11 min read

The businesses are rapidly building their websites because there is a lot of potentials for them to access more customers. If you are someone who wants to build a website specially e-commerce then you must know that there are a lot of option available in the market. WordPress and Magento are the top CMS and e-commerce platforms that provides its customers with many features to effectively manage their online images. Both Magneto and WordPress are a powerful e-commerce platform. Apparently, it seems like both platforms are offering the same services and features but there is a lot of difference in their functionalities and features. Although both platforms are good at their place, choosing one of them to meet your needs can be a difficult task.

In this article, I would compare almost all aspects of both platforms, so you can have a better idea about their functionalities and technicalities. Both WordPress and Magento are basically the website development platforms that allow their customers to modify, add and manage the contents in the website effectively and easily. Let’s compare both WordPress and Magento based on their e-commerce and content management features that they are offering.

Magento vs WordPress

WordPress

WordPress is an open-source content management and blogging platform that allows its customers to build different websites. It is one of the most frequently used platforms for making websites and managing the content. It is very simple and user-friendly platform, so you can use WordPress development services even if you are a non-technical person. You can get the best WordPress plugins and customized templates with WordPress. The WooCommerce is a popular and most effective WordPress plugin for making the e-commerce websites. It is offering more than 56,000 wp plugins to its users to improve the functionality of their websites.

It is a multi-purpose platform that provides a lot of free and customized wp plugins to enhance the customer’s experience.

 Magento

Like WordPress, Magento is also an open-source platform that is majorly used to make e-commerce websites. There are more than 15000 e-commerce websites built on this platform because of its highly effective dedicated e-commerce features. There are a lot of dominant brands and multinational companies using Magento platform to fulfil their online business needs. It is offering a lot of functionalities and flexibilities to the retailers to effectively sell their products online. The Magento also offers mobile commerce, multi-store management, marketing, SEO, reports generation, and other essential management tools to its users.

The Magento platform is a little bit more complex as compared with WordPress and it also facilities the users to create more complex menus, pages, version control etc. There is no doubt that it is the first choice of businesses, who want to sell their product online.

Usability and Flexibility

WordPress

When it comes to simplicity and ease to use nothing is like WordPress. A person from a non-development background can also make a highly functional website by using its smart tools. Its features are very user-friendly and intuitive that allows the user to build websites without having any trouble. It is a flexible platform that allows its users to incorporate different add-on features to improve the overall functionality, for example, contact forms, live chat box, one-page checkout process, product catalogue management, inventory are some of the major features of the website.  It is clearly a more user-friendly and simpler platform to use than another platform available in the market.

Magento

The Magento platform provides a lot of advanced features and functionalities to the users that make it more complex to use. Working on the Magento platform, you would need to do more codding. A person using Magento development services must have some codding experience to effectively build and manage the websites. Because of the difficulty to use this platform, you might have some trouble dealing with its tools.

 As far as flexibility is a concern, Magento is not very versatile like WordPress, you can only use Magento for making the advanced e-commerce websites. If you are an expert in PHP and have some development experience then dealing with Magento will be easier for you. It is an expert level platform and it is not recommended to use for the beginner’s level because of its level of difficulty and complexities.

Security and Development Features

WordPress

The installation of widgets and plugins for building an e-commerce website with WordPress is very easy and simple. The ease to use the WordPress tools also improves its flexible, but it lacks the security features and many of the WordPress users also complaints about the cyber attacks and malware on their websites. The security of your website is very important to improve online credibility, otherwise, WordPress developer will always be a threat by the hackers and malware.

 WordPress is offering some security plugins that you must consider and use on your website by following the WordPress security guide.

Magento

The Magento is an object-oriented platform that is a bit hard to learn for a non-technical person. The user must have some understanding of the development and codding to build a website on Magento. It is providing some advance built-in security features that will keep your websites more protected and secured. Because of the higher security features, you would have less threat of hackers and other virus attacks on your website. The Magento also send timely security updates to its users to minimize the security risk and keep the data and information of the user more protected. It provides more security features than WordPress.

There is a new FREE security tool introduced in Magento named Magento Security scan that monitors all security risks, detects unauthorized access and update the malware patches.

Purpose and Functionalities

WordPress

WordPress is a good option to make a blog or any informational website. It also allows you to sell some amount of product on its online portal. There are many plugins that WordPress offers to build an e-commerce website for selling products to customers. The e-commerce website builds on WordPress is easy to manage as compared with the one build on Magento. There are no advance functions available in WordPress to make e-commerce websites. Although the e-commerce website you made with WordPress is not very advanced still it is decent enough to perform online buying and selling effectively. It offers some simple functions to users such as delivery, orders tracking, and shipping management, payment options, etc. If you are a beginner, it is good to start your eCommerce journey with WordPress because it is less complicated and simple to work on. It is an ideal option for making a small size eCommerce website for selling the limited number of products to a small number of customers.

to host a WordPress site, you can use AWS WordPress, azure WordPress, Akismet WordPress or digitalocean WordPress.

Magento

If you are thinking of building a large and more significant e-commerce site then nothing is like Magento. It offers advanced e-commerce functionalities to its users that help to manage a large number of products effectively. The Magento is providing advance e-commerce features to the clients that make it a more suitable option for building a multivendor market.

The website build on Magento seems more professional and also provide more advanced functionalities than the WordPress site. The versatility of the Magento e-commerce website also allows selling both digital and physical products online. It makes high-performance websites for fast-growing businesses. The functionality of the Magento is more efficient and advanced as compared with WordPress that allows the businesses to have rapid growth in the online e-commerce marketplace.

Working with Magento can be a complex task and it might require its users to have some development and codding experience to deal with different tools and features it is providing. So, I must say that Magento is a perfect platform to develop an e-commerce website because it will support you to extend your business by building the most efficient online Magento store.

Plugins and Functions

WordPress

WordPress is a simple CMS and blogging platform and recently it introduced some advanced plugins for making effective e-commerce platforms. One of the most effective and well-known e-commerce plugins of WordPress is WooCommerce. It is an ideal option for making small to medium size of e-commerce websites. It is an open-source free plugin for building e-commerce sites with around 5.7 million downloads. This plugin has seen incredible growth in the past few years because of its convenience and ease to use.

 The installation and configuration of WordPress are very easy and simple.  You don’t need to have any knowledge of development to work on it because of its easy backend management. This is a search engine friendly e-commerce solution that also provides good security to your website. WordPress might not be compatible with your growing business needs because of its lack of functionalities.

Magento

The Magento is the most suitable and most frequently used platform for building a highly effective and more flexible e-commerce site. It is an n-source platform, so you can easily customize the functionality and design of your website, depending on your needs. To work with the Magento, you must have a good understanding of codding with high-level of development skills. Developing a website using Magento can be a bit expensive because there are a lot of complexities involves in the customization of websites.

For building a website you can either use an available theme or customized designs. I would recommend you to customize your design to improve the users experience on your website. With Magento, you can offer more payment options to your customers. It has a very effective order management system that helps in managing the catalogue. You can manage various stores from one account with Magento and it also offers very effective marketing and promotional tools to its users. The big brands and large companies choose it for building online stores because it provides more opportunities for business growth in the future. You must get some experience in codding to effectively manage the Magento platform without any trouble.

Cost and Pricing

WordPress

If you are conscious about prices and have a limited budget for the development of E-commerce site then WooCommerce pricing is the most effective and cheap option available. The development and maintenance of the website with WooCommerce are simple and easy. If you are a startup or new business then cost can be a significant factor for you to consider. It is an open-source free to use the platform and you can install it anytime. To start your online store with WooCommerce, you might need a WordPress SSL certificate, wp hosting and a domain.

You can get the SSL certificate, WordPress hosting and a domain at minimum prices with WordPress. Because of the increasing demand for WooCommerce, they are now offering discounts for the new startups and businesses to get their services at a minimum budget. There are many WooCommerce and WordPress hosting providers in the market, who are offering hosting services to their customers. The price ranges of all service providers are different. Some service providers offer their customers a free SSL certificate, you are lucky if you find the one. So, you can say that building eCommerce website with WordPress WooCommerce is very budget-friendly and it’s capital and maintenance cost is also very low.

Magento

Like WordPress, Magento is also a free open-source platform that is specifically dedicated to making highly functional e-commerce websites. The Magento platform has two editions, one you can install for free but here you cannot get a lot of features. The other platform is Magento Commerce offers a lot of paid plans to its users with cloud hosting. You can find the pricing list of Magento on its website. The Magento paid plans are expensive as compared with the WordPress WooCommerce. It offers advanced features, high-level hosting and professional support that make it a bit expensive deal to get.

With Magento you can get core software for free but after that nothing is free and you have to pay a good price for everything. You might have to hire some expert developers to deal with the codding and complexities of your Magento platform. So, you can say that the paid Magento extensions, hosting and development expenses increase the overall cost of Magento.

Better Ecommerce Platform

WordPress

WordPress is basically a blogging and CMS platform that additionally provides some plugins to build eCommerce sites. It just provides some basic features of e-commerce that can be sufficient for a small or medium side business. The WooCommerce is an open-source plugin for WordPress to make e-commerce websites. It can be a good option for the beginners to start an online store because it is very simple and easy to manage platform.

The limited e-commerce features of WordPress might not enough to fulfil the growing business needs.

Magento

The Magento is the first choice for large retailers to build e-commerce websites because of its advanced features and highly functional websites. Magento is a full-fledged e-commerce development platform. The Magento is basically an eCommerce platform that will make your website highly professional and good looking. It offers top quality functionalities and the customization that allow you to incorporate features like shopping cart, page checkout, multi-store management, product catalogue, etc. For working on Magento, you must have a good codding experience and development skills because this platform is highly complex and cannot be managed by a non-technical person.

The Magento is more reliable e-commerce website development platform as compared with WordPress. Like WordPress, Magento also offers a lot of plugins to the users but they are all related to e-commerce. The out-of-the-box capabilities of the Magento would allow you to stand out of the crowd.

All in all, both Magento and WordPress are offering Ecommerce features to users, but here I must say that when it comes to developing e-commerce site nothing is like Magento. So, Magento is the most effective e-commerce website development platform. At any time, WordPress to Magento or Magento to WooCommerce migration is possible as per your business requirements.

Better CMS

WordPress

When we talk about content management system (CMS), the first name comes to mind is WordPress. It is the best known and widely used CMS platform. WordPress provides a range of plugins to manage the content effectively. The content management with WordPress is super easy because of its user-friendly interface. You don’t need to have any technical knowledge to manage the content on WordPress.

Many of the bloggers also use it as CMS because it provides a lot of tools and plugins. It is a budget-friendly CMS and you can manage your content free of cost and for customized themes and plugins the cost is very low.  Thousands of WordPress themes are available for almost every field. If you want to create a social Network website, online store, social learning website or others, you can use buddypress WordPress theme.

Magento

The Magento is an open-source e-commerce website development platform with some basic CMS features. It provides some CMS plugins to users but the CMS of Magento is very weak that it is unable to effectively manage heavy content sites. Honestly speaking, the Magento is not a good choice for the CMS, because Magento is an eCommerce website building platform.

When it comes to CMS WordPress is the best and I would recommend you to choose WordPress for your CMS needs because it is easy to use and the cost is also very low. So, you can say that WordPress is the most effective CMS of all.

Pros and Cons

WordPress

Pros

• It is simple and easy to use CMS and blogging platforms that can also build e-commerce sites.
• Plugins are very simple that is designed keeping in mind the WordPress SEO purposes.
• It is very easy to install and configure, you don’t need to have any technical skills to work on it.
• It is very budget-friendly and its customized plugins are also very cheap.
• It is very mobile friendly and it is designed with minimum PHP code. It will also make your website quick to load.

Cons

• The custom layouts of WordPress are hard to use and some of the designs are not easily accessible.
• You are going to get non-stop updates with WordPress about their new plugins, themes, etc.
• WordPress sites are prone to hacking. Security is a major concern in WordPress.

Magento

Pros

• It provides advanced features to build a highly effective and incredible e-commerce website for large companies and big brands.
• It is an open-source platform and its core software is completely free to download and install.
• It provides advanced B2B ecommerce functionalities and product data capabilities.
• The Magento offers advanced payment options and shipping capabilities.
• The businesses are likely to get more scalability with Magento and it also helps them to grow rapidly.

Cons

• The Magento paid plans and hosting features are more expensive as compared with the other options available in the market.
• The learning curve of the Magento is large.
• The CMS capabilities of the Magento is very weak to manage websites with heavy content.
• It is more complicated to deal with because of its complex themes.
• It requires the user to have some technical and codding skills to work with it.

Conclusion

Both WordPress and Magento are well known CMS and Ecommerce website development platforms. The features and specifications of both platforms are quite different. In this article, I have a discussion about the major differences in the functionalities and purposes of WordPress and Magento to examine the better eCommerce website building and CMS platform. By comparing different features and functionalities of WordPress and Magento, I can say that the Magento is a better E-commerce website development platform for long term business development perspective and WordPress is a more effective CMS. You can use WordPress as a CMS and e-commerce website development at the initial level. The Magento is an advanced e-commerce website building platform used by many large companies.