They are among the biggest and most popular websites in the world. Each of them comes with numerous features and tools that can aid you in creating and managing your website. However, you face a problem when you’re trying to choose among them; which should you begin with?
If that’s not enough confusion, Shopify and WordPress have entirely different strategies: one is a closed-source hosted platform, while another is an open-source self-hosted platform. In the end, the way they function is very other.
Therefore, you must select the ideal solution that meets your requirements, mainly because practically all aspects of the online company will be impacted by your decision.
We’ve come up with this easy guide. It will help you discover the distinctions between Shopify and WordPress to help you choose the most suitable platform to meet your requirements.
Shopify compares to. WordPress: Overview
Before we get down to the nitty-gritty of it, let’s find out about the significant distinctions between Shopify and WordPress.
As mentioned, Shopify is an open-source hosted website builder and an e-commerce platform. What exactly is this? Closed source signifies that Shopify handles all the programming and administration of their website.
That’s right; there’s no need to buy, download, or host the Shopify software on the server. Instead, it’s a software-as-a-service (SaaS) tool you pay a monthly subscription to access.
On the other hand, WordPress offers two core services: WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
WordPress.com is a SaaS tool that is similar to Shopify. It is a website builder that charges an annual fee.
However, WordPress.org is an open-source self-hosted software solution. The software is free. However, you’ll need to pay for hosting from a third-party provider. After that, you’ll have to download WordPress and manage it yourself.
When people talk about WordPress, it’s usually talking about WordPress.org -open-source software. In this post, we’ll concentrate on this self-hosted option.
Now, let’s look into the advantages of using these platforms.
Shopify Vs. WordPress: Set Up and User-Friendliness
To begin using Shopify, it is easy to sign to the trial period for free by following the directions to sign up for an account. In just a few minutes, you can access a brand new mission control that can control your company.
You can tell in the above image the interface for users is easy and intuitive. From the beginning, you can add products, modify your website’s design, make payments, etc. You can also buy a domain via Shopify to make things easy.
WordPress is an other ballgame. You’ll first need to buy a domain and hosting from a third-party provider such as GoDaddy or SiteGround. After that, you’ll have to set up WordPress on your hosting server and then set up your login details.
After logging in, the dashboard will appear a bit like Shopify’s homepage.
Shopify’s dashboard has many standard features, including security Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and analytics tools. While WordPress is more of an empty canvas that allows you to create any website you like.
In turn, you’ll need to install third-party plugins on almost everything, which includes security, SEO analytics, and ecommerce.
Shopify compares to. WordPress: Ecommerce
The entire eCommerce solution, which is out of the box, is designed to provide tools that will assist businesses to grow and thrive. It includes an e-commerce site builder inventory management, order-management tools, and integrations with other online selling channels like Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, and eBay.
Shopify even has an exclusive point of sale (POS) option for businesses that want to combine in-person and online sales with a simple platform.
Contrary to Shopify’s eCommerce solution out-of-the-box, WordPress doesn’t come with the ability to sell products online, so you’ll have to set up and maintain an e-commerce plugin. WooCommerce is the most well-known WordPress Ecommerce plugin.
WooCommerce is a highly flexible open-source tool with all the features needed to make sales online.
However, as with WordPress’s flexibility, WooCommerce is accompanied by a huge responsibility. It doesn’t, for instance, include legal text that provides for general conditions and terms and shipping regulations. Nor do they include declarations of data protection. Therefore, you must install and manage plugins to address these issues.
Shopify vs. WordPress: Payment Gateways
If you want to sell your products online, you require a payment gateway that can facilitate transactions. The most popular payment gateways are Stripe, PayPal, and Amazon Pay.
Shopify can seamlessly integrate with more than 100 gateways for payment. Shopify also has its gateway known as Shopify Payments, which helps to set up and manage online payments.
To accept payments through WordPress, You must establish the payment gateway using the WooCommerce plugin. WooCommerce integrates with over 75 payment processors, which includes its own WooCommerce Payments.
Both platforms are flexible in this respect. However, Shopify’s all-in-one solution is perhaps more straightforward to set up than WooCommerce’s.
Shopify vs. WordPress: Themes and Design
Shopify offers eight free themes and 64 pieces, which cost between $120 to $180. Additionally, you can find 1200 Shopify themes created by independent developers in the Theme Forest.
The themes available on Shopify are ready to sell out of the box. The pieces are mobile-optimized and responsive, which means they automatically adjust to the device they’re displayed on. The theme editor on Shopify is easy and straightforward. Therefore, you don’t require any programming or technical expertise to customize it exactly how you like it.
If you ever encounter a problem, Shopify’s customer support team is there to assist you at all hours of the day.
WordPress offers more than 8,800 themes to choose from,, including the ability to sell products online.
WordPress themes usually require lots of editing and tweaking to make them work exactly how you would like them to. To accomplish this, you’ll need either basic coding skills to run them independently or have the funds to employ a web designer.
It’s important to note that third-party developers create the majority of themes for WordPress. So when you’re stuck, it’s best to contact the theme developer for assistance.
