While selecting the right platform for an e-commerce website, Magento and WooCommerce emerge as strong contenders; and choosing either is a tough decision. Both of them are open-source platforms offering free as well as paid versions. Either of them is a winner on certain parameters, which makes it a better choice over the other.
Let’s discuss the winning points of either Magento and WooCommerce wrt the vital factors affecting the choice of a suitable e-commerce platform:
Cost:
The cost of running an e-commerce website either on Magento or WooCommerce depends on the scale of operations and vision for scaling up the business in the future.
Both the platforms offer their free as well as paid versions. The free version of WooCommerce provides more features as compared to Magento and is more suitable for businesses in the elementary stages. But if a business is growing or wants to scale up shortly or wants to go global, paid versions are required.
The initial price of the paid version of WooCommerce is lower than that of Magento, but its plug-ins are very costly. These plug-ins are required to be purchased from independent developers. The total cost of operating a comparable feature-rich site is lower in the case of Magento, in comparison to WooCommerce.
Thus, Magento has an edge when a business is operating at a reasonable scale or having the vision to scale up or going global; on the other hand, WooCommerce is good for an e-commerce company planning to operate at an elementary level with no intentions for scaling up soon.
Security:
Keeping the site secured against hackers is a vital task for any e-commerce company. It becomes the top priority for any e-commerce website, as the security of customers’ personal and payment details is a major concern for it.
WooCommerce is a good choice for beginners while considering the security aspect, but an e-commerce company might end up paying more after a short time, due to the limited capabilities of free security features.
Magento, on the other hand, provides strong security for online stores, in the form of Magento Patches released frequently. The free security scan tool provided by Magento helps monitor the site, update malware patches and detect any unauthorized access. Besides, Magento 2 security extensions provide better protection to an online store. Thus, Magento is better when comes to security for an e-commerce website.
Functionality:
Limited functionality is available in free versions of both platforms and it can be increased by purchasing plug-ins or paid versions. Going for plug-ins and paid version seems attractive initially in the case of WooCommerce but Magento comes out to be more economical in the case of a feature-rich highly functional online store.
Ease of Use:
WooCommerce is just a plug-in and does not require technical skills to install, customize and develop an e-commerce website, whereas a person must have some knowledge of coding to install and customize an online store at Magento. Magento is a bit complicated and robust e-commerce platform. But this challenge while working with Magento is offset by the rich features and scalability with the economy it offers to the users. Magento is a platform with rich features and is more suitable for an online business aspiring to grow soon.
Conclusion:
WooCommerce is easy to install and customize e-commerce platform. The free version of WooCommerce provides reasonable functionality with security. Even purchasing plug-ins or opting for the paid version is not a costly affair for small businesses. This is more suitable for small to medium businesses with no immediate plans to scale up.
Magento requires users to be tech-savvy to install and customize it. But it is more functional and feature-rich. It offers scope for scaling up the online store. It releases its own security patches and does not depend on security plug-ins provided by independent developers (as in the case of WooCommerce). As compared to WooCommerce, it scores very high on security, which a vital parameter for any online store. For a business planning to scale up demanding rich features and high functionality, Magento is the right choice. It is more suitable for medium to large corporate level enterprises having web development professionals on-board, having high aspirations