Nowadays, almost everyone identifies Shopify with legitimate online buying. It is one of the most extensively used e-commerce websites globally, with over a million firms utilizing it in more than 175 countries. Examining the best Shopify substitutes and weighing the benefits and drawbacks of every e-commerce platform will enable us to comprehend the reasons behind certain entrepreneurs' migration from Shopify to BigCommerce.
Shopify is an e-commerce software that enables the operation of online stores. You may construct a website, manage items, calculate shipping costs, and sell through a variety of channels using the platform. Because Shopify is a hosted, cloud-based system, you are also free from support and maintenance responsibilities. With its e-commerce services, Shopify provides assistance for small and large enterprises, including Shopify and Shopify Plus. Additionally, Shopify offers Shopify Lite as an option if you wish to add a buy button to an existing website or blog, even if there isn't a free plan.
1. WooCommerce
WooCommerce will surface in every e-commerce software search, no matter how little. You may install your own WooCommerce store by following the WooCommerce tutorial we've created for you. WooCommerce is among the best Shopify solutions available to many business owners.
It is completely free to use, open-source, and—best of all—gets great ratings for visitor satisfaction metrics. Some users even claim that it surpasses Shopify in many aspects. Scalability is a bit problematic because you have to purchase the more expensive edition if you want the more advanced capabilities. Apart than that, though, WooCommerce has all the functionality you could ask for. It is simple and easy to add an expensive cart to a website.
It is also responsive, which makes it easy to create websites that are optimized for mobile devices. All that has to be paid is the hosting price. Furthermore, you just need to make a single transaction to access their sophisticated features, unlike Shopify. It should be noted that WooCommerce isn't very adept at debugging.
When paired with reliable e-commerce hosting, you can significantly boost the performance of your WooCommerce website. You may even integrate your store with several abandoned cart plugins to increase its effectiveness. If you want to upsell after a transaction, you may set up your website so that customers can add extra goods or suggestions with just one click.
Benefits
WordPress smoothly integrates a number of components to guarantee optimal creativity. One-click upsells are available after the purchase.
Easy to set up, flexibility to sell an infinite amount of products on your website, and access to hundreds of free and pricey extensions
If you want the flexibility of a drag-and-drop editor and a simple, no-frills experience while setting up your website, BigCommerce is a great choice. Just seven of the platform's numerous exquisite themes are offered for free across all genres. It's more customisable than Shopify, but the premium ones come at a price. BigCommerce does, however, load a little more slowly than other websites.
Benefits
A plethora of integrated, drag-and-drop graphic editing tools will assist you in creating an amazing online store.
Over 55 safe payment channels and no transaction costs
Various sales channels
A lot of choices are free, such as the Instagram in-app checkout feature.
completely customizable URLs with SEO potential that work with a variety of company concepts
Benefits
WordPress smoothly integrates a number of components to guarantee optimal creativity. One-click upsells are available after the purchase.
Easy to set up, flexibility to sell an infinite amount of products on your website, and access to hundreds of free and pricey extensions
- There is no hosting provided.
- You'll need some familiarity with technology.
- sporadically awkward
2. BigCommerce
If you want the flexibility of a drag-and-drop editor and a simple, no-frills experience while setting up your website, BigCommerce is a great choice. Just seven of the platform's numerous exquisite themes are offered for free across all genres. It's more customisable than Shopify, but the premium ones come at a price. BigCommerce does, however, load a little more slowly than other websites.
Benefits
A plethora of integrated, drag-and-drop graphic editing tools will assist you in creating an amazing online store.
Over 55 safe payment channels and no transaction costs
Various sales channels
A lot of choices are free, such as the Instagram in-app checkout feature.
completely customizable URLs with SEO potential that work with a variety of company concepts
Negative aspect
Customers may already be familiar with Magneto. eBay acquired the company in 2011 and Adobe followed suit in 2018. This well-known platform, with a sizable and thriving global community, is great for store owners who have been in operation for a while. When you take into consideration the prices, it's easy to understand why Magento is so popular. It's among the best Shopify substitutes because of how close the prices are to WooCommerce's.
- Pricing could appear a little confusing to new users.
- A little difficult to set up
- The velocities change
- There are just five free themes available.
3. Magento
Customers may already be familiar with Magneto. eBay acquired the company in 2011 and Adobe followed suit in 2018. This well-known platform, with a sizable and thriving global community, is great for store owners who have been in operation for a while. When you take into consideration the prices, it's easy to understand why Magento is so popular. It's among the best Shopify substitutes because of how close the prices are to WooCommerce's.
The free content management system has to be bought in addition to the hosting, themes, and plugins. But Magento is really just a content management system (CMS) that lets you focus on selling all of your items through an open-source environment, which is great for businesses that are looking to expand.
Benefits
With the help of more than 250K developers and state-of-the-art features, you may create an attractive and effective online shop.
There are several of secure payment gateway options available.
Your online store should have responsive design.
Many extensions and add-ons accessible through its wide network of partners; first-rate community support; drawbacks
With its relatively modern architecture, OpenCart is a free alternative to Shopify that lets you create websites that look professional and are customizable to your specifications. It has good documentation and a large user base. Most e-commerce customers frequently desire it to support thousands of third-party modules and add-ons.
Benefits
Perfect for the vast majority of online retailers
incredibly flexible and compatible with several payment gateways
incredibly quick setup and deployment that works with several payment gateways
Benefits
With the help of more than 250K developers and state-of-the-art features, you may create an attractive and effective online shop.
There are several of secure payment gateway options available.
Your online store should have responsive design.
Many extensions and add-ons accessible through its wide network of partners; first-rate community support; drawbacks
- Technical and coding skills are required in order to utilize the open-source alternative efficiently.
- Because it is difficult to handle alone, novice users could find it confusing.
- very expensive
4. Opencart
With its relatively modern architecture, OpenCart is a free alternative to Shopify that lets you create websites that look professional and are customizable to your specifications. It has good documentation and a large user base. Most e-commerce customers frequently desire it to support thousands of third-party modules and add-ons.
Benefits
Perfect for the vast majority of online retailers
incredibly flexible and compatible with several payment gateways
incredibly quick setup and deployment that works with several payment gateways
- Not as user-friendly as Shopify
- The materials and support are hard for the average individual to grasp.
- Undoubtedly not the easiest platform to utilize
- Fewer add-ons than Shopify
5. Wix
Wix, a 2006 startup, makes website building easy for everyone and provides business solutions ideal for e-commerce businesses. If you require a very simple website builder and have minimal expertise, Wix can be a better option than Shopify.
Benefits
Using a drag-and-drop website builder makes it easy to swiftly start your business.
Support is provided for 300 variation SKUs in total, with six options for each product.
Wix features an extensive Help Center that may be searched.
For a full year, all of their premium e-commerce website options come with a free domain.
- The maximum amount of storage you may have is 50GB, unless you have an enterprise package with more storage.
- Apple Pay and Amazon Payments are not accepted as forms of payment on Wix.
- Unfortunately, there isn't currently any chat assistance available. You will need to call or submit a support request.
- It is challenging to navigate the app store with Wix's vast array of non-e-commerce-focused website possibilities.
6. Shift4Shop
Since 1997, Shift4Shop has offered e-commerce software with an emphasis on SEO. Therefore, if you're an SEO fanatic and heavily rely on organic search, you could prefer Shift4Shop over Shopify.
Benefits
Google AMP for goods and 301 redirects are two more SEO techniques.
There is an integrated blogging platform in every package.
A fully functional e-commerce platform for little shops may be acquired for less money than Shopify's Basic plan.
more than 100 choices, including international processors, for online payments.
- Each limited staff user is subject to an additional monthly fee.
- Because of its high learning curve, the shop builder might be difficult to browse and find the tools you need at times.
- All of the free themes seem very similar when compared to the templates offered by BigCommerce or Shopify.
7. Pinnacle Cart
Pinnacle Cart is a shopping cart solution designed for small to mid-sized enterprises that has a significant focus on marketing. It was founded in 2003. This is a great choice if you want more SEO tools and control over your store as a Shopify substitute.
Benefits
Select between using Pinnacle Cart for hosting or managing hosting on your own.
components that are good for SEO, such schema.org tags and unique URLs.
There is an infinite number of products and categories available in each bundle.
- The lowest $79.95 plan includes storage and bandwidth limitations, so if you want to host with Pinnacle Cart, you'll need to upgrade to a more costly plan or pay extra.
- Pinnacle Cart comes in several versions, so you'll have to handle updates.
- Its partner network is rather modest, since it only connects with 64 apps.
- Compared to Shopify's vast selection of themes, Pinnacle Cart offers just twelve.
8. Squarespace
If your product selection is restricted and you want to start your own internet business, Squarespace can be the perfect fit. The platform provides a number of templates together with an excellent website-building tool. You can construct an amazing online store with a few little adjustments. Additionally, customers should be informed that Squarespace exclusively takes online payments made using Stripe and PayPal. It also comes with a number of marketing tools, such as AdWords, MailChimp, and Amazon Affiliates monitoring.
Benefits
ideal for small retailers
Impressive themes are really easy to set up and don't require any technical knowledge. You may use your own product images and designs, and a variety of beautiful templates are available to help you establish an eye-catching online store.
- does not offer tracking code API integration for tracking store visits.
- Not much help is provided.
- Few multi-channel functionalities are offered.
- The webpage may load more quickly.
- Compared to Shopify, there are less add-ons available.
9. X-Cart
Developed by Qualiteam, the X-Cart is relatively easy to use, fast, and efficient. It is advertised as an all-in-one solution for your e-commerce needs and comes with a ton of features. This powerful platform is a solid alternative to Shopify as it provides an endless amount of customization options and can be easily used by an experienced developer to create an amazing store. However, be advised that in the event of an issue, the firm may not be able to offer much support. They will simply blame your servers for the issue, leaving you to handle finding a solution on your own.
Benefits
The virtual server runs really smoothly.
It is easy to set up and utilize.
- For X-cart, developers can be hard to come by and somewhat expensive.
- The company has a habit of blaming the server for issues.
10. Square Online Stores
Many endorse The Square Online Store as a comprehensive solution for all e-commerce needs. If Square Online Store sounds too sophisticated for your company goals, it can be a suitable substitute for Shopify. While Square's POS systems remain its primary offering, business owners are also beginning to choose its e-commerce platform. You have a free plan, however every payment has a transaction cost.
In return, you obtain assistance for an endless quantity of items, the capability to utilize a shopping cart, and more. Only a few functions are offered as of right now, and Square is the only accepted payment processor. PayPal requires you to choose their premium plan in order to use it. For those who are new to Shopify, it's a great alternative. Furthermore, the free plan does not allow you to add other alternatives for accepting payments or other e-commerce technologies as your company grows. As a result, your online business can suffer.
Benefits
It's actually quite easy to set up.
There, you may register for a cost-free plan.
allows for direct communication with Square Drawbacks:
Benefits
It's actually quite easy to set up.
There, you may register for a cost-free plan.
allows for direct communication with Square Drawbacks:
- only supports Square unless you pay a large fee to unlock support for PayPal.
- Scalability poses a problem.
- Which plan you select will determine which features are available.
11. Weebly
Weebly is another useful hosted platform that those seeking for a free alternative to Shopify could consider. Despite having less capabilities overall than Shopify, Weebly's most costly plan is far less expensive than Shopify's Basic Plan. If you want an online store that functions flawlessly but don't want to spend a lot of money, Weebly could be the answer you're searching for. If you want to utilize a simple builder to make a website, Weebly is a great alternative that is easy to use right out of the box.
Benefits
Affordably fast and easy to get started
Launch your website instantly and choose from a variety of tools and apps.
provides you with membership zones and facilitates teamwork
Completely free domain
Test for free
- Scalability is a problem.
- It's really basic, so don't anticipate all the bells and whistles.
- Unsuitable for large-volume retailers
12. Ecwid
Ecwid is yet another fantastic alternative to Shopify. It works as an add-on that lets you distribute information on the websites you already have and social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Amazon, and so forth. Their plugin may also be used to construct a WordPress store. It offers a variety of POS tools and payment gateway options for user convenience as well as assistance with sales and payments. The ability to sell digital items using Ecwid is an additional advantage. Moreover, it offers substitutes for marketing automation and lets companies provide discounts to customers.
Benefits
The platform is easy to navigate.
For novice users, the dashboard is easy to use and comprehend.
ties together with already-running websites
Customers may control the store with their smartphone application.
- There is some third-party tool support available.
- The functionality of the freeware version is severely limited.
- Gorgeous designs are available, however the options are limited.
- There aren't many products that can be bought with the free plan.
