Shopify & WordPress in a nutshell – why consider these platforms?
Essentially, Shopify & WordPress are two largest names in the web-building applications world, which is the main reason why we think you should take them both into consideration if you’re planning on launching an eCommerce store.
They’re both great, but they’re also very different, which led to the obvious creation of two ‘camps’ – people who think Shopify is best and people who think WordPress can beat it anytime, any day. Our Shopify vs WordPress review is here to summarize their differences, pros, and cons.
Main difference between Shopify & WordPress – standalone functionality
If you’re looking for a dedicated eCommerce solution, you might as well skip the rest of our WordPress vs Shopify review; WordPress is not supplied with eCommerce functionalities and features and require plugins, such as WooCommerce, to actually become a viable solution to your problems.
On another hand, Shopify is a dedicated eCommerce platform that doesn’t need any other utilities – in fact, it offers everything you need pretty much on the fly.
However, we should point out that WordPress’s ‘WooCommerce’ plugin is a very powerful tool that is heavily complemented by WordPress’s innate versatility and well-roundedness. In that respect, we think that both of these platforms stand on equal footing in terms of performance, value, and versatility.
Shopify benefits
Shopify is a simple, plain, and straightforward platform that offers a fully-hosted solution and is packed with all the essential tools for building an online store. Apart from being easy to use, it’s also supplied with a huge array of gratis and paid features, including hundreds of magnificent and exquisite templates.
Furthermore, it’s also geared towards helping beginners and people who have very little knowledge of coding and is slightly more user-friendly in this regard.
Shopify disadvantages
Sadly, Shopify’s budget ‘plans’ include a very limited selection of features. In this respect, ‘you get what you pay for’ applies perfectly. This is, however, its only downfall.
WordPress benefits
WordPress offers a nearly limitless amount of opportunities for people who possess at least the elementary knowledge of coding. New plugins are developed every day, so new opportunities arise in turn.
The ‘core’ features of WordPress work great in harmony with the Woo Commerce plugin, allowing you to create a unique website based off existing templates or on your custom-built ones.
WordPress disadvantages
As mentioned before, WordPress is not a dedicated eCommerce platform. You won’t be able to create an actual online store website without installing the corresponding plugins (Woo Commerce being the most important one).
Additionally, WordPress is slightly more difficult to use. Beginners often need at least a couple of weeks to get the basic understanding of the elementary features WordPress offers.
Conclusion
Both WordPress & Shopify are tremendously valuable, but it’s more than obvious that they also offer drastically different benefits. We can safely conclude that Shopify is a better fit for people who can’t code while WordPress is slightly more flexible for those who can.