8 best ecommerce platforms compared

There’s a large selection of pro­fes­sion­al store systems for online retail but what are the most popular store systems on the market and how do they differ from one another? In our com­par­is­on of the best platforms for ecommerce, you’ll discover the options available for executing pro­fes­sion­al online store designs.

The most popular ecommerce platforms

If you look at the market for ecommerce software, two solutions stand out in par­tic­u­lar. According to the analysis company BuiltWith, around a quarter of all online retailers worldwide rely on Shopify. The WordPress plugin Woo­Com­merce follows in second with around 15%. Here, we’ll take a closer look at the market for open-source and pro­pri­et­ary ecommerce software, exploring what low-cost store systems can do and who should possibly opt for a pro­pri­et­ary ap­plic­a­tion instead of an open-source one. We’ll also go over when you might encounter ad­di­tion­al costs with open-source software.

IONOS eCommerce Website Builder

With the eCommerce Website Builder, IONOS offers web-based ecommerce software that can be used to implement both small and large ecommerce projects. You have the choice between three different paid packages, which combine all necessary com­pon­ents of an ecommerce offer in one package. In addition to the shop platform, you also receive a domain, an SSL/TLS cer­ti­fic­ate and several email inboxes. IONOS also takes care of your store’s hosting and offers you 24/7 support.

The eCommerce Website Builder is based on modular software that has been part of the IONOS portfolio for years and has es­tab­lished itself as an excellent solution for creating a wide variety of websites. When it comes to setting up and operating a web store, the store packages take the basic software to a new level. This is reflected, on the one hand, in unique, pro­fes­sion­al design templates that are optimally tailored to the needs of an ecommerce presence, and on the other hand, in sales and marketing-oriented features that extend far beyond simple shop op­er­a­tions, helping you to boost the success of your store.

The core features of the eCommerce Website Builder include the following:

• Product catalogue with space for up to one million articles (Expert package) including photo, article number, and detailed de­scrip­tion
• Various tra­di­tion­al and modern payment methods such as PayPal, credit cards and direct debit
• Practical dispatch assistant (standard or express shipping)
• In­teg­rated news­let­ter tool
• Per­son­al­ised shopping basket
• Social media in­teg­ra­tion (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok)

With the eCommerce Website Builder, you can do more than just get your online store ready for B2C business. If you opt for one of the cor­res­pond­ing packages, you can also offer your buyers first-class B2B offers by defining customer groups and bulk discounts and setting up an easy-to-use customer area with log-in function where they can easily make orders.

To increase the reach of your store, you can integrate and syn­chron­ise your website with es­tab­lished mar­ket­place giants such as Amazon and eBay, or price com­par­is­on portals such as Google Shopping thanks to the ap­pro­pri­ate in­ter­faces. You can also use the in­teg­rated marketing tools to create tailor-made ads on Google (Google Ads) and TikTok to promote your web shop on the world’s leading search engine or in well-known social networks.

From the Plus package onwards, you can manage your shop not only on your desktop PC at home or in your company, but also con­veni­ently on the go. With the mobile app, you can use the online shop software on your smart­phone or tablet. This enables you to always keep an eye on how your web store’s doing or expand your product range, no matter where you are at the moment.

Magento

Magento was acquired by the Adobe software group in 2018. Since then, the ecommerce software has been dis­trib­uted under a dual license system.

In addition to the free open-source version, Magento Commerce is also available com­mer­cially in an extended en­ter­prise edition. As part of the Adobe Ex­per­i­ence Cloud, the store software can also be used with various useful tools for marketing, analysis, content and more.

Magento has an extensive spectrum of features and a wide range of ex­ten­sions. The main features include:

• Central control of multiple websites via an ad­min­is­tra­tion panel
• RSS feeds for new orders and low stocks
• URL rewriting and search engine friendly URLS
• An in­teg­rated content man­age­ment system for in­form­a­tion pages and landing pages
• An auto­mat­ic­ally generated Google sitemap
• Optional social media in­teg­ra­tion
• A com­pre­hens­ive range of marketing, promotion and con­ver­sion tools

Ecommerce software written in PHP is based on the Zend framework and relies on a re­la­tion­al database man­age­ment system. Even if the modular platform is scalable, users should have a powerful server. With a solid hosting found­a­tion, major web projects can suc­cess­fully be im­ple­men­ted.

Thanks to wide­spread use of the software and an active user community, Magento is one of the fastest growing ecommerce platforms on the market. Beginners can easily find help, tips and ex­ten­sions in user forums and on various knowledge-sharing platforms. In­stall­a­tion, con­fig­ur­a­tion and use of the high-per­form­ance ecommerce platform requires know-how, though. Users can get pro­fes­sion­al support by using the paid Cloud Edition or through business partners and agents who offer a wide range of services to Magento users.

The ecommerce software was ori­gin­ally designed for the U.S. market, so the basic in­stall­a­tion of Magento doesn’t always meet the legal re­quire­ments for certain countries. Luckily, you can use modules to solve this issue.

Shopware

Shopware provides a dual licensing system. Alongside the Rise, Evolve and Beyond versions, a free Community edition is also available. With over 20 years of market ex­per­i­ence and more than 100,000 customers, this self-financed company has become a key player in the ecommerce scene.

The different Shopware versions provide different sets of feature sets. The pricing is de­term­ined by gross mer­chand­ise value (GMV) as well as other factors. With its open-source commerce platform, users also have access to the source code. Users opting to use the Community Edition will have to manage with a con­sid­er­ably limited feature set or use paid ex­ten­sions. Ad­di­tion­ally, Shopware does not offer man­u­fac­turer war­ranties, setup or main­ten­ance for the free version. There is, however, a public online forum on the company’s website.

The shop system, written in PHP, features a user-friendly backend and com­pre­hens­ive extension pos­sib­il­it­ies. The main features of the community version are:

• Intuitive store design without the need for pro­gram­ming skills
• Con­sist­ent flat design
• Re­spons­ive images
• Off-canvas menus and controls optimised for touch gestures
• In­teg­rated SEO op­tim­isa­tion
• Multi-shop cap­ab­il­it­ies

You can request a live demo of the ecommerce platform on the official website of Shopware, allowing you a glimpse into the backend of the ecommerce software. Al­tern­at­ively, you can simply download the open-source Community edition to try out the software on your computer or on a web server.

Shopware offers over 3,500 plugins for im­ple­ment­ing creative shop concepts, most of which you can purchase directly from Shopware or from certified partners. Many premium plugins, however, require a com­mer­cial Shopware license. The company also provides a wide range of pro­fes­sion­al, largely re­spons­ive themes, along with training programs for op­er­a­tions, sales and software de­vel­op­ment.

When a com­mer­cial license is purchased, the ecommerce platform’s backend comes with essential inventory man­age­ment func­tion­al­ity (Shopware ERP) like stock control, automated order pro­cessing and tools for business analytics.

OXID eShop

OXID eShop is an ecommerce platform for OXID eSales EG, a popular Germany company. The software is available to users in an open-source community version as well as for the com­mer­cial sector in a pro­fes­sion­al edition and en­ter­prise edition. Primary target groups of the ecommerce software are small and medium-sized B2C busi­nesses. Since 2015, the product range includes an en­ter­prise B2B edition.

With a large selection of ex­ten­sions and countless APIs for third-party systems, OXID eShops has es­tab­lished a flexible al­tern­at­ive to Shopware and Magento that scales. The PHP-based ecommerce platform works with a modular ar­chi­tec­ture, which allows the lean software core to be adapted to different ap­plic­a­tions. Users can rely on a large number of existing modules or integrate new func­tion­al­it­ies using self-developed ex­ten­sions via the OXID API. Software modules are available through the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket­place OXID eXchange and the module catalogue, oxmod. Prices vary, ranging from free models to ex­ten­sions that can cost up to several thousand pounds.

OXID eShop offers the same range of func­tion­al­ity in its free, open-source Community version as it does in its Pro­fes­sion­al edition. Users who opt for the Community version only miss out on the ERP/SOAP interface and pro­fes­sion­al man­u­fac­turer support. In the En­ter­prise edition, users have access to the full range of func­tion­al­ity, including multi-client cap­ab­il­ity, cache man­age­ment, B2B features, and rights and role man­age­ment.

High­lights of the Community version include:

• In­teg­rated content man­age­ment system (CMS)
• Web 2.0 package including tagging, rating and Facebook in­teg­ra­tion
• SAP con­nectiv­ity
• SEO features for articles
• SAP con­nec­tion

Mul­ti­lin­gual online stores can be created with the Community version by using cent­ral­ised language man­age­ment. To ensure the best possible user ex­per­i­ence for your customers on various devices, OXID eShop offers a re­spons­ive template in all of its editions. The in­teg­rated template engine, Smarty, enables unique web shop design.

While the software has a well-struc­tured frontend, the backend is less intuitive when compared to other ecommerce platforms. You can get an im­pres­sion of how the software works by re­quest­ing a personal demo via the ecommerce software’s official website.

Woo­Com­merce

Woo­Com­merce functions via a WordPress plugin, which allows the most popular content man­age­ment system to benefit from a wide range of extended ecommerce func­tion­al­it­ies. Ori­gin­ally developed by WooThemes, the project is now sponsored by Auto­mat­tic. The open-source software seam­lessly in­teg­rates with WordPress websites and can be cus­tom­ised with more than 400 ex­ten­sions.

The Woo­Com­merce plugin is free. However, many functions are only available with paid premium plugins. Woo­Com­merce’s central features include:

• Various pre-installed payment options
• Geo­loc­al­isa­tion features
• Flexible shipping options
• In­teg­rated features for cal­cu­lat­ing taxes
• Coupon system
• Support for down­load­able products (e.g. e-books)
• Tools for customer re­la­tion­ship man­age­ment (CRM)

Woo­Com­merce comes with a basic template for all the design elements of your online store, allowing it to be combined with any WordPress theme. You can also purchase special Woo­Com­merce themes to tailor the design and layout of your store to your ideas and pref­er­ences. Check out the live preview of the official Woo­Com­merce standard theme Store­front to get a better idea of how a Woo­Com­merce store can be designed.

When it comes to search engines, the Woo­Com­merce plugin is served well by its CMS found­a­tion. WordPress is already search-engine friendly in its standard in­stall­a­tion and can be modified using various SEO ex­ten­sions to spe­cific­ally fit the needs of Google, Bing and other search engines. However, when it comes to en­ter­prise resource planning (ERP), the online store plugin can’t compete with pro­fes­sion­al ecommerce platforms as there are only a few in­teg­ra­tions available for pro­fes­sion­al ERP solutions.

The core of Woo­Com­merce is designed to be mobile friendly. How well a shop is displayed on mobile devices depends primarily on the choice of template. In order to adapt Woo­Com­merce to in­ter­na­tion­al markets, spe­cial­ised plugins need to be installed. These are generally available for free on the different language versions of the WordPress website. You can also opt to use com­mer­cial products or other options that are available.

Shopify

The ecommerce solution Shopify was founded in 2006 and has quickly grown into a major player, both for small companies and large fran­chises alike. Shopify offers a large range of func­tion­al­ity as well as a wide range of free and paid ex­ten­sions. From the basic version to Shopify Advanced, the four Shopify packages provide users with different levels of func­tion­al­ity and support. All users have access to a 24/7 dedicated help service though. Users who want to test the platform before pur­chas­ing a monthly package can also make use of the 14-day free trial.

According to Shopify, more than half a million online retailers of all sizes have used the ecommerce software for designing and setting up their online store. The wide range of features that they offer allows users to design their online store in whatever way they want without sac­ri­fi­cing usability for beginners. By keeping the basic in­stall­a­tion simple, Shopify lends itself to basic users while also allowing more advanced users to fully customise their store through ex­ten­sions and plugins. While many of the ex­ten­sions in Shopify’s app store are free, there are also premium paid options as well.

Shopify offers an expansive selection of themes, with most of the new ones fully func­tion­al right from the start. Re­spons­ive themes are available for all of the packages, and SEO features are built directly into the ecommerce platform. Ad­di­tion­ally, users can access mer­chand­ise man­age­ment and analysis tools in the backend.

Users are also allowed unlimited products and storage and can customise discount codes on the backend. Checkout is fast and secure, and payments can be processed through the software’s own program, Shopify Payments.

The platform’s main features include:

• Store­front themes and cus­tom­isa­tion
• Abandoned shopping basket recovery
• Product and inventory man­age­ment
• 24/7 customer support
• Over 70 payment gateways in­teg­rated

Though Shopify is easy enough for beginners to use, extensive cus­tom­isa­tion requires users to learn Shopify’s own pro­gram­ming language, Liquid. While basic changes can generally be carried out using HTML or CSS, pro­gram­mers need to learn Liquid if they want more freedom and flex­ib­il­ity.

Gambio

The ecommerce software Gambio started as an offshoot of the popular German software solution xt:Commerce, and was further developed by the Bremen-based company Gambio GmbH as an in­de­pend­ent open-source project. The software is dis­trib­uted under the GPL/GNU license (2.0) but is only offered by the developer team in com­bin­a­tion with a paid support package. In addition to a 12-month guarantee, the paid download also includes a pro­pri­et­ary stylesheet editor as well as a PDF module.

With the release of Gambio GX3, the shop system provider has suc­cess­fully separated from xt:Commerce and extended its reach to major online retailers. To capture the interest of pro­fes­sion­al agencies, Gambio now offers a well-doc­u­mented REST API, providing a stand­ard­ised interface for de­vel­op­ment for the first time. The re­spons­ive standard template Honeygrid is built on es­tab­lished standards like the CSS framework Bootstrap, HTML 5, SASS, and jQuery. It can be cus­tom­ised according to in­di­vidu­al needs with the built-in stylesheet editor, StyleEdit, which is suitable for people without IT expertise as well.

The software’s range of functions includes:

• Extensive SEO features such as search engine-friendly URLs, caching and sitemaps
• In­teg­ra­tions with relevant payment providers, mer­chand­ise man­age­ment systems and price com­par­is­on portals
• In­teg­rated warehouse man­age­ment
• An internal store rating system
• Support for down­load­able products
• Invoices and delivery bills in PDF format
• Pre-cer­ti­fic­a­tion for Trusted Shops

PrestaShop

Developed in France, the ecommerce platform PrestaShop is used by more than 300,000 online retailers in more than 200 countries. The open-source ecommerce software is published under the Open Software License (OSL) 3.0. Available in over 60 languages, the software has been designed to cater to an in­ter­na­tion­al audience.

With a focus on small and medium-sized companies, PrestaShop is intended for beginners who want to get online quickly and easily using a low-cost ecommerce solution. The software combines an im­press­ive range of features with a clear, well-struc­tured user interface. Like the other store systems presented here, PrestaShop can also be con­veni­ently accessed through a web browser. High­lights of the more than 300 standard in­teg­rated features are:

• Re­spons­ive frontend
• Customer eval­u­ation feature and product re­com­mend­a­tions via social media
• Customer service tool for managing customer inquiries
• In­teg­rated tool for pro­cessing returns
• Multishop and mul­ti­lin­gual cap­ab­il­it­ies
• In­teg­rated CMS for standard pages (e.g., About Us page or Terms and Con­di­tions page)
• Mer­chand­ise man­age­ment (including warehouse man­age­ment)

The PrestaShop add-ons mar­ket­place has more than 3,000 modules and over 5,000 pro­fes­sion­al templates available—many of them with re­spons­ive design. PrestaShop modules from the core de­vel­op­ment team and official partners are re­l­at­ively pricey, so users who want to expand the free software core with add-ons will have to shoulder ad­di­tion­al costs.

PrestaShop also offers a demo shop that shows potential customers how the software looks in the backend as well as from the per­spect­ive of shop customers, all without having to log in.

The top ecommerce platforms compared

Below, we’ve created a table that clearly high­lights the sim­il­ar­it­ies and dif­fer­ences between the ecommerce solutions presented in this article. We’ve spe­cific­ally focused on the factors that are most important when choosing an ecommerce software solution.

Which ecommerce software is right for you?

Getting started in the world of online commerce requires an in­vest­ment and should be ap­proached with a focus on the long term. Thorough planning and extensive pre­par­a­tion is needed when choosing ecommerce software for your online shop. Switching platforms later typically involves sub­stan­tial costs and a sig­ni­fic­ant amount of time. To ensure you find a suitable shop system, it’s important to follow these steps:

Examine your business model and pinpoint critical areas for action. Using this in­form­a­tion, you’ll be able to develop a detailed business plan for your online shop and a re­quire­ments profile for your ecommerce solution. Key questions you should ask yourself are:

• What knowledge do you have regarding the setup and main­ten­ance of an online shop?
• Do you plan to run your online shop full-time or part-time?
• Will the online shop be the only sales platform or will you have other sales channels as well?
• How many products do you want to offer through your online shop?
• Which markets do you want to serve? Which languages do you want to support?
• How many orders do you think you will receive each month?

In addition, you should also clarify the financial re­quire­ments needed to suc­cess­fully launch and run your web shop. This means con­sid­er­ing both the seed money as well as future running costs. If you want your shop to ex­per­i­ence con­tinu­ous growth, it’s essential to in­cor­por­ate this into your planning.