WooCommerce vs. Ecwid - Which Is Better for eCommerce

When you start an eCommerce store on WordPress, you get to choose the best plugins, and the best options you can get today are - WooCommerce and Ecwid. However, both of the plugins have their strengths and weaknesses.

Whether it's about the ease of use and several features, WooCommerce vs. Ecwid is undoubtedly an exciting topic. This write-up will give you a clear comparison between the two so that you can decide which one is better for your eCommerce store.

WooCommerce vs. Ecwid: The Basic Difference

To begin the debate, you must understand the basic differences between Ecwid and WooCommerce. Then, it will help you understand the value of each before delving deep into further details.

What Is WooCommerce

WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce plugin through which business owners can efficiently set up and manage an online store. This plugin is known for its scalability, flexibility, and ease of use, as it has been helping several business owners in online store management. When using WooCommerce, you can sell physical and digital products that show the plugin's reliability.

In addition, if you have any special requirements in mind when designing your online store, WooCommerce offers multiple customizations. With over 5 million active installations, WooCommerce is a powerful, extendable platform that gives you complete control over your store and customers.

What Is Ecwid

Established in 2009, Ecwid is a SaaS program better known as an "eCommerce widget" that has been a massive help to small businesses. Small business owners who are always concerned about their store's growth can rely on Ecwid and enhance its online presence. When using Ecwid, there's no need to remove your current website, as you can add it as an extension to any website. With over a million online stores seeking support from it, you can clearly understand the efficiency of Ecwid.

WooCommerce vs. Ecwid: Ease of Use

Ease of use is essential when choosing the right WordPress plugin to create an online store. However, you must be aware of the fundamentals of creating an online store when creating one using either of the options available, but what more? Let's find out.

WooCommerce

As a user, you must install, handle updates, keep an eye on backups, and optimize everything if you're about to use WooCommerce. The case would be different if you already have a WordPress site; otherwise, setting up an online store with WooCommerce would be similar to developing a WordPress site.

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Unfortunately, there's no drag-and-drop option to build websites, but you can get help from WordPress Page Builder. Overall, WooCommerce has all the essential and straightforward features to build an online store.

Ecwid

If your focus is on ease of use only, Ecwid will take the prize. It is one of the best platforms that allow merchants to create a user-friendly store. You can easily set it up, manage it well, and use a variety of features to make selling online a breeze.

In addition, Ecwid also offers excellent customer support, so you can always get help when you need it. Hence, if you want a simple, user-friendly, and effective eCommerce solution, go with Ecwid.

WooCommerce vs. Ecwid: Pricing

As you're aware of the basic difference between the two, the next important thing that will help you understand the difference between the two is the pricing.

WooCommerce

As WooCommerce is an open-source platform, there's no need to pay a single penny for the initial stages. After that, you need to pay for the specific functions and features you want to add to your website. Before choosing the essential features, you must figure out your needs and also ensure the fact that they are compatible with your website or not.

Coming to the pricing, you need to pay $10-$40 per month for the hosting, about $15 every year for a domain name, up to $79 every month for SSL and storefront themes, and $10 to $100 per hour for plugins and developer charges. However, the prices mentioned above depend upon the size of your website. So, observing everything before purchasing any feature or plan is better.  

Ecwid

When it comes to pricing, Ecwid offers a free plan instead of a free trial period. The plans can be upgraded according to the business size and requirements. With that being said, let's take a look at some of the plans offered by Ecwid:

• Free Plan - You can use the free plan for the entire lifetime and get access to a basic online store added to your WordPress. The plan only supports ten products and also gives you access to social advertising, gift cards, and more.
• Venture Plan - The Venture Plan comes at $15 per month and allows you to use some professional features of Ecwid. The plan supports 100 products, and you can also add the store to Facebook and Instagram to gain more customers. In addition, you also make use of other additional features like mobile optimization, discount coupons, and inventory tracking.
• Business Plan - Available at $35 per month, the business plan allows you to sell on Amazon and eBay. It supports 2500 products and comes with additional features like automated email marketing, abandoned cart alerts, and product filters.
• Unlimited Plan - The Unlimited plan comes at $99 per month and provides you with more useful tools like a branded app and priority support. As the name suggests, the plan supports unlimited products.

WooCommerce vs. Ecwid: Design & Customization

The design and customization are two vital factors that help you differentiate between two WordPress plugins. In this case, we have WooCommerce vs. Ecwid, so let's find out which one offers better design and customization options.

WoCommerce

WooCommerce is known for its variety of themes. You can choose from a myriad of paid and free themes for your store from its theme store. Online retailers can use premium themes that are specifically designed after keeping various industries in mind.

For example, you can get a proper theme for a fashion store and another well-designed theme for selling beauty and cosmetic items online. In addition, WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, so you can also seek benefits from WordPress themes and CMS. Moreover, you can also shop for amazing themes from other marketplaces if the ones available at the theme store only excite you a little.  

Ecwid

Ecwid is much simpler and better for those business owners having their own websites. Hence, Ecwid only offers one theme, but if you want to make further changes to your online store's design, you can get more options. You can look for more design functions like image zoom and background music to make your website more appealing.

WooCommerce vs. Ecwid: SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a strategy through which you make your website search engine friendly to improve its ranking. WooCommerce and Ecwid are both SEO-friendly, but let's compare them to determine which one is more.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is applauded for being SEO-friendly; all credit goes to WordPress plugins. With WooCommerce, you get several SEO add-ons, and the best ones include Yoast SEO and All-in-One SEO.

The add-ons will enhance your eCommerce website to improve its ranking on the search engine result page. Regarding product pages, the SEO factor coming with WooCommerce surely optimizes them to improve the overall ranking.

Ecwid

If you focus highly on SEO and plan to use Ecwid, you'll be disappointed in the end. This is because Ecwid lacks crucial SEO settings and uses AJAX. Hence, all online stores launched by Ecwid are considered JS scripts by search engines. Thus, they need to be more credible for SEO promotions, and there's no point in making them SEO-friendly.

Final Words

So, after a long discussion over WooCommerce vs. Ecwid, you'll get an idea of which eCommerce platform will best suit your needs. If you have plans to establish a large store with minimal capital, WooCommerce is the right choice.

And, if you're about to build an online store on a small scale and need an excellent store builder with supreme customer support and awesome built-in features, Ecwid is the way to go!