By If you are already running a website or are thinking of taking your business online by incorporating e-commerce features then you might get overwhelmed considering the options available in the market to do so. Most of the business owners, as well as developers, face this dilemma of WordPress vs Magento. They have it all figured out about developing an eCommerce store like all the latest features they want to add but most often they cant decide from which platform will be beneficial for their business.
If you are looking for a completely customized solution then nothing can be better for you than Magento development for e-commerce apps. You don’t have to use any ready-made template and can choose from picking everything on the site right down to the color scheme. But if you are looking for some plugins and extensions then your requirements will be met nowhere else but with WordPress only.
I get it. Both the options are very interesting. So here in this blog, we are going to compare these platforms and help you out to make an informed decision for your business.
Magento vs WordPress – Overview
What is WordPress?
WordPress is an open-source content management system and a blogging platform. Being the world’s most famous and widely used CMS, WordPress powers more than 40% of websites on the internet. And that’s not it. The sites like eBay that owns Magento are also using the WordPress platform for their blogs. It is a very easy-to-use platform. WordPress is popular for its easy-to-integrate plug-in architecture. Although they provide readymade templates, you can also customize them according to your needs.
You can create your eCommerce website using this platform and integrate it with several third-party plugins like WooCommerce, easy digital download, and more.
What is Magento?
Similar to WordPress, Magento is also an open-source platform. With different types of dedicated e-commerce functionalities, more than 150,000 online store owners ranging from small businesses to large enterprises use this eCommerce platform. This also includes some of the globally leading brands.
The demand for Magento development and Magento developers from India among many businesses and industries is on the rise. You can get an advanced level of customized work and many functionalities which allow you to easily configure your online store as per your business needs. Magento offers a comprehensive set of features like reporting, marketing, multi-store management, mobile commerce, search engine optimization, and many more critical business management tools.
The Magento interface is so user-friendly that you can easily create menus, complex content pages, version control, and so on just like WordPress. Moreover, you get more security from Magento in comparison to the third-party extensions of the WordPress platform.
If you decide on using Magento to fulfill your requirements then you must visit Magento.com and select the edition which you want to use. There are two types of Magento editions:
- The first option is the very cost-effective, named enterprise edition. It is a kind of bespoke solution that can be leveraged to enhance the performance and scale the business of your enterprise. With the purchase of this edition, you also get access to the hundreds of features and extensions that can empower your online store and give you more control over it. You also get 24*7 expert support.
- Another Magento edition is available free to download and it’s called the community edition. It is suitable for small businesses or developers who want to learn Magento. This edition is an open-source solution. Picking it will give you access to community support, user groups, coupons, and so forth along with all the basic Magento features. Meanwhile, you can also get some amazing and unique features to use for your ecommerce store from Magento like related products, cross-sells, multi-store, and upsells.
Magento vs WordPress – Similarities
While discussing the basics of the platform, you have pretty much got a general idea about what these platforms are and how businesses leverage them for their benefit. Now before comparing them to decide a winner for you, let us look at what these platforms have in common in their offerings and services.
As we discussed, both the platforms, WordPress and Magento are open-source solutions. They both offer you a chance for scalability and customization. In short, you can get complete control over your online store. The most important thing here is that a high level of technical knowledge is necessary to use these platforms for managing your eCommerce website. So it would be very challenging for the non-tech personnel to excel at these platforms.
Apart from being free to download and install, Magento and WordPress are not free in their implementation. Even if you select any one option, you have to pay hosting charges, domain charges, and other fees for plugins and extensions, not to mention the extra costs of development and maintenance, which will be seemingly high too.
Magento vs WordPress – Detailed Comparison
Ease Of Use
If you are new to web development then the chances are that you will face some difficulties using Magento to set up your online business and customize your website because the Magento interface is tailored for advanced levels of website development. But once you are done with setting everything up, there won’t be any more trouble for you.
Even when your website goes live, the daily operations won’t be as complicated as you might have thought. Everything from marketing and customer to product, and inventory is easy to manage because everything’s listed on the sidebar which makes it seamless navigation for you.
On the other hand, WordPress is built specifically for freshers and non-tech people. And that is the reason why it would only take you a couple of minutes to understand how it works. Once you install WordPress, you just have to follow a linear procedure. WordPress has a very clear interface with a very user-friendly dashboard which provides you with quick content creation options, drag and drop functionalities, and many more via third-party page builder plugins. Even though you have some doubts, the customer support of WordPress is happy to guide you through the entire process.
Pricing
As we discussed, Magento is an open-source platform which means that you can download and install Magento without even spending a penny from your pocket. But as you go on setting up your e-commerce site, you have to pay the extra costs for hosting services, domain, and some important website features.
So, it is not easy to quite exactly predict the total price of Magento. However, it depends upon what your requirements are. Here we have provided an estimated cost breakdown that will give you an idea of your site expenditure.
| TYPE OF EXPENSES | MINIMUM COST | MAXIMUM COST | AVERAGE |
| HOSTING, DOMAIN & SSL | $10 | $50 | $30 |
| EXTENSION | $1000 | $1500 | $1250 |
| FRONTEND & BACKEND | $5000 | $67000 | $36000 |
| MAINTENANCE & DEVELOPMENT | $1500 | $5000 | $3250 |
| TOTAL | $7510 | $73550 | $40530 |
Yes, the price structure of Magento is very costly but keep one thing in mind, unlike WordPress, Magento is a full-fledged eCommerce platform. That could be very helpful in setting up your eCommerce store right away.
Therefore, all the focus is concentrated on providing extended functionalities and other system enhancements in Magento rather than catering their platform to all types of users at some reasonable rates. So, if you are running a business somewhere from a medium large scale and have a certain amount of cash flow then going for a powerful eCommerce platform like Magento is the right thing for you to do.
Now, similar to Magento, WordPress is also open-source and free to download and use. But then again as we saw in the previous case, just because software is free to download and use, it doesn’t mean that you can run your eCommerce site on this platform for free. You have to buy the following things first –
Similarly, WordPress is free to download and use. Just because the software itself is free to download, doesn’t mean that it will be completely free to run your website with this platform. You still need to purchase the following:
- The domain name ($12/year)
- WordPress hosting fee (from $3.95/month)
- Security (from $50, on-going or one-off charge)
- Developer fees (from $50/hr).
Also, because of its open-source nature, the platform has to depend a lot on the customization of WordPress themes and plugins.
- Paid theme (from $30)
- Plugins ($0 – $1000).
Now you are looking to build an e-commerce site so to sell your products online, you have to get an e-commerce plugin to install in WordPress which is Woocommerce along with some features that could help you increase the efficiency of your site which will also come at a certain price.
Themes & Templates
In Magento, two design themes are provided by default. The first one is Luma which is a demo theme and another is blank which is a base for the custom creation of a new theme. Apart from this, there are many websites from where you can get some elegant themes for your websites like Magento Marketplace for free and many others from where to get them on premium offers like ThemeForest.
I have to tell you that in the case of themes and templates, WordPress significantly outweighs its competitor. It has a library allocated specially to themes and templates where more than 4000 themes are stored for users to access and use for their websites.
The themes come in a lot of variety but most importantly, all of them are very elegant and eye-catching yet mobile responsive and feature-rich. And even if you don’t want to use these prefabricated WordPress themes or templates, the option of creating customized themes for your e-commerce site is always on the table. It will help you meet your unique business needs.
Plugins & Extensions
If you are looking for Magento Extensions then Magento Marketplace is the best place from where you can get both free and paid extensions for every field like content, customization, security to site optimization, marketing, payment gateways, accounting and finance, customer support, and more.
Another thing WordPress is popular for is its giant plugin repository from where you can access more than 58000 plugins including both free and paid. So the chances are high that you will find a plugin you are looking for like meeting your technical requirements, or marketing and logistics needs.
When it comes to customization in WordPress vs Magento, both platforms offer a great degree of customizability. And there is no exception in the case of plugins and extensions as well. Both the platforms, WordPress and Magento offer a large store of plugins and on top of that, they also enable you to create your plugin to meet your unique needs irrespective of your technical expertise.
eCommerce Features
There is a reason why many online business owners prefer Magento because it offers some powerful in-built features that support your e-commerce sites. They are actively used to reduce the workload from the shoulders of a user by integrating all the necessary functions into a core system.
Magento is a complete package with full-fledged e-commerce attributes with a wide range including reports and analysis for payment gateways, sales, and ads, inventory management, shipping, and tax. Apart from that, Magento also has a default CMS that offers amazing features such as a large array of themes, extensions, effective SEO, mobile responsiveness, and more.
On the other hand, WordPress was initially released as a blogging platform. So it’s obvious that WordPress lacks that basic e-commerce functionality. And that’s why you have to install an e-commerce plugin first if you want to sell your products through a WordPress website. Now, this plugin will come at a price and you also have to manage the compatibility, support, and updates.
The one thing that truly stands out here is a Woocommerce plugin for WordPress which is very highly rated for e-commerce. Woocommerce is one of the most widely used e-commerce solutions that is empowering almost 4,414,537 live websites while taking around 23.5% market share.
Moreover, if you are using a Woocommerce plugin for your online store then you automatically get access to sell your products on marketplaces. This is one of those fertile grounds that online business owners use to boost their sales and generate maximum revenues. But if you want to sell your products on other platforms then you will need some tools to integrate your Woocommerce site with these platforms like Amazon, eBay, Etsy.
Customer Support
Now that Magento is open-source there isn’t any availability of customer support on this platform. It means that the Magento users will not have any kind of support including live chat, phone not even email support. But if the business owners want to take the matter into their own hands and create a support strategy then Magento has tons of resources to help them out. The Magento platform consists of a knowledge base, a blog, and a forum from where you can get help from other Magento users.
Similar to Magento, WordPress also does not support phone, live chat, or email. But having a huge user base, WordPress has an active community of developers and peers who provide support to WordPress users. They are very knowledgeable about the WordPress platform and are quite proficient at offering insightful advice for every problem.
Also, you can use the video tutorials, multiple texts, and guidelines that are compiled by other users of the system. You can also hire a WordPress expert to get some dedicated support. An expert can help you with all the WordPress-related services like installation, site building, design, module development, hosting, and more.
Magento vs WordPress for SEO
Magento is a master in SEO. It has a plethora of SEO guides and prompts that can help you get started. It allows you to easily modify your meta keywords, meta descriptions, alt texts in the images, product descriptions, and snippets. It also provides some additional features like a google sitemap, no-follow links, and redirects which would help the search engines to crawl your e-commerce website faster and smoothly.
If you are a master at SEO best practices then using Magento is the ideal choice for you because you have to carry out all these tasks manually.
WordPress also allows you to create tags for your posts, set suitable metadata for all the posts and pages, and optimize all the permalink structures. However, the true power of SEO lies in the huge storage of SEO-supporting plugins available on the WordPress platform. You can make your website more visible with ease using these amazing SEO plugins like WP Rocket, Yoast SEO, and more.
Magento vs WordPress for Security
It is also important for you to know that if you are using Magento then the duty of protecting your website will be completely your job because Magento is an open-source platform. You have to get an SSL certificate for your website, PCI compliant, two-factor authentication, and configure your website security plugins.
Although Magento releases some frequent updates, you have to install these updates all by yourself which can be complicated for non-tech personnel. So if you don’t have any time or any kind of resources to patch those installations then your store will be at risk to come to a malicious piece of code and hacking
Now, on the other hand, working with WordPress seems like walking on a double-edged sword. The popularity of the platform has made it possible to create a robust ecosystem with resources all around the world whereas the same popularity is the reason why it is also the main target of hackers.
From all the cyberattacks on CMS-powered websites in the last few years, almost 94% were targeted towards WordPress-powered websites, reveals a website threat report presented by Sucuri.
Another issue with WordPress security comes from all the third-party plugins that it provides. As we have already gone through, the number of WordPress plugins in the store is very huge. So it’s very challenging to make sure that you employ every plugin you use with appropriate safety standards. You also have to see whether these plugins are compatible with the latest version of your platform.
But unlike Magento, you can schedule all your updates to get installed automatically using the auto-update mechanism of WordPress. It will also enable you to automatically update when there is a release of a new security patch.
Magento vs WordPress: Which is Better for Your Business?
So while making the comparison of Magento vs WordPress, you have seen that it is tough to decide who is the clear winner here and that’s the reason why this debate has been on for years now. Both the platforms are equivalent in managing an e-commerce site. Of Course, they have their pros and cons like Magento is better when it comes to the e-commerce features and the security of the site. And WordPress takes home the trophy when it comes to a better user interface and huge storage of plugins and themes.
And apart from the parameters we discussed above, there are many more scenarios in which it would be quite difficult to decide which one has the upper hand in the rumble of WordPress vs Magento. But the aspects where they are mostly head to head are SEO, pricing, and customer support.
Both platforms are indeed a better option for your project but one truth is also that none of it is perfect. You can’t expect anyone platform to solve all the problems and fulfill all the requirements of an e-commerce site. Every platform has its unique selling proposition. The best thing you can do is to make sure you pick the platform that can provide everything you will ever need for your online store.
If you are an online business owner who is looking for a platform that is completely e-commerce focused and also provides robust security for your website then you must pick Magento. It is the perfect option for large-scale and fastest-growing businesses.
But if you are new to this area and prefer the ease of use over for your store management then going with the WordPress platform is a wise thing to do for you. To step into the e-commerce industry you have to just install the e-commerce supporting plugin in WordPress to start selling your products online.
Conclusion
With this, we have reached the end of the debate of Magento vs WordPress. And I would like to conclude by saying that both the platforms are unique in their way. But the best platform would be the one that will be able to meet your business requirements. You can also hire dedicated developers or outsource the entire project to the experts to get it all done for you.