Do you know a fun fact of today’s world? It gives you a lot of options. Whether choosing your life partner or adding e-commerce functionality to your website, you get several attractive options.

And, here comes the most vital part. That is- choosing the right one among two or three striking alternatives.

You will find a market full of expensive eCommerce CMS to run your online store. But today, we will talk about only two of the most popular solutions among them and are free until you want your hosting. These two open-source solid options are Magento and WordPress.

Now, you are thinking about which one will be the right choice between Magento vs. WordPress, for eCommerce management, right? We heard you!

That’s why we have highlighted all the major pros, cons, differences, and similarities of Magento and WordPress in this article. It will help you to make the right decision. Give it a read!

WordPress

WordPress - Magento vs. WordPress
WordPress

WordPress is the most popular and user-friendly open-source eCommerce CMS. Developers majorly use it for content-driven websites such as blogging.

The blogging feature is the most prominent leverage that WordPress provides its users. This open-source platform has a high customization feature that helps to give updates about products and build a fantastic website.

We must mention Woocommerce, the WordPress plugin, differentiating WordPress from Magento in this good old Magento vs. WordPress battle. WooCommerce makes WordPress a popular and powerful CMS.

The eCommerce features of WordPress are available on both the front end and coding. You can choose between a broad range of plugins and themes.

Key points:

  • WordPress powers more than 38% of the internet.
  • More than 64 million websites use WordPress as of now.
  •  WordPress lets you use 57 distinct languages.
  • One in every four websites is a WordPress website.
  • Every month around 409 million people visit about 20 million pages through WordPress.
  • WordPress 5.8 has been downloaded 73 048236 times till now and still counting!
WordPress Theme Usage Distribution invedus - Magento vs. WordPress
Data source – web hosting secret revealed

Related:- What is WordPress and How Does it Work

Benefits of using WordPress

benefits of using wordpress - Magento vs. WordPress
benefits of using WordPress

Here are the pros that you can avail of when you use WordPress. Have a look.

Flexibility

You already know that WordPress is an open-source platform. Therefore, you will get the code available on GitHub. It makes WordPress more customizable and flexible to create an authentic online store. This CMS perfectly fits your business requirements.

WordPress doesn’t charge you money

People say – nothing is free in this cruel world except for problems and advice. But, WordPress has proven them wrong. It is 100% free. You have to download WordPress from WordPress.org, and it is ready to use.

Adding Website content is pretty easy

You don’t need a lot of designing and coding to build a website with WordPress. Anybody can create a blog post on a WordPress website with just a single click.

Most of the designing part is pre-installed or already done. You can get a beautifully-themed post or page right when you click the mouse in the previous sentence.

Wide variety of themes

You can consider the theme as the face of your website. This part makes your website look pretty. That can be an excellent reason to choose WordPress between WordPress Vs. Magento. You can use the WordPress themes to change between any number of different layouts and styles quickly.

Updates are easy

Want to avoid the obvious situation of calling your web designer every time you update the website? Then, WordPress is going to be your savior. With WordPress, maintaining and updating your blogs will be a piece of cake. It takes a second to search your plugins and then update them.

Contribution from millions of knowledgeable users

People from every corner of the planet are contributing to making WordPress a better platform. They are ready to answer your questions and solve any WordPress-related problem. It makes one-third of website owners worldwide choose WordPress for Magento vs. WordPress for eCommerce CMS.

Related:- A Guide for a Non-techie to Hire a WordPress Developer

Downsides of using WordPress

downsides of using WordPress
downsides of using WordPress

Well, every website hasn’t been built in the same way. Some websites can face technical challenges if you use WordPress for them. Are there any more disadvantages to using this CMS tool? Let’s find out!

Lots of Plugins:- At the time of buying a design template, you get fully designed website pages. You need to update that with images and texts. You have to search for plugins to add features to the website.

Some of the plugins are free, but you have to pay for the rest. You might even get some outdated ones among the plugins you have found.

Poor SEO Ranking:- We get limited SEO features from WordPress. It doesn’t help much to rank in Google. You need a sturdy tool and technology to maximize your SEO efforts. Unfortunately, WordPress is not the best fit for that role.

Slow page Speed:- The added plugins, codebases, and oversaturated databases make WordPress slow. Overall, it slows down your website.

Page speed is a vital factor for the growth of your website. You must have a fast-loading website to sustain your audience. If the visitors get impatient and decide to leave, it will affect your business. That is a notable limitation of WordPress.

Magento

what is Magento
what is Magento

Magento is a solid eCommerce CMS. It gives your online business a flexible shopping cart system.

It is built on the Symfony framework. That’s why Magneto is an open-source platform.

This eCommerce platform offers online merchants robust SEO, powerful marketing, and catalog-management tools. It also helps you control the functionality, content, and overall look of your online store.

Both platforms offer you a handful of great features for your online store development. The solid programmatic interface of this eCommerce platform allows website owners to create their customized applications.

Key Points:

  • More than 250,000 merchants worldwide use Magento.
  • Magento powers 1.2% of the internet.
  • About 11000 of the total Magento stores run on Magento 2.
  • 11% of all US-based websites are employing Magento.
  • Businesses like Ford, Omega Watches, Bulgari, and Christian Louboutin operate Magento.
  • 12% of all online retail stores across the world use Magento as their eCommerce platform.
Magento's market share in Magento vs. WordPress
Magento’s market share is 0.8% among all websites as of 2021

Source

Benefits of using Magento

benefits of using magento - Magento vs. WordPress
benefits of using Magento

Magento vs. WordPress are both robust and flexible open-source platforms. But, what are the advanced leverages that distinguish Magento from WordPress? Let’s find out!

Improved performance

Magento 2 serves on your plate an advanced indexer. It makes your online store perform better and faster.

The indexer helps you to update data related to the store, users, and prices. It improved the speed of your store.

Powerful platform

Do you want to process a vast amount of orders simultaneously? Are you up to opening a large store with 600,000 products? Don’t worry. Magento 2 is capable of fulfilling anything that your eCommerce demands.

This advanced CMS can handle an extensive inventory. It also offers you all the major payment gateways.

Robust SEO 

You can blindly trust Magento for its advanced SEO features when you are confused between Magento vs. WordPress. We already know that the key to better traffic is organic search. That’s why you must have a properly optimized website. And, Magneto gets you the best SEO features.

Great support

Magento currently has about 320000 developers across the globe using this platform. So, you will get a huge community available for any kind of help in development and customization.

There will always be an abundance of support for you. Besides, you will get a vast library of third-party extensions. It will help you to add all kinds of functionality to the online store.

Amazing features

Magento vs. WordPress both provide you with a bunch of top-notch features. Then, what makes Magento special? Let me tell you.

It is Stock Magento that you can obtain with contour, simple and digital products. Online store owners can utilize this CMS to run business activities such as managing a music store or selling tickets for holidays without any extension.

Magento Disadvantages

magento disadvantages - WordPress vs Magento for eCommerce
Magento disadvantages

So, we have reached the last part of describing the pros and cons of Magento vs. WordPress. Now it’s time to reveal the dark side of Magento.

It’s expensive:- Magento can be a little pricey for small store owners. Here you have to pay for ongoing maintenance, changes to functionalities, keeping the core code, updates, plugin software, and so on. 

Whenever you make an addition to your online store, you have to spend money. The enterprise edition is also very costly. The license charge follows the same route. If your developer is not that experienced in handling the additions, they might increase the cost.

Problems with the heavy load:- This eCommerce software is designed like an enterprise Java application. It runs on PHP. That heavy load handling can be complex in some situations.

Not so much User-friendly:- Magento is going to be a tough nut to crack when you are not experienced. The script is not very easy to use. The administration tasks are complicated too.

The point is, you should choose Magento between Magento vs. WordPress, only when you are experienced enough. Otherwise, we suggest you take lessons about its functionalities before you start using it.

Similarities Between Magento vs. WordPress for eCommerce

Let me remind you of a few things first. Both Magento vs. WordPress have been built in different ways. They both have different objectives and different groups of the target audience.

Still, both are open-source platforms. Each of them lets you enjoy its benefits for free. What are the other similarities?

  • They both are very popular all around the world.
  • Both Magento vs. WordPress offer the users an extensive range of themes. We can choose the one among them that will be suitable for our requirements and budget. Both content management tools provide you with all the required features such as multi-currency support, on-site payment gateway, etc.
  • They both have different plugins. You can use those for online store development. It helps the eCommerce merchants to offer their clients an enhanced user experience.
  • These two Magento vs. WordPress eCommerce tools are highly customizable. You get unlimited options from them for both front-end and back-end customization of the website.
  • Both WordPress and Magento have potent communities.
  • Each of them is mobile-friendly by nature.

What are the differences between WordPress and Magento?

You already know that both Magento and WordPress are two popular and powerful eCommerce content management tools. But, you have to pick just one between Magento vs. WordPress Right?

Let us help you. Have a look at the following points that differentiate these two tools.

Coding language:

You don’t need to use any coding language to use WordPress. But, you have to know PHP for Magento.

Architecture:

The main dissimilarity between WordPress and Magento is in their architecture. It gives them different technical support options.

Ease to use:

WordPress is pretty much user-friendly. You can use WordPress all by yourself if you don’t have any prior knowledge.

On the other hand, Magento is way more complicated. It has limited resources. You need to hire an expert to use Magento unless you are a Magento developer.

Ecommerce:

Each of Magento vs. WordPress works excellent as an eCommerce platform. Still, Magento shows a more powerful performance when it comes to online selling. Here are the sales features that Magento offers you:

  • Free shipping options 
  • One-page checkout
  • Add several images per product listing
  • Recently viewed and compared products
  • Different price points for different customer groups

WordPress also offers you a bunch of eCommerce features. You won’t get them already built into the platform. However, you can easily install WooCommerce Plugin. It is famous for helping users grow their websites and drive sales.

How to choose the right eCommerce platform for your business?

Magento vs. WordPress right eCommerce platform for your business
right eCommerce platform

So, the comparison of Magento vs. WordPress is almost done. You already know the strengths, weaknesses, similarities, and differences of both tools.

Now, it is time to choose the best online store builder platform. Here we have explained some parameters. I hope this will help you to make the final decision.

Performance

Well, as you are already guessing, WordPress is lighter and faster. It is pretty obvious because it involves the least resources among all eCommerce platforms. 

On the other hand, Magento contains an in-built feature to provide high-performance. So, they both are equally good at performance.

Security

As an open-source platform, WordPress provides a host of plugins. You can use the plugins to manage and expand the security of your website.

At the same line, Magento has a sturdy back-end code quality. So, it has fewer possibilities for malware and hacks.

Code quality

Between Magento and WordPress, Magento could win the match in terms of code quality. But, the new Gutenberg editor gets buggy from time to time.

WordPress didn’t have that much good code quality. Still, the latest version of WordPress shows a prominent enhancement in quality. Now, the quality of WordPress is far better than before.

Therefore, both eCommerce platforms offer equal code quality.

Customization

This parameter depends upon how much you can control the building and operation of your website. Between WordPress vs Magento for eCommerce, Magento offers you complete control. It also lets you change your online store the way you want.

WordPress is the perfect pick for beginners. But, it doesn’t offer you excellent customization. The users don’t get much flexibility from WordPress when it comes to advanced tasks.

Support

Well, you can expect good support through official documentation and community forums from both platforms. None of them has a dedicated customer service team, though.

Still, the users don’t face any issues because they avail all the required information online. These two open-source platforms have multiple blogs and forums to resolve all your queries.

Ease of use

Both WordPress vs Magento for eCommerce is easy to use. But, the Gutenberg edition of Magento is not that much user-friendly. It needs a lot of improvement. WordPress scores better in terms of ease of use.

Popularity

You already know the answer. Anyone with or without coding knowledge can use WordPress.

Even a beginner can create their online stores using WordPress. So, it is evident that WordPress is more popular.

Plugins

You will get more than 50000 plugins while using WordPress. On the other hand, Magento offers about 15000 modules and add-ons. Now it’s clear who wins the match when we are talking about Plugins.

Hosting

Magento is a self-hosting tool. You have to purchase your hosting services when you are using Magento. WordPress is a hosted CMS. You can easily install WordPress on your favorite hosting service provider.

SEO

WordPress is a better option between WordPress vs Magento for eCommerce if we talk about SEO. It lets you implement changes in the permalinks structure. You can easily customize the meta descriptions and page titles with WordPress.

Besides, Magento demands code-level customization. That’s why beginners find it tough to use. The online store owners looking for a quick solution also tend to avoid Magento because of this.

Pricing

WordPress is completely free. On the other hand, Magneto has free plans for only basic functionalities. You have to pay here if you need advanced functionality and specific features.

Magento vs. WordPress For eCommerce – Comparison Table

The comparison table between these two best CMS will help you assess which one should be your best bet.

FeatureWordPressMagento
CostFree, but may require paid plugins and themes for ecommerce functionalityFree, but requires hosting and development costs
User-friendlinessEasy to use and set up, especially for beginnersComplex and may require technical expertise
ScalabilityCan handle small to medium-sized storesBuilt for large-scale ecommerce sites
CustomizabilityHighly customizable through plugins and themesHighly customizable through development and extensions
SecuritySecurity can be improved through plugins and hostingBuilt with strong security features
SupportLarge community of developers and resources availableOfficial support available, but may be costly
SEO capabilitiesGood, but may require plugins for advanced featuresStrong out-of-the-box SEO capabilities
Payment gatewaysSupports most popular payment gatewaysSupports most popular payment gateways
Multilingual supportGood, but may require plugins for advanced featuresBuilt-in support for multiple languages
Mobile responsivenessGood, but may require responsive themes or pluginsMobile responsive design built-in
Third-party integrationsSupports a wide range of third-party integrationsBuilt with extensive API and integrations capabilities
Magento vs. WordPress – Comparison Table

Final thought: Magento vs. WordPress

Magento and WordPress are both high-quality website development platforms. But, they both have a different bunch of features to offer.

Now, you should choose the one that will fulfill your requirement. If you seek a flexible eCommerce CMS that has better control over the features and functionalities, you must go for WordPress.

If you need an open-source option with excellent performance, then WordPress is going to be your perfect pick.

So, choosing the right platform is a cakewalk once you know what you need.

And last but not least, both platforms have their pros and cons. After you choose the platform, don’t forget to take the help for your Magento development and dedicated WordPress developer from the highly qualified professionals of Invedus. It is the best way to get a world-class online store without going through any hassle.

Premium Outsourcing Services CTA by Invedus

About Samriddhi

Samriddhi is a storyteller and content marketing professional at Invedus. She writes engaging and data-driven content on outsourcing trends and technology strategies. She has skills in content writing, social media marketing, graphic design, and business analysis. She loves to visit scenic tea shops in the green hill stations.