Magento vs. WooCommerce: Which one should you choose? | finder.com
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Magento vs. WooCommerce

Consider your budget and coding background when choosing between these two open-source platforms.

Kimberly Ellis
Kimberly Ellis
Updated
Fact checked

Magento and WooCommerce both enhance your website with robust e-commerce capabilities. One lets you build a website from scratch, while the other adds e-commerce features to your existing WordPress website.

How do Magento and WooCommerce compare?

Which should I choose?

Choose Magento if you need a fully customizable website with all the bells and whistles.

Choose WooCommerce if you’re already set up on WordPress.

Overview

A good option for businesses that have a small army of developers.

A good option for code-savvy merchants looking to open an e-commerce business.

Products

  • Website builder
  • Website builder
  • Inventory tracking

Price starts at

Free

Free

Contract required?

No

No

Pros

  • Open-source. Its free option lets you build your site from zero, resulting in a carefully tailored digital storefront.
  • Magento partners. If you’re not tech savvy, you can hire a network of experienced developers to design and maintain your store.
  • Scalable and customizable. As the needs of your company change, you can customize with free and premium plugins. If you can code it, Magento can host it.
  • Free. Magento Open Source is free, but you’ll need the technical know-how to get your website up and running.
  • Open-source. REST API and webhooks give you full control over your store. A non-tech user may be able to set up and use WooCommerce, but you’ll likely run into issues if you try to customize or add integrations.
  • Customizable. Enhance your store with hundreds of free and paid extensions. Add extra features from marketing integrations to point of sale or hire a developer to design a full build.
  • Easy to get started. Install the WooCommerce plugin to your WordPress website with a few clicks.
  • Free. WooCommerce’s primary features, including a handful of Storefront themes, are free with WordPress.

Cons

  • Costly. If you choose the free plan, you’ll likely need a development team to design and manage your store, which can be expensive to maintain.
  • Features cost extra. You’ll have to upgrade to Magento Commerce to unlock additional features, including advanced marketing tools and B2B functionality. Or take a look at thousands of integrations in the Magento Marketplace, most of which also cost extra.
  • Limited support. Only Magento Commerce customers get 24/7 tech support. The free tiers are limited to reading help articles and browsing public forums.
  • Limited website integration. The WooCommerce plugin is only available on an existing WordPress account.
  • Limited tech support. WooCommerce’s customer service uses a ticket system to request help, which could leave you hanging for a while.

Tools

  • Order management. Manage sales across multiple channels, including in-house brands, physical stores and third-party sites like eBay and Amazon.
  • Analytics. Boost performance by analyzing reports and sales data.
  • Seamless checkout experience. Magento’s integrated one-page checkout optimizes the shopping process.
  • Inventory management. Track stock levels, hide out-of-stock items and get notified for low and out-of-stock items.
  • Geolocation data. Use the customer’s address to calculate tax and shipping automatically.
  • Coupons. Create discount codes for specific products or the entire cart.
  • Dashboard. Add a summary window to your WordPress dashboard to see a quick snapshot of how your store is doing.

Trustpilot rating

★★★★★

4/5

★★★★★

3.2/5

Reputation and customer reviews

  • Reviews are mostly positive.
  • Customers praise Magento’s bespoke functionality.
  • Customers complain about how time-consuming and costly a Magento website runs. One customer spent 40 hours programming his site, while another spent $66,000 to hire a Magento developer partner to build his site, which was more than he originally budgeted.
  • Reviews are mixed.
  • Customers praise its flawless integration with WordPress and useful e-commerce features.
  • Customers complain about glitches and errors when plugins update.

Support

  • If you're a free version user, you’ll need to troubleshoot issues by browsing articles in Magento help center and posting in the public forum.
  • If you pay for Magento Commerce, you’ll get 24/7 access to live technical support.
  • Email. The WooCommerce tech is limited to email.

Bottom line

Both Magento and WooCommerce offer customizable e-commerce solutions thanks to their open-source platforms. But you’ll still need to find your own website hosting provider. And although they both have free options, you’ll need the technical know-how to use them.

Magento is a good option if you’re interested in building a highly customizable website from the ground up, which is expensive. You’ll need a skilled team of developers to design and maintain your site, which might not be suitable for small businesses.

While it’s helpful to know some coding with WooCommerce, it’s not a dealbreaker, making it more manageable for small businesses.

If you don’t have coding experience or the budget to hire help, consider a different e-commerce platform.

Frequently asked questions

What is Magento 2?

Magento 2 is the most up-to-date version of the Magento platform that completely replaced Magento 1 in June 2020.

How many coupon codes can a customer apply in Magento 2?

Although you can configure more than one coupon code, customers can only use one coupon code per purchase. To stack coupons, you’ll need a separate extension.

What’s the difference between a WooCommerce extension and a WordPress plugin?

An extension is an addition to a base plugin. For example, once you install the WooCommerce plugin, you can add extensions to expand the plugin’s functionality.

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