You can create a successful eCommerce website, all you want is the ingredients that help you cook it just right. And do you know you can get all these ingredients? From the right eCommerce development platform. When a variety of platforms are available in the market, selecting one can be a confusing task. Many people would prefer to opt most popular platforms.
But in that case, also, we have an ongoing debate between two prominent eCommerce development platforms namely WordPress and Magento. Expert Magento developers in India will show a detailed comparison between Magento and WordPress to tell you how effective these platforms are and how they can benefit your business. If you are still confused between WordPress vs Adobe eCommerce for your upcoming project then this article is for you.
In this article, we are going to compare both Magento (owned by Adobe) and WordPress against some of the standard industry and development parameters. It6 would also provide you with some insights into their pros and cons which could help you make an informed decision.
Magento Overview
The very purpose behind designing Magento is to enable developers to build online stores or eCommerce websites. Because it comes with many native eCommerce features. It was initially released in 2008 and then Adobe took over after a while. It helps you enhance the functions of your online store with its third-party extensions and it also offers an extensive catalog of features.
Magento also enables you to build highly customized eCommerce stores so that you can offer a unique shopping experience through various selling channels. Magento is considered to be a leading eCommerce development platform in the industry for more than a decade. So, that level of platform can provide the best support and functionalities for your eCommerce website. Have a look at the highlights of the Magento eCommerce:
- Open-source
- Business intelligence
- Based on Zend and PHP
- Consists of Integrated Payment Gateways
- Highly scalable
- Multiple currency and language support
And that’s not it, you can use this next-gen eCommerce platform with the following:
- PWAs
- Headless Commerce
- Integrated Amazon Sales Channel
- Omnichannel selling
This eCommerce platform is primarily available in two editions; Magento open source and Adobe eCommerce. And especially for large-scale eCommerce businesses, Adobe commerce cloud is created. So, you can say that Magento is a platform that can cater to the needs of eCommerce businesses of all sizes. It also allows for B2C and B2B integrations.
WordPress Overview
At first glance, WordPress doesn’t seem like your typical eCommerce platform. After all, it’s a popular content management system that is used by almost 43.2% of websites on the internet.
Launched in 2003 as a blogging platform, WordPress is mostly used to create and publish web pages that largely focus on content. And because it doesn’t come with inherent eCommerce features, building an online store is a challenging task in WordPress.
However, it comes with third-party integrations and plugins to help you with eCommerce development. These plugins have all kinds of tools that can help you sell products on your eCommerce websites powered by WordPress.
Highlights of the WordPress platform are as follows:
- Open-source
- Third-party plugins and integrations like WooCommerce for eCommerce development
- PHP-based and have MySQL database
- The backend does not need heavy development
- eCommerce plugins are hard to customize.
One thing is clear: WordPress isn’t itself designed to create websites that can sell products, it was designed with a singular focus on content creation. And that if you want to use WordPress to create eCommerce websites then you have to integrate the platform with some of the best eCommerce plugins such as:
- WooCommerce: It is one of the most popular and widely used eCommerce plugins for WordPress. It provides all types of themes and extensions you would need to create an eCommerce store.
- WP Shopify: Using this plugin would help you sell your products on a WordPress website. All your Shopify store data will be synced as a WordPress post. Additionally, you can provide a shopping cart experience with a Shopify buy button on the front end provided by the WP Shopify plugin.
- BigCommerce: Yes, BigCommerce is an independent eCommerce platform that allows you to create a website where you can sell your products online. But it also provides a plugin to use with WordPress. In this way, you can get the best of both. The WordPress platform will manage the front end of your online store whereas the BigCommerce plugin will offer eCommerce features that allow you to manage the bank end.
WordPress vs Magento (Adobe eCommerce)
1. Dedicated eCommerce
Unlike WordPress, Magento is a dedicated eCommerce platform. You can use its in-built functions to create and manage multiple online stores on this platform. Magento also allows you to sell thousands of products but its core functionality is that it enables you to create unique eCommerce websites.
WordPress on the other hand is dedicated to blogging and not online selling. But if you want to sell on WordPress websites, you have to integrate it with eCommerce plugins. Still, you won’t be able to create a professional eCommerce website as you would with a dedicated eCommerce platform such as Magento.
Even with eCommerce plugins, WordPress will allow you to add only simple functions like a shopping button, payment options, and order tracking. So, if your project requirements demand you to have a large inventory then you have to pick a dedicated eCommerce development platform.
2. eCommerce Features
Magento can offer all the basic eCommerce functions you will need to build a robust and reliable eCommerce store. On top of that, it also provides out-of-the-box features that can aid you in creating a unique website and catering an enhanced online shopping experience to the users. Some of the top features of Magento are listed below:
- Inventory and order management
- Reporting and business intelligence
- eCommerce site builder
- Financing and payments
- Catalog management
- PWAs
- B2B functions
- Marketing and promotions
- Headless commerce
Meanwhile, WordPress does not offer any kind of out-of-the-box features for eCommerce development. You just have the Woocommerce plugin and other third-party integrations to add eCommerce features to your WordPress site. So, you cannot expect any kind of advanced features from the integration of WordPress and Woocommerce for selling products online.
3. Design
Saying it’s a dedicated eCommerce platform and allows you to build unique websites isn’t enough. A platform needs to have something to show for it. And that’s why we are talking about how the Magento eCommerce platform provides more than a thousand themes collectively in its free and paid versions. This allows you to choose a theme that suits your brand and niche.
On top of that, you can customize your themes to fit your brand and aesthetics. These themes are available in the Magento marketplace. You can get more themes from third-party sites like ThemeForest to get more unique and customized templates and themes.
On the other hand, WordPress also offers thousands of themes for blogging and content creation. So, for a WP eCommerce store, you can easily get a suitable theme. The only thing you have to look out for is that your selected themes go well with the eCommerce plugin for WordPress. If it fits well, then the integration will also enable you to customize these templates and themes to suit your brand.
4. Ease of Use
Once you get to know the platform, Magento is easy to use. Easy navigation and a clean dashboard allow you to conduct daily admin tasks. However, to host your website on this platform, you have to meet all of their system requirements. Also, Magento web development demands advanced coding skills from the developers.
WordPress is built especially for non-technical people so the platform is quite easy to learn and understand. There aren’t any coding requirements so you can figure out the system pretty quickly. The dashboard for blog publishing is user-friendly. Although there aren’t any eCommerce operations on your WP dashboard, you can manage all eCommerce tasks in the WooCommerce backend. You just have to learn how these eCommerce plugins work.
As we already discussed in this blog, even with the plugin, you can not store or sell a large number of products from your WordPress website. With limited eCommerce functions with WordPress and Woocommerce integration, you might want to add some more eCommerce plugins to perform simple eCommerce business operations on your WordPress website. This will be very tedious and not optimized.
5. Security
As Magento is a dedicated eCommerce platform so clearly it has to have more robust eCommerce security too in comparison to WordPress. And you will find that the security features rendered by Magento are specific to eCommerce attacks.
The PCI compliance from Magento also helps you protect the data of the cardholder. Its latest security offerings include regular security patches, 2FA, firewalls, and more. For admin accounts, Magento allows you to use advanced password protection.
A security scan tool that comes with Magento can help you monitor your eCommerce site for any type of malware. The platform also releases software that can secure your online store.
WordPress on the other hand, offers basic security features that are not eCommerce specific. And the usage of third-party plugins and extensions just makes your eCommerce website more vulnerable to cyberattacks.
In WordPress, it is much more risky to process the sensitive data of a cardholder. Since your WP site is more vulnerable to attacks, you might end up with server failures, or hefty fines.
6. SEO
To optimize your eCommerce store, Magento offers some SEO features which are as mentioned below:
- Site navigation
- Sitemaps
- Metadata
- Page URLs
- Image optimization
- Product & categories URLs
- Product descriptions
- Internal links & redirects
With Magento, you can also boost your SEO and conversion rate by optimizing the website speed. For faster page loading time, you have to pick a reliable Magento hosting services provider. Images, product details, content such as blogs, everything can be SEO-optimized with keywords. You can also add an SEO-optimized, smooth checkout funnel.
WordPress provides SEO plugins like WP Rocket, and Yoast SEO to optimize your eCommerce site for SEO.
7. Marketing and Content Management
Magento is a dedicated eCommerce platform but it does come with built-in CMS capabilities. It allows you to build and edit pages using drag-and-drop features. You can also conduct A/B testing on your content to check which method or content works most in turning your visitors into buyers.
Some of the best CMS features are:
- Content marketing tools
- Schedule & preview content updates
- Ai and ML technologies help in content optimization
- Product recommendations
- Tailoring content with customer segmentation
- Template editor
- Cross channel content
Yes, WordPress is the best content management system available in the market. But its tools and features are focused on publishing blogs and not on eCommerce. WordPress can manage a large amount of content but not if that content is specific to a large number of products and product categories. When it comes to eCommerce content management, WordPress has limitations. You can make use of it using plugins like WooCommerce or WP Shopify to optimize product content.
8. Site Development
Learning Magento is a challenging task. And using it for development purposes requires you to be highly skilled and have technical knowledge. You can also opt for a reliable Magento developers company that can understand your business requirements and guide you successfully through your eCommerce development project.
Developing a website is easy with WordPress but as the platform doesn’t have enough capabilities to build an eCommerce site, it has to rely on third-party plugins. Now, since they are just plugins and extensions, all they can do is help in creating a basic eCommerce store. But seeing that it’s in WordPress, it wouldn’t require you to have much technical knowledge or spend any more time in development. So, building an online store is pretty easy with WordPress too.
9. Flexibility and Customizing
Magento is a very flexible platform and every user or developer can customize their store to fulfill their unique requirements. And since the platform is open-source, hundreds of thousands of developers around the world that support Magento can add their features, functionalities, plugins, and more to the community.
This can further help the developer to personalize the store. This eCommerce platform also enables you to create different selling channels to meet the requirements of your targeted audience. Although Magento can indeed handle a high level of customization, developers and store owners have to make sure that it doesn’t adversely affect the speed of the site.
In the case of WordPress, it can be said to be flexible and customizable because you are free to use wherever plugins and extensions are available to build a unique eCommerce site for you. The problem here is that your customization is limited to what these plugins and extensions offer. Because the platform isn’t itself eCommerce oriented, you have to rely on third-party plugins only.
10. Plugins and Extensions
The functionalities of the Magento platform can be increased with the help of third-party plugins and extensions. You can easily find them in the Magento marketplace or on websites like Amasty. Some of the best plugins allow you to automate certain eCommerce operations which can help you reduce the accounts and order management. Meanwhile, some of them can help you increase the visibility of your site.
WordPress also offers a variety of plugins and extensions. Truthfully, eCommerce development with WordPress is possible only because they offer eCommerce plugins and extensions. In addition to that, you can enhance the functionality of your online store with the help of a large range of eCommerce plugins.
However, it is important to note that with every new plugin or extension added, you make your platform as well as your eCommerce site vulnerable to cyber attacks. So make sure you pick a secure plugin or extension.
11. Pricing
Magento offers three types of pricing plans –
- Magento Open Source: Open-source means free. This version of Magento is the most popular and widely used around the world. It’s free and suits businesses of all sizes.
- Adobe Commerce: This version is designed specifically for large-scale eCommerce enterprises. Its price starts at $22,000 per year.
- Adobe Commerce Cloud: again this version is built specifically for large-scale eCommerce enterprises but with one little change for those who seek in-built cloud hosting. The charges for this version start at $44,000/year.
Apart from that, you will have to bear the costs of Magento development hosting.
Similar to Magneto, WordPress also offers a free version to create and run eCommerce stores. In addition to that, the platform offers more plans namely personal, premium, business, and eCommerce that you can cater to according to your requirements. There will be costs of using the eCommerce plugins like WooCommerce and WP Shopify. Moreover, you also have to consider the costs for the following:
- Premium themes and extensions
- Development rate per hour
- WordPress hosting
- eCommerce security
Magento vs. WordPress – Which is Best for an eCommerce Store?
After carefully considering the strengths and weaknesses of both platforms, I think it is safe to say that Magento is the perfect choice for eCommerce development. It can provide all the features and plugins you will need to offer an enhanced online shopping experience to customers.
It is important to note that the core functionality of WordPress is content development and management. Even with the eCommerce plugins, it is not quite on par with top eCommerce management platforms. You have to get more tools and resources to offer a basic online shopping experience to your customers.
Still, I’d say that the decision of choosing a platform will solely rely on your business requirements. If any version of WordPress is more than enough to meet them easily, you can gladly opt for it. WordPress can help you out if your eCommerce website is content focused or you are just a beginner in the industry.
But if you want to grow your business or already have a large established business and move it online then you would have to go with Magento. Of course, Magento can be used for eCommerce businesses of all sizes but here we are talking about the situations in which the platforms would be considered an ideal choice.
Just in case, you need to develop an eCommerce store that requires both eCommerce and a CMS system then you can use both of these platforms combined. After all, both of them are strong software solutions.
