E-Commerce has become a very important tool for small, medium, and large businesses. Choosing the correct tool for creating your online store can become a difficult task. There is a wide selection of free and paid systems to choose from. The following aims to compare two of the most widely used scripts for achieving a properly created online store.
- Magento: A PHP/MySQL developed framework that is focused to deliver e-commerce perfection. Magento aims to attack every area of the store allowing your online business to be focused on selling and scaling.
- WooCommerce: Built as an extension (Plugin) for the widely known WordPress CMS, WooCommerce brings the simplicity of configuration to building an online shop. As such, WooCommerce tends to be relatively basic to eradicate confusion and eliminate user errors when working with the tool.
The following is a strong comparison between Magento and WooCommerce that will hopefully assist in understanding the most relevant pros and cons of both platforms:
 |
 |
|
|
Architecture |
E-commerce Framework |
E-commerce Plugin for WordPress |
|
Plugin Availability |
Paid and free plugins are available |
Sub-Plugins are available (mostly paid) |
|
Performance and requirements |
Resource intensive. Requires a strong web host, preferably virtual machine. |
Uses the same resources as WordPress. WordPress optimization recommended. |
|
Main Strength |
Focused solely on e-Commerce. |
User friendly, easier to manage |
|
Theme Availability |
Available |
Available |
| Open Source |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Scalability potential |
Very scalable from small to large shops. Magento will support growth from the sales point of view to the reporting capabilities. |
Issues with reporting, not allowing to scale to larger shops. WooCommerce will present issues with discounts, taxes, sales reports, etc. |
| Examples |  |
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For everyone out there that is still looking for the correct e-commerce tool, both Magento and WooCommerce meet the standards of any business. However, we are experts in Magento and we believe that if its a scalable business, Magento will support the growth from sales in a more positive way than the way WooCommerce would.
