Shopify Vs. WordPress [Which One To Use?]

Both Shopify and WordPress are great platforms for building a whole range of different websites. A lot of businesses find themselves stuck between the two and wondering which one is best.

When it comes to Shopify vs WordPress – which one should you use? It depends on things like control, how much maintenance you have time for, and hosting costs – all things which we will explore in this article.

By the end of this article, you will have a great understanding of both platforms, and the entire question of WordPress vs Shopify will be way clearer.

Shopify VS WordPress - Which one to choose?

Before we dive into key features with Shopify vs WordPress, if you don’t already know what Shopify or WordPress is, it will be good to get a quick overview of each platform, before we head into the finer details of each and understand how they compare.

Let’s get started…

What Is Shopify?
What is WordPress?
Key Features Of WordPress Vs Shopify
3.1. Shopify Key Features
3.2. WordPress Key Features
Shopify Vs WordPress: Strengths And Weaknesses
4.1. Shopify Strengths
4.2. Shopify Weaknesses
4.3. WordPress Strengths
4.4. WordPress Weaknesses
Which Is Better Shopify Or WordPress?

What Is Shopify?

Shopify is a cloud-hosted web application that is all managed for you, there is no self-hosting option. The platform is designed to make the entire process much easier for eCommerce sellers and businesses.

Shopify offers a range of themes you can choose from, and they are all customizable, so you can adapt each theme towards your own branding and style.

However, because Shopify is a cloud web application, you don’t have as much control over a self-hosted solution. But Shopify does allow you to edit the HTML and CSS, but the focus is more on using their built-in options to change the theme.

You can sell both digital and physical goods through the platform, and you have the tools ready to go in order to set this up – that is the major point with Shopify vs WordPress, Shopify has already solved a lot of the eCommerce problems.

Overall, you don’t need to worry about any servers, because Shopify is hosting everything, and you don’t need any coding experience to run a shop.

What Is WordPress?

WordPress is an Open Source content management system (CMS) that is free and can be self-hosted to run many types of websites.

At its core, WordPress is a starting point for you to build your website on top of that, you can use the community and enterprise-driven plugin and theme system to make it extremely easy to set up a new website. You get total control over the HTML and CSS, but simple drag-n-drop builders exist for you.

WordPress has a long history, initially started in 2003, the community is a huge part of how WordPress works – there are thousands of free and paid plugins/themes for you to use. If you ever get an issue with WordPress, it is likely it has already been solved.

It is good to know that WordPress can be both hosted for you and self-hosted, there are many providers to choose from.

Overall, WordPress is a great platform with years of development and support, you are free to do whatever you please with it, and it is very flexible in its design.

Key Features Of WordPress Vs Shopify

Because each platform is a great choice, it really comes down to which tool is right for the job with Shopify vs WordPress – based on your requirements, technical skill, and the budget you have for hosting and maintenance.

To help you understand which one is right for you, let’s compare the main key features:

Shopify Key Features

It’s a cloud web application. Meaning you don’t need to worry about web hosting or scaling, everything is managed for you, no need to rent servers.
It doesn’t require coding skills. Even though you can edit HTML and CSS on Shopify, it is designed to be easy to make changes without diving into the code.
Security is taken care of. Because Shopify is a cloud application, all the security and maintenance are taken care of, you don’t need to worry about security, it is Shopify’s job.
Shopify comes with eCommerce integration. The Shopify POS enables businesses to sell their products/services in the real world, opening up pop-up stores is already sorted for you, a solution ready to use and built-in.
It contains built-in support for SEO tools. Shopify has made sure that their themes and websites are SEO friendly, they give you an easy-to-use interface to set up for better SEO.
It comes with built-in shop analytics. As a company that sells and runs an eCommerce site, it is important to track sales and progress – Shopify has its own custom analytics dashboard for you.
It takes advantage of fast loading speeds. Shopify maintains the server infrastructure for you, meaning you get quick response times and access to a CDN.
It Includes the Shopify App Store. Kind of like plugins, the Shopify App Store is a powerful way to add additional functionality to your site. This gives you new features, more SEO tools, and more integrations.

WordPress Key Features

WordPress is free and open-source. The huge community aspect of WordPress means there are years of development behind it. You will never run out of support, and you are free to choose how to host it.
It has an extensive selection of plugins to select from. WordPress has thousands of free and paid plugins, you can even build your own or hire something too.
There’s a massive online community ready to help you. If you ever have an issue or concern about your WordPress setup, more than likely the problem has already been solved by the community.
It’s self-hosted. One major difference with WordPress vs Shopify, you get to host and deploy where you want without any restrictions of pages, users, or content, the CMS is yours.
WordPress is great for many types of websites. There are many eCommerce platforms out there specifically built for WordPress, so you don’t need to do everything yourself.
The community has built thousands of free and paid themes to use. If you don’t have the time or skills to make a theme, you can select from the thousands of themes available, from simple themes to minimalistic themes, the list is endless.
You can use drag-and-drop website editors like Gutenberg and Elementor. Even though you have total control with WordPress over the code – you can easily use a drag-n-drop builder to make the whole process easier and quicker.
SEO optimized plugins to help you grow content. WordPress itself is specially designed to be SEO friendly, but there are many plugins to help you with SEO as well.

Shopify Vs WordPress: Strengths And Weaknesses

Now it is time to dive deeper and compare the strengths and weaknesses of each platform, helping you to decide which one is best.

Shopify Strengths

No technical knowledge is required. Because Shopify is managed for you, there is no need to set up complicated servers, SSL certificates, and databases.
Shopify is purpose-built for eCommerce. From the ground up, Shopify is focused on solving the problems that merchants face when selling products/services.
The payment process is figured out already. Shopify has the payment infrastructure already built-in, you don’t need to worry about different payment options or checkouts, it is done already.
Shopify has a blog feature. So alongside selling products/services you can join in on writing like many other companies and stay on one platform
A dedicated support team. A major point with Shopify vs WordPress is the dedicated support. If you ever have an issue or don’t understand something, a support team will have you 24/7

Shopify Weaknesses

You have to pay extra fees. By using Shopify they have to make money as well, so transaction fees are marked up by around 0.5% – 2% unless you use their own payment gateway system, which may not work for you.
Shopify’s themes don’t always follow the same structure. If you change your Shopify theme, you will have to reformat all your content and layout.
Shopify is focused on being an eCommerce platform. Their website builder isn’t the best and not as innovative as Wix or Webflow.
You are restricted by price. As Shopify is a cloud web application, you are restricted by different features that would be free on other platforms that you can self-host with.
Shopify only supports certain versions of CSS libraries. While Shopify is more so a website builder, you can edit HTML and CSS. But Shopify will not always have the latest versions of CSS preprocessors like SCSS.

WordPress Strengths

Security professionals are on watch. With WordPress running many of the world’s top websites, security experts are always making sure it is secure.
It’s SEO-friendly. Pretty much any plugin worth using will support SEO, but WordPress itself has its own SEO features for you.
You are not locked in. With it being Open Source and free, you can host it anywhere you like and easily manage it yourself.
Self-hosting gives more choice. With WordPress vs Shopify, WordPress is Open Source, you can choose your hosting platform and how you want to scale without limitations.
Well-known ecosystem. Developer collaboration is easy because any web developer should already know how to work with a traditional technology stack that WordPress uses, which has also been around for 10+ years.

WordPress Weaknesses

May require lots of plugins for extra features. WordPress is Open Source, so it doesn’t come with everything in the box. You have to use plugins to add additional functionality. However, that requires lots of updating and more risk of security issues.
Manual updating is required. When we compare WordPress vs Shopify, If you don’t pay for someone to manage your WordPress site, you are left to update everything yourself, and they may require changes that take time.
You’ll have to find a hosting service. WordPress is Open Source and thus, you have to self-host it, there are lots of choices with cloud providers, but you have to set it up yourself, this can be time-consuming.
It might suffer from website vulnerabilities. If you are not a full-time security professional, your site may get left open to attack. Reasons ranging from bad updating practices or not knowing how to harden your site can lead to security branches and being hacked.
Website downtime. With Shopify vs WordPress, you won’t be monitoring your site 24/7 it may go down unexpectedly – there are a number of reasons why this could happen, and it could be for hours or days if you don’t notice it.

Which Is Better Shopify Or WordPress?

Shopify is a winner for eCommerce. Shopify is focused on sales-driven solutions, providing you with all the eCommerce tools you need, whereas WordPress is a more general CMS that can be used to build many types of websites like blogs or landing pages.

Both platforms are great solutions, it just comes down to the time you have and the maintenance you wish to endure when using WordPress.

You need to know how much flexibility you need, Shopify is extremely easy to set up and is fully-featured right from the start, WordPress has years of development and offers you more control, and is better when it comes to versatility.