plugin, WooCommerce can be used alongside a variety of other plugins that WordPress supports. There’s no limit to how much you can scale your eCommerce business with WooCommerce.
