Top Shopify Competitors and Alternatives for Ecommerce Business

We did our research and tested each of these ecommerce platforms. Here is our list of the top Shopify competitors:

1. Weebly: Affordable Ecommerce
2. BigCommerce: Best For Large Ecommerce
3. WooCommerce: Customizable Ecommerce

To learn about more affordable options, check out our Best Cheap Ecommerce Builder review.

Recently, Square — a popular point-of-sale system — purchased Weebly. This allows Weebly to continue to operate as a beloved website building platform, while incorporating one of the most affordable payment gateways around. In essence, this makes Weebly incredibly powerful for ecommerce, while also the most cost effective option. 

Weebly Ease of Use

Weebly is incredibly easy to use. It’s a no-frills website builder, and while that may come at the cost of a few handy features, the simplicity pays off in dividends for users who are unfamiliar with web design and simply want to create an attractive digital touchpoint for their brand.

Shopify is by no means complicated in this regard, but platforms that developed as ecommerce tools can’t match the simplicity of a program with drag-and-drop website builder roots. We give Weebly major points for this one.

Weebly Templates and Themes

Weebly's selection of templates is simple, but gorgeous. The one thing that really stands out about these templates is the fact they quite simply have more depth than Shopify templates. The layouts, fonts and color palettes are all modern, minimalist and gorgeous, and products display on Weebly websites beautifully.

Weebly Apps and Plugins

Weebly has a decent selection of tax and accounting tools for a relatively new platform. Unfortunately, these can’t yet compete with an established program like Shopify, which has over 1,000 selections in a variety of categories.

Still, you should be able to accomplish most of what you’re trying to achieve with either platform. Users who are inexperienced in web design may fail to realize that too many apps and integrations can make a website look cluttered and difficult to navigate. It’s important to strike a balance between creating a website that’s engaging for customers, but not overwhelming.

Weebly Ecommerce Features

Weebly does ecommerce better than most. Weebly offers quite a bit of essential tools, like the ability to add products with descriptions and images, the ability to take payments through a variety of gateways, abandoned cart saving, and analytics to help track product performance.

That being said, the features offered at the platform’s highest price point — the Weebly Performance plan — fall a little flat. When compared with Shopify, which offers over a dozen staff accounts, unlimited transaction amounts, and the ability to sell in 133 languages, it just comes in a little short.

Weebly Pricing

This is probably the biggest factor that will drive users to transition their websites from Shopify to Weebly: the latter is cheaper. Quite a bit cheaper — and the first two Weebly tiers include most of the exact same features as their counterpart tiers with Shopify, but at a significantly lower price point.

For very small business owners, Weebly is one of the few ecommerce platforms that include a Free plan that may be of interest.

For a deeper look at what Weebly has to offer at different price points, check out our Weebly Pricing and Plans article.

When it comes to stacking BigCommerce up against Shopify — or just about any other platform — we always come back to one idea: it’s all in the name.

BigCommerce is loaded with features, and these really allow it to pack a pretty big punch in the ecommerce department. It’s hard to outshine Shopify in this regard, but the BigCommerce website builder may be the only platform on the internet today that has successfully done just that.

BigCommerce Ease of Use

Ease of use is a critical component of finding the right website builder for small business owners who don’t have a wealth of experience in web design. In this regard, BigCommerce is neither the simplest or the most complicated website builder when it comes to ease of use.

BigCommerce is easy to use, especially when compared to Shopify. With BigCommerce you have the ability to quickly add and upload products from the main control panel. This main control panel also includes currency, payment, shipping, and tax settings. We found this tool to be a complete breeze to use with its simple layout.

BigCommerce Templates and Themes

BigCommerce is lagging just a bit in this department, offering significantly fewer templates than its competitors. Plus, the dozens of premium templates available for purchase only seem like slight variations of the themes that are included for free, which is disappointing. They certainly didn’t entice us into making a purchase. 

That being said, variety isn't always the spice of life. Sometimes having too many options can feel overwhelming. If you simply need to get a functional and intuitive online store up and running with minial fuss, BigCommerce is a more than suitable choice.

BigCommerce Apps and Plugins

BigCommerce does offer plenty of integrations to help with things like taxes, marketing, analytics, and more. However, its selection of apps — whether available for free or through a subscription — falls a little short of the 1,000 or more available on Shopify.

This is mostly because Shopify offers a little bit more variety in the types of apps available in its internal app store. Many of the apps available on BigCommerce are for basic functions like scheduling and won’t do much to boost your website’s functionality.

BigCommerce Ecommerce Features

BigCommerce sure packs a wallop of a punch in this department. BigCommerce has all the essential ecommerce tools like integrations with leading point-of-sale (POS) systems like Square or Clover and third-party gateways like PayPal, as well as product ratings, reviews, and real-time shipping quotes. But, the more advanced tools available with BigCommerce’s higher tier plans are truly what make this platform stand out.

Some of these include custom facets (for product filtering), price lists, unlimited application programming interface (API) calls, no gross merchandise volume (GMV) selling limits, and strategic account management. It’s a level of support and account customization that Shopify simply cannot match, and it’s what makes BigCommerce quite possibly the most powerful tool of its kind.

BigCommerce Pricing

Although Shopify may offer a few more features in its Basic plan than BigCommerce does with its similar Standard plan, BigCommerce’s features quickly escalate as you move up the tiers, with the Pro plan offering some of the most comprehensive ecommerce tools on the market today.

Some of the plans offered by BigCommerce do come with a hefty price tag, which is why we recommend this builder for ecommerce business owners who are already well-established. If you want to take your online store to the next level, BigCommerce could be for you.

If you want to learn more about BigCommerce’s pricing and plans, read our BigCommerce Pricing and Plans article.

WooCommerce is the ideal plugin for websites built with WordPress looking to add ecommerce solutions. It’s easy to use, integrates seamlessly with WordPress, and has great extensions available. With a little time and dedicated knowledge, you can create your WooCommerce online store to your exact specifications.

Although WordPress may not technically be an ecommerce platform, small business owners can easily run a well-designed, fully functional online store when they combine it with the WooCommerce plugin.

WooCommerce Ease of Use

While WooCommerce is one of the more sophisticated ecommerce plugins, most people find it pretty easy to use. If you know anything about WordPress, you should be able to figure out how to use this plugin to optimize your online store. But, even if you don’t know WordPress, you’ll still be able to navigate your way around.

We recommend using GoDaddy to host your WordPress website. GoDaddy makes the process easy and offers an ecommerce plan with WooCommerce already installed for under $15 per month.

WooCommerce Templates and Themes

Since WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, the options are endless for WooCommerce templates and themes. This is both the beauty and the crux of creating a website with WordPress, as knowing where to find reliable themes can be a struggle.

We recommend using Envato to find the right WooCommerce theme to connect to your WordPress site. All Envato themes integrate seamlessly with WordPress and many of their WooCommerce themes offer varying degrees of functionality and unique layouts.

WooCommerce Apps and Plugins

Even though WooCommerce is a plugin for WordPress, you can still attach a wide array of add-ons to expand your online store’s functionality and optimize user experience. These vary from extensions that allow users to create wish lists or specify an order delivery date. There are even ways to translate the language of items on your site so it can reach an international audience.

Extensions add powerful features to address your online store’s specific needs and are relatively easy to set up, just watch the price tag. While some are free and many others have reasonable prices, others can be expensive.

WooCommerce Ecommerce Features

The WooCommerce plugin not only provides practical functionality, but also stylish themes. Similar to WordPress themes, WooCommerce themes can transform an online store with a customized, visually striking appearance as well as additional features.

While many WordPress themes already support WooCommerce, WooCommerce themes specifically focus on ecommerce. Some are free, but the premium themes offer more features for a price.

WooCommerce Pricing

You can use the basic version of the WooCommerce plugin for free. But, you’ll need to purchase additional extensions to add extra functionality. And, as with all WordPress sites, you'll also need a domain name and a web hosting service in order to start your online store. Annual domain name registration costs about $12 while web hosting typically ranges from $5 to $25 per month.

No matter what, you should never feel stuck with Shopify. And just because Shopify isn’t the right fit for you, that doesn’t mean that your perfect ecommerce platform isn’t out there. There are tons of online store builders, and we’ve picked out the top three Shopify alternatives for you to consider. 

In most cases, we’d expect Weebly to be the ideal Shopify alternative for you. It’s easy to use and it’s very affordable.