Shopify Alternatives: Top 4 Alternatives to Shopify Ecommerce

Shopify is a fully managed eCommerce platform that provides batteries included eCommerce store for selling your products online. Customizable, mobile-friendly design templates are also included as a part of shopify stores subscription. It’s a comprehensive solution for your digital storefront. If you talk to experienced shopify developers, they may say that it covers 80% of most eCommerce use case.

While Shopify offers a complete suite of tools and services that covers everything, it might be too much for some users whose use case may be very simple. You might not need all of Shopify’s features. Maybe you just want a dynamic website with some bells and whistles or perhaps you only need to manage large sales volumes.

Mojo Dojo has conducted a comprehensive analysis of ecommerce landscape and we believe the following are the top alternatives for Shopify.

1. WooCommerce
2. BigCommerce
3. Prestashop
4. Magento

If you are using WordPress then WooCommerce may seem like an obvious choice for good reason.

WooCommerce, launched in 2011, is an open-source WordPress plugin. It converts WordPress sites into eCommerce sites.

WordPress offers thousands of customizable design templates, giving you flexibility and speed to production. You can host your site separately, gaining more control over your hosting, server infrastructure and more control over you WooCommerce SEO.

Pricing is tricky to compare due to extras like plugins and fees. However, WooCommerce will likely costs less than Shopify for similar features.

Pros of WooCommerce

• Free to use as a plugin on WordPress
• Easily integrates with WordPress and your theme
• Open source
• Many free and paid extension to extend it even further
• WooCommerce SEO is relatively easier given many open source SEO frameworks and guides available

Cons of WooCommerce

• It is not self hosted and you need to host it
• You will probably need a developer to keep it updated
• Requires dev work to extend the core of the plugin
• Extensions may or may not be compatible with all versions of WooCommerce and can sink valuable business time

We can help with WordPress development or WooCommerce SEO and can help you decide which platform to choose for your project.

BigCommerce offers a range of features to streamline your eCommerce operations. These include automated sales tax management, shipping integration, and multi-channel selling on platforms like Amazon, eBay, Facebook, and more.

Additionally, BigCommerce handles site hosting logistics, ensuring a seamless and secure online store experience. It is also a hosted solution meaning they take care of all your security and infrastructure. Plus, with many readily available design options, you can tailor your store’s look and feel to match your brand, going beyond just sales and shipping needs.

BigCommerce’s app store is not as extensive as Shopify but in our research and working with many BigCommerce clients it is generally good enough for most use cases.

BigCommerce is also heavily focused on volume of sales and thus if you are a small business then it may not be the most ideal platform for your use case.

Pros of BigCommerce

• Built in page builder and drag and drop visual editor
• Large ecosystem of apps
• Good SEO support
• Scalable and hosted solution so that you don’t have to worry about infrastructure and security

Cons of BigCommerce

• Bigger learning curve with BigCommerce compared to WordPress or Shopify
• Limited option for plugins
• Only five free themes on the platform

We can help with decide if BigCommerce is right for you. We can help with BigCommerce development and extending it for your specific requirements.

PrestaShop is an open-source eCommerce platform that’s free to download and use.

It offers a flexible solution for online stores, with thousands of templates and modules available to build your store.

PrestaShop supports various payment gateways and shipping integrations, making it a popular choice for small to medium-sized businesses that need a cart that is not WordPress.

The platform also features a user-friendly interface and multilingual support, making it easy to manage and grow your online store.

PrestaShop originally started as student project in EPITECH IT School in Paris, France

Pros of PrestaShop

• Open source
• Many free themes and extensions available
• Large ecosystem of apps
• Good SEO & Meta data support
• Good catalogue support

Cons of PrestaShop

• Bigger learning curve compared to other platforms
• Self hosted meaning your are in charge of infrastructure and security
• Isn’t backward compatible to prior major versions
• Limited option for plugins specific to Australia

We can help with decide if PrestaShop is right for you. We can also take over development of your existing PrestaShop store and help you convert to other platforms of your choice.

Magento was released in 2007 as an eCommerce platform that was meant for enterprise businesses.

It was released as an open source solution with some really good built in enterprise level features including good enterprise SEO support.

Magento was acquired in 2018 by Adobe and now offers Magento Commerce for enterprise and Magento Open Source for small businesses.

Magento may be popular amongst enterprises that use Adobe’s other products or have invested in the Adobe ecosystem.

Magento does require a solid infrastructure to host, run and manage.

Pros of Magento

• Open source system
• Large ecosystem of apps and many developers invested into the ecosystem
• Good SEO and catalog support
• Can be hosted on AWS as a managed offering

Cons of Magento

• Has been backward incompatible and Version 1.0 was abandoned from support leaving a lot of online store owners unhappy
• Requires extensive server resources to run and likely requires some devops and technology expertise
• Isn’t easy to customize and requires help from Magento specialists.

Lets us help you manage or grow your Magento store.