Wix and WooCommerce both stand out as reliable eCommerce solutions. Each has distinct advantages that make it an ideal option for anyone looking to build an online store. 

In this guide, we’ll look at each website builder to discover which one has more to offer in terms of features and functionality. 

I’ve spent over nine hours reviewing and comparing the two, and I’ll share my findings on different aspects of each system, including ease of use, design and customization, eCommerce capabilities, blogging tools, support, pricing, and more. 

Without further ado, let’s dive right in.

1. Ease of Use

Both Wix and WooCommerce are beginner-friendly and offer free plans to get started. Here’s a closer look at how easy it is to create a website using each platform.

Wix:

When looking at the key features and functionality of Wix, it’s important to start with ease-of-use. You want a website builder that lets you create your website as quickly and easily as possible, and Wix does not disappoint in this regard. 

The platform has drag-and-drop functionality and an intuitive interface that makes it easy for beginners to build and manage their websites, blogs, or eCommerce stores. 

You can customize everything without coding knowledge. Choose from a huge number of templates (almost 1,000 and growing) all tailored to different industries and needs. Effortlessly personalize each template to match your brand by clicking on different elements like text, images, forms, buttons, etc. 

Being an all-in-one solution, Wix also provides a range of other services in addition to website-building tools. When you sign-up, you also get access to the platform’s hosting, domain registration, and various other services necessary to build a fully functional website.

Summary of Wix’s Ease of Use Features:

• Easy to Use: Wix is one of the easiest website builders you can use. It even has an AI that can create your site for you. 
• Pre-Designed Templates: You’ll find templates for creating any type of website imaginable, including portfolios, blogs, and eCommerce stores. 
• Unstructured Editor: The platform’s editor lets you design unique pages by allowing you to place elements anywhere on the page, rather than using pre-defined grids. 

WooCommerce:

WooCommerce is a free plugin that transforms your WordPress site into an eCommerce platform. 

It’s an open-source tool that is exclusively focused on helping you sell your products and services online. It’s also among the most widely used eCommerce platforms right now and currently powers millions of websites. 

The plugin nature of WooCommerce makes it very different from Wix in terms of functionality. Wix is a website builder suitable for creating all types of websites, including online stores, whereas WooCommerce focuses on eCommerce and works only with WordPress websites.

The initial setup is quick, easy, and requires no financial investment, except of course, for your hosting provider. 

Just like Wix, WooCommerce has a user-friendly interface that makes it accessible to users without a lot of technical knowledge. The intuitive dashboard lets you efficiently manage products, track orders, analyze sales data, and more.

All in all, the WooCommerce plugin is a powerful tool that lets you merge the power of WordPress with the flexibility of the eCommerce platform to create a great-looking, secure, and high-performing store.

Summary of WooCommerce’s Ease of Use Features:

• Easy-to-Install Plugin: WooCommerce can be integrated into your WordPress website in just a few clicks. 
• Free to Use: You can install the plugin for free on your website to start selling products and services online. 
• Intuitive Dashboard: You can do everything from your dashboard, including tracking sales and analyzing your store data. 

Winner: Wix

Wix is the winner here thanks to its user-friendly approach which allows anyone to build and manage their eCommerce store without the need for external assistance. WordPress, on the other hand, has a slightly steeper learning curve, particularly if you want to build a more complex website.

2. Design and Customization

When creating an online store, you need a website builder with the right design tools and customization options to let you create a good-looking website with the functionality you need. Let’s see how these two platforms compare. 

Wix:

Having an optimized and easy-to-navigate website is crucial in today’s age. Fortunately, all Wix templates offer simple menus that make it easy for your visitors to find what they need on your site. 

The templates are also mobile-optimized by default. This means your website will look good and function seamlessly on smartphones and tablets without you having to spend extra time tweaking the design. 

All of Wix’s templates are professionally designed and optimized for the web. They come with built-in features for running a successful online store, such as product galleries, multi-channel selling, social media storefFredts, and much more. 

You can add or remove these elements at the click of a button to create a store that has the features your customers want.

Wix also has an extensive app market where you’ll find thousands of third-party apps to enhance your website’s capabilities. You’ll find everything from social media integration to inventory management and more.

Summary of Wix’s Design and Customization Features:

• Beautiful store layouts with built-in eCommerce features
• Wix App Market for additional tools and apps
• Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) for easy site design
• 100% customizable templates and themes
• Royalty-free video and stock photography library

WooCommerce:

Like Wix, WooCommerce also has an extensive plugin ecosystem. There is a vast library of free and paid plugins that you can use to extend the functionality of your eCommerce store. 

Add marketing tools, SEO optimization tools, customer service tools, and more. The possibilities are endless, and with the platform’s third-party services, you can customize and scale your eCommerce business with no limits.

With the platform’s pre-made templates, you’ll be able to spend less time building and more time selling. Simply pick one that appeals to you, add your content, customize different settings, and you can launch a beautiful, fully functional online store without ever having to touch a line of code. 

The platform provides the foundation, easy drag-and-drop tools, and support to ensure your success. Many of the templates also come with built-in features to help you grow, including email marketing, advertising, and social features to help you expand your reach.

Summary of WooCommerce’s Design and Customization Features:

• Pre-made Store Templates: With the platform’s pre-configured templates, you’ll be able to launch your store in days as opposed to weeks or months.
• Code-Free Site Editing: There’s very little you can’t build with WooCommerce, and you can tailor niche features for your online store without handling any code.
• Fully Scalable Solution: WooCommerce is a powerful platform that has what it takes to take you from your first sale to your 10,000th and beyond. 

Winner: WooCommerce

The vast ecosystem of plugins and themes available for WordPress and WooCommerce offer endless possibilities for the design and functionality of your website. With so many third-party services to choose from, you can easily build any type of store you want, no matter how complex.

Although Wix offers an impressive range of customization options, it’s still not as extensive as its competitor. Advanced customization on Wix requires coding knowledge or the assistance of a professional developer.

3. eCommerce Capabilities

If you’re looking to build an online store, you need a website builder with the right built-in tools to make it easy for you to sell your products, collect payments, and connect with customers. Both Wix and WooCommerce have built-in functionality to handle all your eCommerce operations from one place. 

Wix:

Wix is an all-in-one website-building platform with built-in eCommerce functionality. It’s perfect for beginners and advanced users alike and comes with a range of eCommerce-focused templates that you can use to get your store up and running in just minutes. 

You get multiple payment options so you can cater to different types of customers. This includes credit cards, PayPal, and even offline payments. All payment gateways are secure which ensures the safety of your online transactions.

You can sell both physical and digital products in your store, and you have access to the platform’s powerful point-of-sale system with which you can sell online and in person. 

Depending on which plan you’re on, you’ll get access to advanced eCommerce features, such as a cart abandonment tool that lets you recover more sales from visitors who leave your website without completing their purchase. 

Wix also has inventory and catalog management tools, as well as tools for orders, payments, marketing, and more so you can handle all your eCommerce business operations from one place.

Summary of Wix’s eCommerce Capabilities:

• All-in-one platform with built-in eCommerce functionality
• List unlimited products or services
• Pre-designed product galleries to highlight your products
• Discount codes to incentivize more sales
• Sell on mobile, web, and social media storefFredts

WooCommerce:

WooCommerce has powerful eCommerce capabilities that allow you to create and manage robust commerce stores. Some of the platform’s most notable offerings include secure payments such as PayPal, Stripe, and Square. 

You’ll be able to offer your customers a seamless and safe checkout process which helps not only enhance trust but also boost your conversions.

WooCommerce also offers flexible product management features. You can showcase and sell both physical and digital products on your website. 

Manage inventory and variations from your dashboard, easily add product descriptions and images, and even add dynamic pricing. These are just a few of the attributes that help you provide a comprehensive shopping experience to all your customers.

WooCommerce also provides you with detailed analytics and reporting tools so you can get better insights into your eCommerce business. You’ll get comprehensive data on the performance of your store, including things like customer behavior, sales trends, product performance, and more. 

This type of valuable information allows you to make better-informed decisions to help you optimize your marketing and sales strategies.

Summary of WooCommerce’s eCommerce Capabilities:

• Powerful eCommerce functionality
• Manage multiple stores from a single account
• Flexible product management features
• Sell online and offline
• Robust store analytics and reports

Winner: WooCommerce

Wix may have some limitations when it comes to large-scale eCommerce operations, therefore, if you anticipate massive growth for your online store, then it’s best to consider WooCommerce instead. 

With WooCommerce, you get all the eCommerce tools you need to sell products and services, manage payments and inventory, handle text calculations automatically, and more. You also get the ability to scale your store as much as you like without limitations. 

4. Blogging Tools

A blog is beneficial for eCommerce stores. You can use it to bring in a constant flow of targeted traffic to your products and services. Here’s what each platform has to offer in terms of blogging functionality. 

Wix:

On Wix, creating a blog is easy. Simply click the “Start Blogging†tab on the left-hand side of your dashboard. Choose a blog layout from the available options and you can start creating your content.

Most of the Wix blog templates allow you to pick a featured image and post header. You can then add your content and include different types of elements to make it more engaging, such as stylish headings, images, embedded videos, audio, and more. 

Create and publish or schedule your posts quickly from your dashboard. Use relevant categories and tags to organize your posts. You can also enable comments on your blog pages to increase interaction with your visitors. 

Wix’s blogging engine is very easy to use, but it’s also quite basic compared to other site builders. It’s ideal for anyone with basic blogging needs, but if you plan to build a content-heavy site, then you’ll need something more powerful. 

Summary of Wix’s Blogging Tools:

• Set up a Wix blog in minutes
• Beautiful blog layouts are available 
• No-code content editing experience
• Add categories and manage comments from your Wix Editor
• Activate blog comments for increased reader engagement

WooCommerce:

WordPress was originally created for blogging, and although the platform has expanded far beyond that, blogging is still at its core. By integrating WooCommerce into your WordPress website, you get to take advantage of the powerful blogging engine. 

In comparison, Wix has very limited blogging functionality. You get a drag-and-drop editor that lets you add about a dozen different elements, such as images, tables, videos, buttons, etc. However, when you create a blog using WordPress, you get access to the entire block editor. 

You can choose from dozens of elements ranging from basic paragraphs and images to videos and columns, the latest blog posts, social media feeds, and much much more. This allows you to create content that is truly unique and engaging for your potential customers. 

WordPress is also super SEO-friendly and makes it easy to connect with powerful SEO plugins to further enhance your blogging potential (more on that below).

Summary of WooCommerce’s Blogging Tools:

• Free blogging feature that is easy to use
• SEO-friendly blogging platform
• Endless blog design options
• Flexible functionality with built-in blog marketing features
• Social media integration to reach a broader audience

Winner: WooCommerce

WooCommerce wins the blogging contest thanks to its partnership with WordPress, one of the world’s most powerful content management systems. The platform also comes with tens of thousands of plugins (both free and paid) designed to enhance your blog’s functionality.

5. Search Engine Optimization Tools

Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial for the online success of any website. Having the right SEO tools will allow you to improve your website’s visibility, making it easier for your target audience to find your content. 

This is why it’s important to choose a website builder with robust SEO tools to optimize your new website right away.

Wix:

As a marketer, you know how important it is to optimize your website or eCommerce store for search engines. This is crucial if you want to drive super-targeted organic traffic to your products. 

Wix offers built-in SEO tools to make it easier for you to optimize your website’s content, URLs, and meta-tags. You’ll be able to increase the visibility of your new site in Google and other search engines just by tweaking the different settings in the built-in SEO tools. 

You can also enhance your website indexing results through the use of third-party plugins or apps from the Wix App Marketplace.

If you’re not sure how to go about any of this, you can let the Wix SEO Wizard take care of everything for you. You’ll get suggestions to ensure that you successfully optimize your new website for search. 

Summary of Wix’s Search Engine Optimization Tools:

• 100% mobile responsive websites
• SEO Wizard for easy website optimization
• Automatic image optimization
• Structured data to help Google contextualize your content
• Accelerated mobile pages (AMP)

WooCommerce:

WooCommerce makes it easy to build an aesthetic and user-friendly eCommerce store that is also SEO-friendly. 

Since it’s a WordPress plugin, it supports all the same SEO best practices as WordPress. Thanks to the built-in SEO features, you don’t have to rely on manual practices or outsource your website optimization to a pro. 

The eCommerce platform offers all the basic SEO optimizations you need, including adding meta-tags, titles, and meta descriptions. You also get advanced XML sitemaps and suggestions on how to optimize the on-page SEO. 

WordPress also offers a free search engine optimization tool, Yoast SEO, to help beginners optimize their online store with minimum effort.

You can even access advanced technical SEO by adding third-party apps to your website to help solidify and improve your rankings.

Summary of WooCommerce’s Search Engine Optimization Tools:

• Yoast SEO Included: WooCommerce makes use of the Yoast SEO plugin to get your website optimized as quickly as possible.
• Suggestions for Internal Linking: When creating a new webpage, you get tips on the best websites to connect to.
• Metadata Editing: You can modify text displayed on your website for search results.
• Redirects: You can send a new URL when you update the slug on existing pages automatically.

Winner: Tie

Both Wix and WooCommerce come well-equipped for search engine optimization, so will call this one a type. Wix has core SCO features included in his unlimited plan which you can access via the Site Booster feature. WooCommerce has free basic SCO software (such as Joost plug-in) that you can use on your website. You can upgrade to the premium plan to get advanced features.

6. Community and Support

Customer support is an important consideration when choosing the best website builder. The last thing you want is for all your efforts to come to a grinding halt simply because you can’t get the assistance you need to move forward. 

Here’s a quick look at how these two platforms compare with regard to community and customer support.

Wix:

Wix has an online help center packed full of articles to answer any questions you might have regarding the software. 

You can browse through the well-curated library of documents, but if you still require assistance from an actual person, you can get in touch with the support team through live chat, phone, or email. 

VIP subscribers get access to 24/7 priority phone support. There’s also a vibrant Facebook community of Wix users with whom you can connect and get guidance and advice along your website-building journey.

WooCommerce:

WooCommerce is among the most popular eCommerce platforms which is why it’s no surprise that it comes with a massive, active, and engaged community. 

You’ll be able to find support, tutorials, and documentation to assist you when building and managing your eCommerce store. 

There’s also a forum where you can connect with other like-minded users, get answers to your questions, and share your own insights on using the platform.

Winner: Tie

Both platforms offer help and support in a number of ways, ranging from email support and phone support to online guides and community forums. You’ll be able to get support through the most convenient channel for you which helps to save you energy and time if you happen to get stuck.

7. Pricing

When building your online store, it is crucial to consider the amount of money you will have to invest. Here’s a quick look at the pricing structures of Wix and WooCommerce so you can make the right choice for you.

Wix:

Wix offers a range of plans to suit different needs. Here’s what each premium plan entails:

• Wix Free Plan: Wix has a free forever plan that lets you build a simple website. The plan includes free web hosting and a sub-domain (e.g. YourSite.wixsite.com). This is an ad-supported plan, which means Wix ads will be shown on every page and favicon in the URL. You get up to 500 MB of storage and bend with. Unfortunately, this plan doesn’t include customer support, Google Analytics, or online payments. You’ll have to upgrade to one of the premium plans to unlock these and other features.
• Combo Plan: $15/Month: This plan is ideal for personal use. It comes with a custom domain, a free SSL certificate, and 2GB of storage space and you can host up to 30 minutes of video. You can sign up for a free trial on any of the premium plans to get access to the core features before deciding whether or not this SiteBuilder is right for you.
• Unlimited Plan: $22/Month: The Unlimited plan comes with everything in the Combo plan + 5GB of storage space, one hour of video, and a visitor analytics app. This plan is ideal for entrepreneurs and freelancers and comes with a Google Ads budget to help promote your business.
• Pro Plan: $27/Month: The Pro plan is ideal for complete online branding. It comes with all the features in the Unlimited plan, as well as 50GB of storage space, two hours of video, an events calendar app, and over 40 different sizes of your logo ready to use on various social media channels.
• VIP Plan: $45/Month: This plan has everything in the Pro plan, as well as 100GB storage space, 5 video hours, and priority customer care. If you value first-priority support, then this plan is ideal for you. 

WooCommerce:

WooCommerce is a complete eCommerce solution that you can use for free. You can upgrade to one of the premium plans to unlock more functionality and advanced features. 

Here’s what you get with each plan. 

• WooCommerce Free Plan: $0/Month: WooCommerce is a free plugin that’s available within the WordPress repository. There are no hidden charges. Simply install it on your website and once integrated into your existing WordPress website, it allows you to build your online store from your dashboard.
• Essential Plan: $25/Month: Like the free plan, the Essential plan has everything you need to launch your online store. It also has additional features to help you grow, including unlimited staff accounts, additional themes, automated site backups, and built-in payment processing. You also get the Woo mobile app so you can manage your store on the go.
• Performance Plan: $45/Month: This plan has all the Essential features, as well as an abandoned cart recovery tool and event-based email marketing tools. It also has advanced eCommerce features, such as discounted shipping rates, product recommendations, up/cross-selling, and automatic back-in-stock notifications.

Winner: WooCommerce

WooCommerce clearly stands out in this contest. The plugin is free to use and it comes with all the features required to run a successful online store. Wix also has a free plan, but it does not come with eCommerce functionality.

You can set up, design, and manage your online store and blog from one place. Pay a single subscription for all the tools you need. All you need is a reliable hosting provider. 

Final Thoughts

When it comes to Wix vs WooCommerce, the platform you choose to build your online store depends on your specific needs. For the majority of web stores, WordPress and WooCommerce make a great option since they are both free. 

However, you may prefer a ready-made platform where you simply pay for a conveniently done-for-you solution, in which case Wix is the better option for you.

Choose Wix if: You want a hassle-free approach to building your online store. Wix has tons of expertly-made store templates so you don’t have to build your shop from scratch. There are also tons of built-in tools, as well as third-party integrations from the Wix App Marketplace to add whatever functionality you want to your store.

Choose WooCommerce if: You want a solid foundation to build and scale your eCommerce presence. The Woo plugin is ideal for businesses of all industries and sizes. Whether you are a small business owner or a fast-growing enterprise, you’ll get all the tools you need. The open-source nature of the platform allows endless customization and you have unlimited integration possibilities through the Woo App Market.