· Giraffe · Shopify vs WooCommerce, part 2
Who's on call when checkout breaks
Shopify is hosted: Shopify runs the servers and the software. WooCommerce is self-hosted: you run it, or you pay someone who does. Most other differences between the two come from this one.
Updates
A WooCommerce store is several independent pieces of software: WordPress, WooCommerce, a theme and a set of plugins, all running on a PHP version your host picks. Each has its own release schedule. Most updates go smoothly. Once in a while, one plugin's update breaks another plugin, and you find out when a customer emails to say they can't pay.
On Shopify, the platform updates itself. You still install apps and a theme, but none of them can change the core software or the server underneath, so they can break far less.
Security
Anyone who takes card payments has to meet PCI compliance rules. Shopify covers this at the platform level. On WooCommerce, most of the burden sits with your payment gateway if you use a hosted card field. You're still responsible for keeping the site itself patched, and an outdated plugin is the most common way WordPress sites get compromised.
Sale-day traffic
A flash sale is exactly when a slow checkout costs the most. Shopify's infrastructure is shared across a huge number of stores and built for spikes. A WooCommerce store handles as much traffic as its hosting plan and caching setup allow. You can make it fast, but getting it right, and testing it before the sale, is your job.
What you get for the trouble
Self-hosting isn't all cost. With WooCommerce:
- You own the whole stack. Your orders and customers sit in your own database, on a server you control.
- Nothing is off limits. Any part of the store can be changed with code.
- No platform can change the rules on you. Pricing, policies and the list of things you're allowed to sell are yours to decide.
Shopify lets you export your data through CSV and its API. But you're renting the store, and the landlord sets the terms.
Who each one suits
WooCommerce suits you if someone on your team is comfortable with WordPress, or you already pay a developer. It also suits you if your store needs something so unusual that no hosted platform will allow it.
Shopify suits you if you'd rather spend your hours on products, marketing and customers than on servers, and your needs fit inside what the platform and its apps can do. For most small merchants they do.