Shopware vs Woocomerce: Which is the better option?

Online shopping is the go-to method for almost every customer out there, Why? Since it is convenient, easy, and time-saving, who else wouldn’t love an option to have all of their shopping done in the comfort of their home and not use up a whole day of it? This popularity of online shopping has led to an increase in shop owners creating their own online platforms. 

Along with the rise in the popularity of online shopping came the rise in the need to create user-friendly websites with aesthetically pleasing designs and easy-to-use functionalities. This was a major challenge faced by many shop owners who don’t possess much technical background and knowledge, which led to the introduction of e-commerce platforms that help such owners to convert their websites to online stores or create a separate one on their own.

Shopware and WooCommerce are two of the popular e-commerce platforms preferred by shop owners worldwide. 

Here we will be discussing which is better among the two.

To start off let us take a look at what Shopware and WooCommerce is and the major features, functionalities, and benefits that come with them.

What is Shopware?

Let us begin with Shopware.

Shopware is a PHP-based e-commerce application that is completely customizable and packed with useful, user-friendly features and tools. Shopware is the favorite of many online shop owners primarily for its extreme ease of use that doesn’t require any prior web design or programming knowledge.

The software is known for its excellent quality and its ability to meet strict designs and standards. Its popularity is mainly backed by the software’s excellent quality and the ability to meet strict design specifications and technological standards.

The Shopware development services can be used to create your e-commerce stores, where you can easily integrate your business-related processes and transactions and even your website content.

• Customizable
• Easy to learn
• Easy to manage
• Inbuilt SEO
• User friendly
• Seamless Third-Party Integration

These are a few of the beneficial features of Shopware.

What is WooCommerce?

Now moving on to WooCommerce…

To know more about WooCommerce you must first be familiar with the content management system – WordPress. WordPress was originally created as a means and easy-to-use tool for publishing blogs, but now it has evolved to support publishing other web content, which includes websites.

WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress. It is designed and crafted with a mind for small to large-sized online merchants using WordPress. The plugin quickly became popular for its simplicity to install and customize.

Like Shopware WooCommerce too is packed with many features and functions that make maintaining and running an online store and website easy and convenient. WooCommerce currently powers 99% of all WordPress stores, the major benefits of using WooCommerce are as follows:

• Highly Flexible
• Customizable
• Free to use
• Large developer community
• Built-in powerful analytics
• Suitable for small to large businesses

Now that we have been given a fresh perspective of what these e-commerce platforms are individual, let us further discuss their main differences from each other and know which platform is ideally better than the other for you.

Which is Better: Shopware or WooCommerce?

You might have noticed the stark difference between Shopware and WooCommerce – Shopware is a self-managing platform whereas WooCommerce is a plugin for WordPress. The other major differences that will help you determine which one is better the e-commerce platform are as follows:

Pricing

Though Shopware offers to start with a free-to-use open-source solution the options with these are limited and you will not be offered many support options. Furthermore, many features and functions are included with the paid versions which Shopware has 3 options of, to which you can upgrade at any convenient time.

Speaking about WooCommerce, it is free to use and has no license cost, but again the options and features are limited, you will have to purchase further plugins to customize and create a better professional store.

Thus in Shopware, you will have a set plan of how much to spend and expect depending on the payment plan on the tier you have selected, but in WooCommerce since different plugins cost different it is not easy to assess beforehand how much it will cost in the end to set up your store.

Multiple Stores

If you plan on having multiple stores for each of your products and services but have the same back-end then the better option will be Shopware. Shopware offers a standard option to create multi-stores, at the main, sub, and language level, but the same is not possible with WooCommerce as it does not offer a default option, it will require you to make more plugin purchases and use up more time to set up the pages and stores.

SEO

To talk about the option of good Search Engine Optimization, Shopware offers better possibilities for SEO by offering the option to add Meta data and descriptions on product pages without charging any additional features, or new installations. WooCommerce on the other hand, though offers the possibility of good SEOs it will require you to add and install more separate plugins, plus the load times for WooCommerce are very slow and will not be ideal as it will decrease the SEO score.

Marketing

With regard to the installations and options of marketing tools here too Shopware has the upper hand. As Shopware was created and intended as an e-commerce platform from the beginning it has more options and better means for implementing required marketing tools. But with WooCommerce, as mentioned before was created as a plugin for a CMS system that was intended as a blog publishing tool, hence WooCommerce currently does not offer many marketing tools, the ones available require complex processes to be installed and implemented.

Maintaining and Handling Your Store

If you are new to the whole creating an online store thing and lack technical knowledge, the good news is both platforms are easy to use for all beginners where programming skills are not necessary. But to dig a bit deeper, Shopware will be the better and simpler option as it is easier to handle and learn. The code for using WooCommerce is relatively a bit more complex and time-consuming to learn.

So to wrap it up, Though both Shopware and WooCommerce are easy to learn, use and fit for beginners, WooCommerce is a good choice for you only if your store is powered by WordPress. But if you plan on expanding and diversifying your store with minimal technical knowledge then Shopware will be the better and wiser choice for you as it is more expandable, customizable, and offers better solutions for invoicing, external merchandise tools, etc.