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Magento vs. WooCommerce

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

Kimberly Ellis

Posted Aug 17, 2020

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?

	Magento	WooCommerce
	Read our review	Read our review
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

Thank you for your feedback!

Kimberly Ellis

Kimberly Ellis is a writer at Finder. She hails from New York City with a BA from Queens College and a New York State teaching certificate. After teaching in both public and private schools, Kimberly decided to take the world by storm and dive into the media industry — where she covers everything from home loans and investing to K–12 education and shopping. She’s also an aspiring polyglot, always in a book and forever on the hunt for the perfect classic red lipstick.

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Magento vs. WooCommerce

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

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