6 Best Shopify Competitors Compared (2024): Top Shopify Alternatives

Shopify Competitors

With an annual survey from comScore and UPS showing that consumers buy more things online than in stores, we’ve crafted a list of the top Shopify competitors and eCommerce platforms to help you capitalize on the trend.

Ranging from drag-and-drop website builders to enterprise-grade cloud services, eCommerce tools to make life easier for retailers of all sizes — as well as their customers.

Shopify is an immensely popular service that offers a 14-day free trial, but the platform isn’t for everyone. Whether you’re looking for more features or more simplicity, we’ve compiled a list of six alternatives to help you grow and manage your online business.

Shopify Competitors for Solopreneurs and Small Startups

Before we get started, familiarize yourself with all of Shopify’s features and prices so you can compare apples to apples. As you can tell, we like Shopify’s offering, but there are certainly pros and cons to signing up for the service:

Shopify.com

Shopify review

Monthly Starting Price $29.00

  • Site builder with FREE and premium themes
  • Unlimited bandwidth, storage, and products
  • Easy-to-use dashboard for managing orders, shipping, and payments
  • Tons of features, including discount codes
  • FREE MyShopify.com subdomain or use your own
  • Try Shopify FREE for three days.
ECOMMERCE
RATING
★★★★★ 4.6 Our Review»
Shopify: Our Expert's Review

Toby Sembower (HostingAdvice.com): The great thing about Shopify is how the feature set centers around ecommerce, a focus of many shared hosting shoppers. Shopify plans are fully hosted, but most of the company's plans are significantly more costly than a majority of the shared hosts we've come across. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
3-Day FREE Trial Unlimited FREE Subdomain 5 minutes

Most sellers aren’t tech wizards — they know how to sew, create jewelry, or design the perfect T-shirt. Whether you’re selling handmade products from home or advertising your small company’s services, several online platforms help entrepreneurs take away the web hosting headaches by providing intuitive site builders. Upgraded plans often include a shopping cart, payment processing options, inventory management tools, and other staples of the eCommerce world.

1. Wix Stores

Although businesses can offer their services and showcase their credentials on Wix for free, an online store doesn’t enter the picture until you sign up for the company’s $17-per-month plan. That price might be a little steep, but Wix is among our favorite site builders for the platform’s ultimate usability — simply drag-and-drop content to get the online store of your dreams. Plus, new entrepreneurs will seriously appreciate that Wix will not take a commission or cut of your sales.

The eCommerce tools in Wix are among the most basic and limited of the services on this list, but sellers will enjoy a streamlined suite of services for tracking orders and inventory, offering multiple payment options, sharing promotional coupons, and managing shipping and taxes.

Wix.com

Wix review

Monthly Starting Price $27.00

  • Drag-and-drop builder means easy customizations
  • Sell tickets, subscriptions, and bookings
  • Comprehensive dashboard to manage transactions
  • Unlimited products and selling on social media
  • FREE tools for abandoned cart recovery
  • Get started on Wix now.
ECOMMERCE
RATING
★★★★ 4.4 Our Review»
Wix: Our Expert's Review

Alexandra Anderson (HostingAdvice.com): As a leader in drag-and-drop website design, Wix is unsurprisingly near the top of our list when it comes to easily launching vibrant online stores. Wix’s user-friendly interface includes advanced ecommerce services for dropshipping, loyalty programs, and selling on marketplaces. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
14-day FREE trial 2 GB - Unlimited FREE (1 year) 4 minutes

2. Weebly

Weebly

offers many of the same ease-of-use perks as its site-building brethren, including an intuitive drag-and-drop interface and hundreds of impressive themes. The company made major improvements to its eCommerce tools with a 2016 update that introduced refined functionalities with abandoned carts and calculating rates for both taxes and shipping. Coupled with revamped email marketing tools, Weebly’s website builder and eCommerce services provide sellers an all-in-one package that is hard to beat.

Weebly logo and screenshots

Weebly offers ultimate simplicity and usability in its eCommerce site builder.

Weebly offers eCommerce functionality through both hosted and self-hosted solutions. Hosted might be a little simpler, but we recommend taking the extra step to sign up with a reputable hosting provider that includes Weebly as part of a shared hosting plan.

SiteGround, for example, will also give store owners top-notch performance, daily backups, and more responsive support. If you want to explore other eCommerce options as your business and expertise grow, SiteGround offers one-click installs for almost all the other platforms on our list.

SiteGround.com

SiteGround review

Monthly Starting Price $2.99

  • Low-cost managed WooCommerce stores
  • FREE payment processing and adjustable shipping
  • Test changes to your online store in a staging area
  • Pre-installed SSL security and auto daily backups
  • 100% renewable energy match
  • Get started on SiteGround now.
ECOMMERCE
RATING
★★★★ 4.2 Our Review»
SiteGround: Our Expert's Review

Alexandra Anderson (HostingAdvice.com): The legendary WordPress experts at SiteGround have extended their expertise to online stores delivered through WooCommerce. Enjoy managed updates and industry-leading support with SiteGround’s cloud-driven infrastructure. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
30 days 10 GB SSD - 40 GB SSD New or Transfer 6 minutes

Biggest Shopify Competitors for Small and Medium Businesses

As your online business grows, you might quickly find your needs outpace the beginner-friendly services. Upgrading your website and store unlocks a bevy of new features and tools to help you connect with potential customers. Moving from Wix or Weebly might be a pain, but the eCommerce options presented in this section and the next will match your company stride for stride as you scale your sales.

3. WordPress and Woocommerce

Naturally, we’re big fans of WordPress, the world’s most popular content management system. WordPress doesn’t come with eCommerce tools out of the box, but parent company Automattic acquired WooCommerce, the prominent WordPress plugin behind 28% of all online stores. Both products are open-source, meaning you can download and run the software for free. WooCommerce enables store owners to sell anything from tangible products to digital downloads, subscriptions, content, and even your time.

WordPress and WooCommerce logos with screenshot of interface

Users can enjoy the familiar interface of WordPress while integrating a WooCommerce store into their website.

Because you download and install WordPress and WooCommerce on your own hosting plan, you maintain complete control and ownership of your data; you’re not beholden to the whims or success of a third-party company. Don’t worry about dipping your toes into a self-hosted solution. Our top-rated WordPress hosting providers provide excellent support, performance, and security tailored to the content management system.

A2Hosting.com

A2 Hosting Review

Monthly Starting Price $2.99

  • FREE Cloudflare CDN and 1-click WP installs
  • Turbo Server, SSD speed, and optimized caching
  • A2-optimized plugins for performance and security
  • FREE SSL certificates and 24/7 support
  • FREE HackScan and KernelCare
  • Get started on A2 Hosting now.
WORDPRESS
RATING
★★★★★ 5.0 Our Review»
A2 Hosting: Our Expert's Review

Alexandra Anderson (HostingAdvice.com): As experts in performance optimization, A2 Hosting is a top choice for powering resource-heavy WordPress websites. The company offers shared or managed plans for the ultra-popular content management system, with the benefits extending to Joomla, Drupal, and other platforms. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
30 days 50 GB SSD - Unlimited SSD New or Transfer 4 minutes

4. BigCommerce

Merchants selling through BigCommerce see their businesses grow by 28% year over year — double the industry average, according to research from Ipsos. The high-powered hosted eCommerce platform concentrates on both the technical aspects of uptime and performance as well as boosting sales with top-notch marketing and conversion tools.

Screenshots of BigCommerce interface

Don’t let the simple interface fool you — BigCommerce packs lots of functionality in an intuitive package.

With prices ranging from $30 to $250 per month, however, BigCommerce is far and away the most expensive platform on our list of Shopify alternatives. However, sellers can start with a 15-day free trial to make sure the platform is worth the investment. Even at the low tier, BigCommerce plans let entrepreneurs sell unlimited products through multiple channels without transaction fees. Higher-level plans introduce several features, including abandoned cart tools, fraud monitoring, analytics, and more powerful search and filtering options.

Shopify Competitors for Enterprise eCommerce

As your sales rates grow, so do the stakes surrounding your online business. Milliseconds matter in eCommerce, whether for page loads or for downtime — Amazon calculated that it would lose $1.6 billion in sales each year if their pages loaded one second slower. As such, large businesses need an eCommerce platform and hosting that can stand up to traffic spikes and Black Friday sales.

5. Volusion

As with BigCommerce, the 15-year-old Volusion platform offers a hosted eCommerce solution that can handle the demands of larger businesses. The well-rounded system comes out of the box with an astounding 900 features that have helped sellers make more than $24 billion in sales — four times more than their competitors. In addition to an intuitive site builder and marketing tools, Volusion uses top security measures to maintain PCI compliance and protect customers’ data.

Premium plans come with 35GB of bandwidth, priority support, and even a dedicated account manager. In addition to integrations with eBay and Amazon, Volusion enables sellers to take orders over the phone and process orders in bulk. A partnership with the Akamai content delivery network, or CDN, guarantees speedy website delivery wherever your customers live.

Volusion.com

Volusion review

Monthly Starting Price $0.00

  • Everything you need to grow an online store
  • Drag-and-drop store builder and FREE themes
  • FREE payment processing, shipping, and inventory
  • Marketing with discounts, newsletters, and more
  • Unlimited bandwidth and tools for SEO
  • Try Volusion FREE for 14 days.
ECOMMERCE
RATING
★★★★★ 4.6 Our Review»
Volusion: Our Expert's Review

Laura Bernheim (HostingAdvice.com): Volusion packs everything you need to build a powerful online store presence into competitive bundles. Start with a drag-and-drop editor and create categories for unlimited products. Go to full review »

Money Back Guarantee Disk Space Domain Name Setup Time
14-Day FREE Trial Unlimited New or Transfer 5 minutes

6. Magento on a Dedicated or Virtual Server

Another mainstay in the open-source eCommerce realm, Magento revamped its enterprise offerings by rolling out a cloud-based service in April 2016. Magento Enterprise Cloud Edition is a managed service that hosts your business in the company’s cloud environment. Although we appreciate how Magento blends usability and simplicity with the high-stakes needs of enterprises, we recommend putting Magento on your own dedicated or virtual server.

Magento logo and screenshot

Magento’s open-source platform scales from startups to well-known brands, including Burger King and Coca-Cola.

Our favorite hosts for dedicated hosting offer top-notch hardware and custom configurations to optimize load-time performance, in addition to including the same hands-off managed services and specialized support staff.

We find that Liquid Web, in particular, excels by offering performant solid-state drives and RAID arrays and guaranteeing 100% uptime. If Magento sounds like the right platform for your business, but you’re not sure if you’re ready for a dedicated virtual server, the top Magento hosts provide one-click installs at the shared hosting level and will help you scale through the server ranks.

LiquidWeb.com

Liquid Web Review

Monthly Starting Price $75.00

  • Linux or Windows with choice of 3 control panels
  • 100% network and power uptime guarantees
  • Custom configurations and instant provisioning
  • Auto-migrations, backups, and real-time monitoring
  • Block/object storage and load balancer add-ons
  • Get started on Liquid Web now.
DEDICATED
RATING
★★★★★ 4.9 Our Review»
Liquid Web: Our Expert's Review

Alexandra Anderson (HostingAdvice.com): Liquid Web's strong suit is managed dedicated server hosting. The company owns and operates five state-of-the-art datacenters in the US and Europe works tirelessly to build and maintain custom solutions for added performance and security. Go to full review »

Setup Time Disk Space CPU RAM
8 minutes 480 GB SSD - 960 GB SSD (+ 2 TB SATA) 4 - 16 cores 16 GB - 64 GB

Shopify Alternatives Boast High-Value, Low-Cost eCommerce Tools

The all-to-familiar sea of oversized cardboard boxes we all seem to experience is a testament to the value of a seamless online shopping experience.

Your business depends on the tools you use to promote your website, manage inventory, and process payments and shipping. Take the time to find the eCommerce platform that works for your particular needs and goals.

As with many technologies and other products, you get what you pay for. Sure, there are the occasional deals to score, but don’t be afraid to invest a modest amount in a platform that will work for you now and in the future as your business grows.

For us, the power and popularity of WordPress reign supreme. Even though the content management system and related eCommerce plugin options are free, there is big money to be made by installing the tools on one of our recommended WordPress hosts. Happy selling!

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