The Best Shopi­fy Alter­na­tives to Unleash your eCommerce

First things first: What is Shopify

We can’t dis­cuss the best Shopi­fy alter­na­tives with­out a brief intro­duc­tion. If you have been doing research on eCom­merce plat­forms, with over 1.5 mil­lion com­pa­nies using it in 175 coun­tries, it is not very like­ly that you have not heard of Shopi­fy. So this is just a quick recap of the basics, the way we see it.

In essence, Shopi­fy is a SaaS (Soft­ware as a Ser­vice) plat­form that allows busi­ness­es to set up and man­age online stores. As a cloud-based plat­form, it relieves busi­ness­es from hav­ing to host and main­tain the soft­ware on their own servers​.It oper­ates on a sub­scrip­tion-based mod­el, charg­ing com­pa­nies a month­ly or annu­al fee for access.

It was found­ed in 2006, after Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Lake decid­ed to cre­ate their own ecom­merce plat­form to sell snow­boards online, com­mit­ted to ease of use and simplicity. 

Ini­tial­ly, Shopi­fy posi­tioned itself as a coun­ter­bal­ance to e‑commerce giants like Ama­zon, sym­bol­iz­ing empow­er­ment for small busi­ness­es and promis­ing to ​“arm the rebels”, empha­siz­ing Shopify’s sup­port for entre­pre­neurs and small busi­ness­es, the under­dogs in the e‑commerce landscape. 

It has since become a giant in the eCom­merce indus­try and shift­ed its focus to mid-mar­ket and enter­prise com­pa­nies. We’ll get into that lat­er, and into why that may be a prob­lem, but for now, let’s say that at the moment, Shopi­fy holds a sig­nif­i­cant posi­tion in the mar­ket, cater­ing to busi­ness­es of all sizes, from star­tups to big enterprises. 

Why would you need a Shopi­fy alternative?

We have cov­ered some good rea­sons to leave an eCom­merce plat­form. Any eCom­merce plat­form. Broad­ly speak­ing, the three key areas are per­for­mance, cost and adapt­abil­i­ty to the future.

Inad­e­quate per­for­mance may range from inef­fi­cient process­es, dif­fi­cul­ties to han­dle increased traf­fic, slow page load times to out­dat­ed web expe­ri­ences, fre­quent down­time or increased secu­ri­ty threats.

The main issues mer­chants face around costs are that they are high, hid­den, or unfore­see­able. The Total Cost of Own­er­ship (TCO) may sky­rock­et due to high oper­a­tional expens­es, includ­ing the need for ded­i­cat­ed devel­op­ers. Addi­tion­al­ly, the inabil­i­ty to swift­ly imple­ment new fea­tures or updates can hin­der busi­ness growth. And then, hid­den costs, a pit­fall of seem­ing­ly ​“free” solu­tions, that often come in the form of main­te­nance expens­es, pricey plu­g­ins, and cus­tomiza­tion demand­ing high-cost devel­op­ment solutions.

As your busi­ness grows, scal­a­bil­i­ty becomes cru­cial. There­fore, we could say the third main fac­tor is time, that is, whether your plat­form will be able to do the things you may need it to do in the future and whether it will con­tin­ue allow­ing you to do what you’re doing now. The key words here are scal­a­bil­i­ty and flexibility.

Why not Shopify?

Every sit­u­a­tion is dif­fer­ent, but in our expe­ri­ence, these are two com­mon sce­nar­ios in which mer­chants con­sid­er leav­ing Shopify:

They are mid­mar­ket or enter­prise com­pa­nies sell­ing B2B or B2B2C and find Shopi­fy Plus is not enough

Indus­try ana­lysts like Gart­ner and For­rester do not eval­u­ate Shopi­fy for B2B for a rea­son. Well, for many. Here are a few:

• Enter­prise busi­ness­es are like­ly to require a high­er lev­el of com­plex­i­ty than what Shopi­fy’s native fea­tures can offer. You might think ​“No big deal, there’s prob­a­bly an app for that”. And it’s true. But there’s at least one but, and it’s that Shopi­fy relies heav­i­ly on its app store to fill gaps in its core func­tion­al­i­ty, and that can lead to slow­er store per­for­mance as more third-par­ty apps and scripts are added. It may also make store per­for­mance hard­er to con­trol and manage.
• Com­pa­nies offer­ing a large and/​or com­plex cat­a­log may also find Shopi­fy lack­ing, as it does­n’t sup­port a large vol­ume of API calls per sec­ond, with a lim­it of 10 calls per sec­ond on Shopi­fy Plus. This means, for exam­ple, that sync­ing a prod­uct cat­a­log with 25,000 SKUs would take over 2 hours. Not great in terms of per­for­mance. Also, Mul­ti-store­front enables mer­chants to have one store, cat­a­log, etc. and lever­age unique store­fronts for dif­fer­ent brands, lan­guages and cur­ren­cies This is vital for B2B and Hybrid brands. Shopi­fy can­not sup­port dif­fer­ent cat­a­logs / store­fronts in a sin­gle instance. 
• Mer­chants sell­ing in mul­ti­ple cur­ren­cies that need to set fixed pric­ing for dif­fer­ent mar­kets or use mul­ti­ple auto­mat­ic dis­counts enabled, or want to imple­ment BOPIS, local deliv­ery, or accel­er­at­ed check­outs (buy now pay lat­er or dig­i­tal wal­lets) are also being dri­ven to seek oth­er solutions.
• Shopi­fy offers the option to use a Blend­ed Store­front for B2B& B2C on a sin­gle instance, but it can­not dif­fer­en­ti­ate between a B2B cus­tomer and a B2C cus­tomer, which means dis­count codes, gift cards, cart noti­fi­ca­tions, ship­ping set­tings & rates apply to both B2B& B2C cus­tomers. They all have the same exact shop­ping experience. 

There are few rea­sons why B2B mer­chants may find Shopi­fy lack­ing. Here are a few more:

They want more choice, con­trol or flexibility.

Due to its focus on ease of use, Shopi­fy removes free­dom to pre­vent users from mak­ing mis­takes or doing some­thing unex­pect­ed. In oth­er words, Shopi­fy is great at remov­ing choice for mer­chants who aren’t ready for it. But some peo­ple want to make choic­es and seek a plat­form that adapts to them and not the oth­er way round. 

Shopi­fy’s cus­tomiza­tion capa­bil­i­ties may be too restric­tive for some mer­chants. Again, the plat­for­m’s empha­sis on user-friend­ly fea­tures can lim­it advanced cus­tomiza­tion options, hin­der­ing busi­ness­es with unique design and func­tion­al­i­ty requirements.

If you work with Shopi­fy, you are like­ly to find your­self in need of more con­trol over your site. For exam­ple, if you rely on organ­ic search, you prob­a­bly want to have a say in the way Google crawls and index­es your site, and Shopi­fy does not allow users to access or edit robot.txt files. 

Mer­chants who want to choose their pay­ment gate­way with­out any addi­tion­al fees and with­out com­pro­mis­ing their pos­si­bil­i­ties to offer trans­ac­tions in mul­ti­ple cur­ren­cies may also be seek­ing an alter­na­tive to Shopify.

Shopi­fy offers a mix of their own pro­pri­etary ser­vices includ­ing Shopi­fy pay­ments, point of sale, cap­i­tal, email mar­ket­ing and ship­ping. To encour­age mer­chants to use their ser­vices rather than offer­ing best-in-breed solu­tions, Shopi­fy reduced the fea­tures avail­able for oth­er options. For exam­ple, their solu­tion for mul­ti-cur­ren­cy is only avail­able to mer­chants using Shopi­fy Pay­ments. Also, it is not entire­ly clear when a mer­chant would be sub­ject to addi­tion­al trans­ac­tion fees if they aren’t using Shopi­fy Payments. 

To sum up, mer­chants that don’t use addi­tion­al Shopi­fy prod­ucts, espe­cial­ly pay­ments, lose access to cer­tain fea­tures and/​or pay addi­tion­al fees. Some don’t like this. 

Best Shopi­fy Alter­na­tives that won’t suck

We don’t believe in sil­ver bul­lets, all in one solu­tions or the immense lie that one size can fit all. And also, the best alter­na­tive to Shopi­fy will ulti­mate­ly depend on the rea­sons why you decid­ed Shopi­fy is not a good match for you. There­fore, we will not share a ran­dom list of alter­na­tives, but rather what we believe are the best alter­na­tives to Shopi­fy in dif­fer­ent sce­nar­ios, Acad­e­my Awards style.

First, a few hon­or­able mentions.

These are extreme­ly pop­u­lar ecom­merce plat­forms. For sev­er­al rea­sons, they are not our faves, and we don’t think they are wor­thy alter­na­tives to Shopify.

Sales­force and Adobe

Sales­force Com­merce Cloud and Adobe Com­merce, for­mer­ly known as Magen­to, are heavy­weight enter­prise solu­tions. Their focus on large-scale busi­ness­es may not align with the needs of small­er e‑commerce ven­tures and their high costs can be pro­hib­i­tive for busi­ness­es oper­at­ing on a tighter budget.

Their com­plex­i­ty and robust fea­tures might be overkill for some busi­ness­es. They have a mas­sive­ly steep learn­ing curve, they require exten­sive time and resources for set­up and cus­tomiza­tion and in our expe­ri­ence, mer­chants soon feel under­whelmed or dis­ap­point­ed after the migra­tion, an often night­mar­ish process. (Unless you enlist an expe­ri­enced eCom­merce agency to lend a hand).

PrestaShop

While PrestaShop is unde­ni­ably a pop­u­lar ecom­merce plat­form, it may not be the ide­al alter­na­tive to Shopi­fy for every­one. One sig­nif­i­cant draw­back lies in its open source nature.

This (…) grants busi­ness­es greater cus­tomiza­tion options and free­dom in tai­lor­ing their online stores to meet unique require­ments. The down­side is that exten­sive cus­tomiza­tions can lead to increased com­plex­i­ty, poten­tial­ly affect­ing the per­for­mance and sta­bil­i­ty of the plat­form and may require high tech­ni­cal expertise. 

Find more eCom­merce glos­sary terms here

Open source plat­forms, includ­ing PrestaShop, can require more tech­ni­cal exper­tise for cus­tomiza­tion and main­te­nance and may pose chal­lenges for those who are not well-versed in cod­ing or lack a ded­i­cat­ed IT team. This could result in addi­tion­al costs and com­plex­i­ties and it might quick­ly turn into a scal­a­bil­i­ty night­mare, if your busi­ness grows. Learn more about PrestaShop and a much bet­ter alter­na­tive to Shopify.

Best Shopi­fy Alter­na­tives for Word­Press Users: WooCom­merce

Acquired by Automat­tic in 2015, WooCom­merce ben­e­fits from the strength of the Word­Press ecosys­tem. It’s a Word­Press plu­g­in that inte­grates with exist­ing web­sites, trans­form­ing them into ful­ly func­tion­al online stores, allow­ing users to lever­age the pow­er of Word­Press and WooCommerce’s ecom­merce capabilities. 

The plat­for­m’s tar­get mar­ket often includes busi­ness­es that already oper­ate on the Word­Press con­tent man­age­ment sys­tem, pro­vid­ing them with a con­ve­nient and inte­grat­ed solu­tion for their online sell­ing needs.

Pros:

Native Inte­gra­tion: WooCom­merce inte­grates seam­less­ly with Word­Press, a famil­iar user-friend­ly inter­face for man­ag­ing prod­ucts and content.

Exten­sive Plu­g­in Ecosys­tem: There are sev­er­al Word­Press plu­g­ins avail­able to enhance the over­all func­tion­al­i­ty of ecom­merce stores.

Con­tent and Com­merce Inte­gra­tion: Users can com­bine con­tent and com­merce effec­tive­ly on the same platform.

Cons:

Scal­a­bil­i­ty: While suit­able for many busi­ness­es, large enter­pris­es may find it too limited.

Depen­den­cy on Word­Press: Users must be com­fort­able with the Word­Press environment.

Best Shopi­fy Alter­na­tives for Devel­op­ers: Medusa JS

Medusa JS is an open-source head­less ecom­merce solu­tion designed for devel­op­ers seek­ing a flex­i­ble and cus­tomiz­able platform.

It is suit­able for devel­op­ers and busi­ness­es that want to build a cus­tom ecom­merce solu­tion with full con­trol over the code­base, pri­or­i­tiz­ing cus­tomiza­tion over out-of-the-box solutions.

Pros:

API-First Archi­tec­ture: Medusa JS fol­lows an API-first approach, pro­vid­ing flex­i­bil­i­ty in build­ing cus­tom fron­tend experiences.

Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port: An active com­mu­ni­ty ensures ongo­ing sup­port and collaboration.

Cons:

Learn­ing Curve: Medusa JS requires exten­sive devel­op­ment skills

Self-Host­ing: Users need to man­age host­ing, anoth­er fac­tor requir­ing tech­ni­cal expertise.

Best Shopi­fy Alter­na­tives for Busi­ness­es on a Bud­get: Wix Commerce

Estab­lished in 2006, Wix Com­merce is a bud­get-friend­ly ecom­merce solu­tion that allows users to build and cus­tomize online stores eas­i­ly. This is key because the plat­for­m’s pri­ma­ry focus is on sim­plic­i­ty. It’s also what makes it an attrac­tive option for small busi­ness­es and indi­vid­u­als look­ing to set up an online store with­out the need for exten­sive tech­ni­cal expertise. 

Why is it the best alter­na­tive for busi­ness­es on a bud­get? Pos­si­bly because it pro­vides a bal­ance between afford­abil­i­ty and user-friend­ly fea­tures for small-scale ecom­merce operations.

Pros:

User-Friend­ly: The plat­for­m’s drag-and-drop inter­face makes it easy for users with­out tech­ni­cal skills to cre­ate a pro­fes­sion­al-look­ing store. It’s eas­i­er to set up than a Shopi­fy store.

Inte­grat­ed Fea­tures: Wix Com­merce includes var­i­ous fea­tures like host­ing, domain, and mar­ket­ing tools in its plans.

Cons:

Less Cus­tomiza­tion: While user-friend­ly, it may not pro­vide the same lev­el of cus­tomiza­tion as some oth­er platforms.

Scal­ing Chal­lenges: Busi­ness­es with ambi­tious growth plans may face limitations.

Best Shopi­fy Alter­na­tives for Omni: VTEX

Found­ed in Brazil in 1999, VTEX posi­tions itself as an all-in-one ecom­merce solu­tion. Geared towards medi­um to large enter­pris­es, VTEX stands out as an excel­lent alter­na­tive for busi­ness­es with an omnichan­nel approach. This cloud-based com­merce plat­form seam­less­ly inte­grates online and offline chan­nels, pro­vid­ing a uni­fied shop­ping expe­ri­ence for cus­tomers across var­i­ous touch­points. The plat­for­m’s scal­a­bil­i­ty and flex­i­bil­i­ty make it a com­pelling choice for busi­ness­es with com­plex requirements. 

Pros:

Scal­a­bil­i­ty: The plat­form is designed to grow with busi­ness­es, accom­mo­dat­ing increased traf­fic and expand­ing prod­uct cat­a­logs effectively.

Advanced Order Man­age­ment: VTEX pro­vides robust order man­age­ment fea­tures, facil­i­tat­ing effi­cient order pro­cess­ing across diverse channels.

Cons:

Learn­ing Curve: Imple­ment­ing VTEX may require some learn­ing, espe­cial­ly for busi­ness­es new to omnichan­nel strategies.

Best Shopi­fy Alter­na­tives for Enter­prise: Com­merce­tools

For enter­pris­es seek­ing a high­ly cus­tomiz­able and scal­able solu­tion, Com­merce­tools is a top con­tender. Found­ed in 2006, the com­pa­ny has gained recog­ni­tion for its mod­ern and devel­op­er-friend­ly approach. Com­merce­tools takes a cloud-native, API-first approach to com­merce, posi­tion­ing itself as a plat­form that pri­or­i­tizes flex­i­bil­i­ty and scalability. 

Pros:

Head­less Archi­tec­ture: Com­merce­tools’ head­less approach enables busi­ness­es to cre­ate unique and tai­lored cus­tomer expe­ri­ences, suit­able for com­plex enter­prise requirements.

Scal­a­bil­i­ty: The plat­form is built to han­dle the demands of large enter­pris­es. This can ensure per­for­mance and reli­a­bil­i­ty even dur­ing high traf­fic periods.

Cons:

Devel­op­ment Resources: Lever­ag­ing Com­merce­tools to its full poten­tial may require skilled devel­op­ment resources.

Best Shopi­fy Alter­na­tives for B2B: Big­Com­merce

But first: Oro­Com­merce

Before we delve into why we chose Big­Com­merce as a note­wor­thy Shopi­fy alter­na­tive for B2B busi­ness­es, we have to men­tion Oro­Com­merce, a ded­i­cat­ed B2B ecom­merce plat­form built specif­i­cal­ly for B2B ecommerce.

While Oro­Com­merce offers sub­stan­tial capa­bil­i­ties tai­lored for com­plex B2B oper­a­tions, its depth can come with a high­er ini­tial invest­ment in terms of set­up, cus­tomiza­tion, and train­ing. This might rep­re­sent a bar­ri­er for busi­ness­es look­ing for a more straight­for­ward solu­tion or tran­si­tion­ing from more user-friend­ly platforms.

Mer­chants tran­si­tion­ing from Shopi­fy might find Big­Com­merce more famil­iar and eas­i­er to nav­i­gate com­pared to Oro­Com­merce, which, while pow­er­ful, has a steep­er learn­ing curve due to its exten­sive cus­tomiza­tion options tai­lored for com­plex B2B operations.

So, where were we?

Big­Com­merce, known for its robust Open SaaS ecom­merce plat­form, is an excel­lent choice for B2B busi­ness­es. It is also ide­al for enter­pris­es look­ing for a com­pre­hen­sive plat­form with B2B functionalities.

The best of two worlds, Open SaaS plat­forms, such as Big­Com­merce, offer a bal­ance between the con­trol of open source plat­forms and the con­ve­nience of SaaS. They pro­vide a cus­tomiz­able envi­ron­ment while still han­dling infra­struc­ture management.

Find more eCom­merce glos­sary terms here

Rec­og­nized for its flex­i­bil­i­ty and scal­a­bil­i­ty, Big­Com­merce offers tai­lored solu­tions for B2B oper­a­tions. These can accom­mo­date the unique needs of whole­sale and enter­prise-lev­el transactions.

Pros:

B2B Fea­tures: Big­Com­merce pro­vides spe­cif­ic fea­tures like cus­tom pric­ing, bulk order­ing, and account man­age­ment, essen­tial for B2B interactions.

Scal­a­bil­i­ty: The plat­form ensures seam­less growth for B2B busi­ness­es, allow­ing them to han­dle increas­ing order vol­umes and expand­ing cat­a­logs effectively.

MACH Alliance Affil­i­a­tion: Big­Com­merce is part of the MACH Alliance, empha­siz­ing a com­mit­ment to open, com­pos­able, and head­less com­merce solutions.

Cons:

Adapt­ing to Big­Com­merce’s com­pre­hen­sive B2B fea­tures may require a learn­ing curve, par­tic­u­lar­ly for busi­ness­es new to such capa­bil­i­ties. How­ev­er, hir­ing a dig­i­tal agency with exper­tise in Big­Com­merce migra­tions is a smart way to over­come poten­tial challenges.

Read more about why we think Big­Com­merce is an excel­lent alter­na­tive to Shopi­fy, espe­cial­ly for B2B.

Best Shopi­fy Alter­na­tives for Head­less: BigCommerce

Big­Com­merce also excels as a head­less com­merce solu­tion, offer­ing busi­ness­es the flex­i­bil­i­ty to decou­ple the fron­tend and back­end, enabling unique and tai­lored cus­tomer experiences.

Choos­ing from the Best Shopi­fy Alter­na­tives

While Shopi­fy has proven itself as a giant in the indus­try, it’s clear­ly not the per­fect fit for every busi­ness. As we’ve explored, fac­tors like per­for­mance, cost, adapt­abil­i­ty, and scal­a­bil­i­ty play cru­cial roles in deter­min­ing the ide­al platform.

Whether you’re run­ning a small busi­ness on a bud­get, a mid-sized enter­prise, or a B2B com­pa­ny, the alter­na­tives pre­sent­ed in this guide offer dif­fer­ent pos­si­bil­i­ties. How­ev­er, the best choice will always depend on your spe­cif­ic cir­cum­stances, pref­er­ences, and budget.

Remem­ber to weigh the pros and cons of each plat­form, con­sid­er your busi­ness goals, and envi­sion the future growth you seek to achieve.

If you’re ready to take the plunge, check out our prac­ti­cal guide to migrate to our favorite alter­na­tive to Shopi­fy for B2B eCom­merce for tips on how to make it as pain­less as pos­si­ble and our eCom­merce design and devel­op­ment project mod­el for B2B brands with an impres­sive­ly fast time to market.