WordPress is currently the most popular content management system, enabling easy and fast management for numerous websites types, from blog to business presentation or a web-shop.
When deciding to offer goods at your website, the most common way is to use an e-commerce platform that will integrate well into your WordPress website.
E-commerce platforms such as WooCommerce, Magneto or Shopify offer easy management, good design and are user-friendly even for those that had no previous website development experience. It is not easy to pick one as the best or most suitable to your retail needs, so we will talk about their positive and negative features.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is an open source (free) e-commerce platform built to run on WordPress. It will enable you to setup your retail, manage goods, and receive payments.
The fact that it runs with WordPress is very positive because it enables you to use a large library of plugins and themes, free or paid. Most notably it is very easy to use, but it provides only basic security and protection, and it must be hosted on your website hosting with your hosting company.
On the negative side, cost to using premium WordPress themes and plugins can build-up to a substantial expense. You are limited to WordPress only, so if you ever want to escape WordPress ecosystem then it may become an issue.
Magento
Magento is another open-source e-commerce platform which can be used as a free though somewhat limited solution, or a fully functional paid one that will provide more features and support.
Using Magento demands some knowledge of the website development, and with the free version you need to host the platform, while the paid version comes with hosting. Security is substantially better with advanced security features and regular platform patches that will alleviate any vulnerabilities.
On the down side, Magento seems to be aimed at serious website developers rather than average users, and the paid “Enterprise” version is not cheap. Having all this in mind we can say that it is a poor choice for beginners.
E-commerce platform performance
Now that we have discussed both platform features, we should talk about platform performance. Every second your website is loading assets instead of displaying content may cost you conversion and profit. When used with WordPress, both platforms provide similar loading speed, so neither will offer true performance benefit over another.
Instead, the means to having a fast e-commerce platform are upon your website content optimization. Images and any video content must be optimized for fast loading, meaning you and your hosting provider take the responsibility for website loading time.
We can conclude that WooCommerce may be a better choice for WordPress beginners and those that would choose easy of use over security with a free platform.
On the other hand, Magneto will provide better security and you will need some website development skills and be ready to pay for the full-feature platform.