E-Commerce business owners are in the throes of a welter while choosing a suitable platform for an online store.
Thinking of the technical aspect such as the correct choice of a platform largely decides the probability of success of the e-commerce business. Since there is not a clear demarcation or boundary, and to top it off there are die-hard fans of every platform, it becomes increasingly difficult to get a transparent comparison that is not lucid or biased.
Yet there is no need to worry! We’re here to help you make an informed decision on the correct choice, discussing in detail all the technical aspects, and leaving it up to you to decide which one suits your taste the best.
Here we’ll compare WooCommerce vs Magento- their key features in brief, performance, beginner-friendliness, security, pricing, and product management too. After having all the facts neatly stacked, making a choice will never be the arduous task as before.
MAGENTO
What makes Magento Unique?
Magento is an e-commerce platform well suited for web development professionals and medium to large online stores. It can seem more complicated due to the robust services, which can be mastered by those who are tech-savvy and those who require a wide range of features and functionality. This makes it an ideal choice for high aspirants.
Key Features:
· Provides free community edition as well as Magento Commerce, which is a premium version
· The community version is self-hosted but premium offers hosting features
· Enables users to add an unlimited number of products
· Unique theme and layout
· Offers advanced security features
· A Plethora of feature choices but basic knowledge of web development required
What if I’m a Beginner?
At the first glance, this platform doesn’t seem to be beginner-friendly, but considering the extensive features and the various pros, ambitious businesses can benefit a lot by trying to learn to adapt to the complexity.
It is certainly not as beginner-friendly as WooCommerce, but if time and patience are at hand, learning it can scale up the business at an exponential rate.
How Secure is it?
Given the current situations of the dawn of cybercrimes, it has been increasingly important for businesses to safeguard themselves in the online world. Payment gateways and private information need protection and Magento is indeed effective in doing so.
Given that no security system is ideal, Magento does have some advanced security measures and several extensions and manual tweaks which makes it close to perfect.
The con is that the manual tweaks are not too beginner-friendly and really difficult for beginners to safeguard everything properly.
Pricing:
Magento offers a free community edition alongside an advanced premium edition with various other advanced features. Pricing for Magento needs to be discussed with their sales team via chat through their website.
Product Management:
If you are setting up an e-commerce online business, product management must be a priority. Product management, though not too easy to use, is quite efficient in Magento. It includes several features that WooCommerce lacks, such as product reviews, wish lists, and product personalization. With some basic knowledge of WordPress, it shouldn’t pose much of a challenge.
Yet if advanced features are not your concern, WooCommerce is a better choice due to the beginner-friendliness and the basic features which they effectively offer.
WooCommerce:
What makes WooCommerce Unique?
One of the most popular e-commerce platforms, it is a powerful plugin for WordPress, which makes it easy to use and quickly turn a WordPress site into an e-commerce site. It offers all the features necessary and expected from an e-commerce website while maintaining simplicity for the less experienced beginners.
Key Features:
· The platform is completely free
· Requires user to find own web host
· Can add unlimited products
· Covers WordPress themes, and a plethora of customizations
· Basic security
· Extremely beginner-friendly
What if I’m a Beginner?
WooCommerce is famous for being Beginner-friendly and there are extensive videos and documentation to learn how to use it. If one has used WordPress before, it is a piece of cake for them. All the functionalities are very neatly segregated to avoid any arising confusion and beginners can very easily use it to create their own small to medium size e-commerce site.
How Secure is it?
It has all the basic security features required for safe transactions and keeping personal information safe, yet one can’t argue that it lacks the advanced security features that Magento provides. Considering the users in WooCommerce are beginners, such advanced security features are not of key concern, but the beginner-friendliness of this platform makes it unique and since it has the basic security features, it solves our purpose to an extent
Pricing:
Being an open-source platform, it is completely free to use and can be set up on any server the user wants. The premium extensions tend to be a tad more expensive and need an annual subscription, and not to forget the price of web-hosting.
Product Management:
As said before, WooCommerce is for beginners, and advanced features are missing, though we find basic features for Product Management as any other e-commerce platform. For advanced features, it is advisable to use Magento which provides various other features for advanced users.
CONCLUSION:
As we had discussed before, having the facts at hand is key to choosing the correct e-commerce platform and it is up to you to make the right choice tailored to your business model.
As for our suggestion, if you are a beginner, it is advisable to use WooCommerce, given that it has all the basic features, free and easy-to-use.
But if you are an ambitious advanced user whose primary concern is the scalability of the business, Magento would be the correct choice given the plethora of options it provides and the advanced security with a custom theme as the icing on the cake.
ROMIT CHAKRABORTY
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