The Things You Need To Know Before You Decide On WooCommerce Or Magento

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You have decided to open an Internet, but now another question arises – on which platform? There are a sufficient number of options, but often the choice is reduced to two popular – WooCommerce and Magento.

So which does CMS still stop on? To answer this question, you need to know the basic functionality and the differences between the platforms. In short – they are both designed to work with online stores, but the way of managing each of them is different.

Also, before creating a site there are a few more questions: What budget for the creation of an online store can you allocate? Where to start and what do you want to see as a result? At some to give an answer at the beginning is impossible – you just need to get to work. But to remain completely in the dark too can not, so a couple of questions we will still try to clarify.

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce plugin developed for WordPress and designed for both small and large online stores running on this CMS.

WooCommerce was launched on September 27, 2011, and since then the number of installations of the plugin has exceeded 5 million – free, integration with WP and scalability were the main reason for its popularity.

What is Magento?

Magento is an open-source e-commerce platform developed in PHP. Varien, a private company based in California was originally responsible for the creation, and volunteers were involved in the development. Magento eCommerce was released on March 31, 2008.

Today the platform is used by more than 250 thousand online stores – yes, the figure is not as massive as WooCommerce, but also impressive.

Advantages of open source systems

The advantage of complete openness is that anyone can make changes and improvements to the product. This gives the platform:

– unlimited possibilities in terms of development and functionality,

– and any enthusiast with a desire to help can contribute.

As a rule, for the platform many instructions and tutorials are created, and in the forums, it is very easy to find an answer to any question, because the openness of the system is actively discussed among users. This approach is much more convenient and faster than waiting for an answer from the developer.

What WooCommerce offers

The plugin provides the necessary elements to launch and create an online store, and the ability to scale to any level allows you to create both small and large-scale projects.

Pros:

  • The ability to create an online store with no investment other than hosting costs;
  • If you’ve worked with WordPress, then working with WooCommerce will not be difficult;
  • The system of extensions is based on the format of plugins WordPress;
  • Support for any payment system;
  • The vast majority of WordPress themes support WooCommerce;
  • Easy integration with Google Analytics via the extension;
  • Support for SSL certificates.

Cons:

  • if you have no experience with WordPress, you will have to learn two platforms at once;
  • the basic functionality of WooCommerce is free, but a number of additional options with specifics available only after payment.

What Magento offers

Magento has a free version for users, but it is inferior in capabilities to the paid product. For an objective comparison, we’ll look at the free version:

Pros:

  • unlimited products to maintain;
  •  the ability to connect the API to any third-party platform;
  • account scalability, which allows both small stores and large ones to work;
  • well-designed checkout process;
  • ability to work immediately with payment services PayPal, Authorize.net, and Braintree.

Cons:

  • greater focus on developers than on aspiring entrepreneurs;
  • its own ecosystem that needs to be studied.

Bottom line

When it comes to WooCommerce and Magento, there’s a lot to think about. Both platforms offer many features and can give you everything you need to create an online store.

A versatile option is WooCommerce: it’s easier to set up, learn and work with. That said, Magento provides more tools and leverage to handle larger projects. And you can always use magento maintenance services, is something is wrong.  The decision will depend on the type of project you want to implement, budget, the importance of ease of use, scalability, manageability, and other factors.

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