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Ecwid vs WooCommerce
March 19, 2025 | Author: Sandeep Sharma
8★
E-commerce SaaS service that offers the performance and flexibility you need, with none of the hassles you don't. Works with your existing site, takes less than 5 minutes to set up. Web, Facebook and mobile devices
16★
WooCommerce is the most popular WordPress eCommerce plugin. And it's available for free. Packed full of features, perfectly integrated into your self-hosted WordPress website.Watch the 2 minute plugin overview
Ecwid and WooCommerce are both ways to sell things on the internet, which is an astonishingly popular activity these days, right up there with looking at cat videos and getting into arguments with strangers. They let you sell physical things, digital things and presumably, if the technology ever catches up, metaphysical things. They work with various payment gateways, social media, and, quite importantly, are both designed to stop your online store from looking like it was built in the late Jurassic period.
Ecwid has been around since 2009 and started life in Russia before deciding to relocate itself to the United States, much like a spy novel but with fewer chase scenes. It’s designed for small businesses that don’t want to deal with the terrifying responsibilities of hosting, security and other technical nightmares best left to professionals or people who enjoy that sort of thing. The idea is that you can simply bolt it onto an existing website, much like an extra engine on a spaceship, but without the likelihood of exploding. There’s a free plan, but as with all free things, it comes with limits and a subtle but insistent nudge toward giving them money.
WooCommerce, on the other hand, arrived slightly later in 2011 and is a proud creation of Automattic, the same people responsible for WordPress, which means it’s essentially an eCommerce Swiss Army knife that only works if you’re already camping in the WordPress wilderness. Unlike Ecwid, WooCommerce is open-source, which means you can tinker with it to your heart’s content, provided you don’t mind occasionally breaking things in spectacular and mysterious ways. It’s ideal for businesses that need an online shop with limitless flexibility and are willing to endure the existential dread of choosing from thousands of plugins, hosting providers and themes, many of which seem to be in a permanent state of "coming soon" or "last updated three years ago."
See also: Top 10 Online Store Builders
Ecwid has been around since 2009 and started life in Russia before deciding to relocate itself to the United States, much like a spy novel but with fewer chase scenes. It’s designed for small businesses that don’t want to deal with the terrifying responsibilities of hosting, security and other technical nightmares best left to professionals or people who enjoy that sort of thing. The idea is that you can simply bolt it onto an existing website, much like an extra engine on a spaceship, but without the likelihood of exploding. There’s a free plan, but as with all free things, it comes with limits and a subtle but insistent nudge toward giving them money.
WooCommerce, on the other hand, arrived slightly later in 2011 and is a proud creation of Automattic, the same people responsible for WordPress, which means it’s essentially an eCommerce Swiss Army knife that only works if you’re already camping in the WordPress wilderness. Unlike Ecwid, WooCommerce is open-source, which means you can tinker with it to your heart’s content, provided you don’t mind occasionally breaking things in spectacular and mysterious ways. It’s ideal for businesses that need an online shop with limitless flexibility and are willing to endure the existential dread of choosing from thousands of plugins, hosting providers and themes, many of which seem to be in a permanent state of "coming soon" or "last updated three years ago."
See also: Top 10 Online Store Builders
