I’m often asked about the best platform for eCommerce websites, and my answer depends on your site’s primary purpose.
If your website’s main focus is eCommerce—selling products at scale—then using a platform designed specifically for that purpose is the best approach. Platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento are built from the ground up for online stores and offer powerful, flexible solutions for managing product catalogs, payments, and marketing.
However, if your website serves other major functions alongside selling products—for example, providing information, support, or community features—a traditional content management system (CMS) like Joomla or WordPress combined with an eCommerce extension is often more appropriate. Extensions such as J2Shop or HikaShop for Joomla, and WooCommerce for WordPress, add eCommerce functionality while letting you maintain rich content and flexible site structures.
I personally use both approaches depending on the project. For a site focused on a product and its support, I’ve chosen Joomla with eCommerce features integrated, which suits that use case well. For stores purely dedicated to product sales, I run several Shopify stores that are streamlined for eCommerce.
Why Magento?
In my opinion, Magento currently stands out as the best platform for developing eCommerce websites. It offers exceptional flexibility, strong functionality, and is supported by a development team that understands the complexities of modern web design. Magento is an open-source CMS similar to WordPress but tailored specifically for eCommerce. It’s highly popular because of its extensive digital marketing and merchandising tools, mobile compatibility, enhanced security, and easy integration with thousands of plugins to customize your site exactly to your brand’s needs.
Key Magento features:
- Flexibility to customize
- Mobile compatibility
- Open-source platform
- Easy integration with other systems
- Increased security
- Robust eCommerce framework
Quick overview of top platforms:
- Shopify
- Started in 2004 by snowboarders, Shopify is now the leading eCommerce platform with over a million businesses across 175 countries.
- Magento
- Launched in 2009 as a free platform and upgraded to Magento 2.0 in 2015, Magento was acquired by Adobe in 2018. It comes in two versions: Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce.
- WooCommerce
- A free WordPress plugin, WooCommerce powers about 30% of all online stores and offers a highly popular, flexible eCommerce solution within the WordPress ecosystem.
If you want to explore other open-source eCommerce options, you can check out the Webkul Store for a variety of solutions.
