Top 15 Shopify Alternatives

Shopify is undisputedly one of the best online store solutions, but today I’m going to introduce you to a few alternatives. It is true that the provider has become more and more popular since it was officially on the market in Germany. There are now 600,000 e-commerce shops around the world. But maybe Shopify still doesn’t quite fit your ideas. Time to look around for some great Shopify alternatives.

Nevertheless, let’s take a quick look at the advantages and disadvantages of the platform before we start. If you’d like even more specifics, check out our full Shopify review here .

 

Benefits of Shopify

Cons of Shopify

Ease of use : Shopify is one of the easiest tools I have ever tested to create an ecommerce site, despite the incredible number of features. Apps & Community : Can’t find what you need? There are apps for that. The Shopify App Store is packed with free and paid solutions so that you can equip your shop with additional functions such as live chat or digital products. Template Selection : There are over 170 professionally designed templates on offer (including a few free themes ). You can even create your own design using the Liquid programming language. Support : A team is available around the clock; thus the support is better than with the Shopify competitors WooCommerce or Magento.

Transaction Fees : Additional transaction fees for sellers if Shopify Payments is not used for credit card payments. Create regular content : Great for product pages , not great for blogs. While there are a few options, Shopify is primarily focused on the shop. This can be frustrating even for seasoned webmasters. Create multilingual shops : To operate your Shopify online shop in more than one language, you need a paid third-party translation app, which is not exactly the easiest (and cheapest) way. SEO at Shopify : Unfortunately, with Shopify you have to accept a few SEO problems (e.g. fixed URL structures) that some may find annoying. Currently you can only pay in US dollars (but you can run the shop in any currency).

Now that we’ve revisited these aspects, we can start with Shopify’s  Development biggest competitors.

The best Shopify alternatives

WooCommerce

Not exactly an all-in-one platform because you need to install WordPress  (and know a whole lot about it, too). Nevertheless, as a simple plugin, WooCommerce offers a surprising number of functions.

And the coolest thing about it is that you can use it as a serious e-commerce solution  without spending a lot of money every month. Although it’s a little more complicated than that – as you’ll see in the video and the pros and cons below.

Prices from WooCommerce:

WooCommerce is basically free. But because it’s not a platform, you still need a certain budget  to host your shop. On average it could look something like this:

• Hosting : between € 5 – € 25 / month
• Domain : around 10 € / year
• Premium theme : one-time fee of around € 55
• Additional  plugins : 40 – 80 € / year per plugin

Most of all , you pay for all the time it takes for everything to run smoothly .

 

advantages

disadvantage

Individually expandable : You can add many more plugins and thus turn the shop into a powerful solution. Great segmentation options : For customer logins and administrator accounts. Selection of templates : You will not only find a lot of free themes and premium designs online, you can also individualize them according to your wishes (usually via the program code).

Legal security: extra plugins such as WooCommerce Germanized or German Market are necessary for the legal adjustment. Complexity: Setting up WooCommerce is not that easy for beginners. No official support:  Just like with WordPress, you are left to your own devices with technical problems. On the flip side, WordPress is so popular as a platform that there are thousands of skilled developers you can hire.

Why rather WooCommerce than Shopify?

If you  already know, understand and love WordPress , then WooCommerce is a very strong competitor. The provider could also be interesting in terms of price, provided you want a simple solution and not the budget, but have the time to tinker with your side.

Wix

Wix is ​​consistently number one among our favorite website builders, but can it keep up with e-commerce? Yes and no. The positive side is that it is just as easy to use  as the construction kit and you also get good design options and access to the fantastic app market.

However, the e-commerce part of Wix came later. Some features are missing (e.g., feature import and export), which should make it difficult to compete with Shopify, as you can see below.

Wix pricing:

• Business Basic: $ 23 with all e-commerce features, up to 20 GB of storage
• Business Unlimited : $ 27 up to 35 GB of storage and up to 10 hours of video
• Business VIP: $ 49, up to 50 GB of storage and VIP support

Screenshots

 

advantages	disadvantage
Value  for money : You get a lot of value for your money here.  Ease of use : Just like the website builder, it is easy, quick and convenient to use. Customer logins : In contrast to its main competitor Weebly, Wix offers the package as a free add-on (in the app market). No additional transaction fees : With none of the online shop tariffs.	There are no options for personalization: For example, we would like to have more control over confirmation emails. Features limited to USA:  The real-time shipping option is only available in the US area.

 

Why would you prefer Wix to Shopify?

Already have a Wix website? Then you probably know the interface and philosophy of the designs, so it should be a piece of cake to create your shop with it. Wix is ​​also a great alternative if you’re looking for value for money.

Jimdo

The Hamburg company has more than 200,000 online shop operators. Although Jimdo is primarily known as a website builder, it also appears that the tool is popular among those looking to build an online store. My guess would be that this is more because of the free offer  than the great features.

Still, Jimdo is a great option for beginners looking for a simple, quick, and efficient solution. At least if you want to sell physical products – more on that in the disadvantages below.

There is now a new version called Jimdo Dolphin, but it is currently more limited than Jimdo Creator.

Jimdo Creator prices:

• Free: $ 0 sale of a maximum of 5 products.
• Pros: $ 10 SEO options available and sales of up to 15 products.
• Business: $ 20 Unlimited Product Sales.

Screenshots

 

advantages	disadvantage
Ease of use : Jimdo can be operated like the modular exactly easy. Great price: you could even sell for free! No transaction fees: at least not directly from Jimdo.	Cannot sell digital or service products: Physical products only. No product import or export:  So don’t even think about moving stores manually. Important e-commerce functions are missing : For example, a shipping cost calculation, user reviews or customer logins.

Why would you prefer Jimdo to Shopify?

To be honest, they don’t really play in the same league . The only reasons to choose Jimdo over