10 Best Ecommerce Platforms Compared & Rated

Are you planning to establish an online store and searching for the best ecommerce platforms for that? Well! We know it’s a tough decision to make as your business may be affected in the long term. In this circumstance, we have prepared a shortlist of various types of eCommerce platforms to let you know the right one in terms of the business size, type, and many other factors. Before that, it will be kind of benefit if we share the factors that should be considered in selecting the best solution for your business.

Facts to Consider Before Choosing an Ecommerce Platform

Starting and managing an eCommerce business has been much easier with the help of modern technology, especially the prebuilt platforms. Let’s learn what to consider before picking the right platform.

• Customizability: An e-commerce platform should have the facility to customize the store with different features. Apart from this, it must have the ability to add essential tools to add additional features to improve its capabilities.
• Mobile Performance: You have to be sincere in making your online store mobile-friendly so that users feel the same comfort as browsing through small devices.
• Security: Security is always a crucial factor to be considered in building an eCommerce store. The payment system also has to be secured. You can use the platform that covers SSL certification.
• Pricing: Pricing plays an important role in selecting one from many services. You must choose the platform that gives the maximum plan, tools, marketing features, and security at a lower price.
• SEO Friendliness: After creating a store, how will you reach it to the audience? Yes, it should be SEO-friendly so that customers find you in search results quickly.
• Functionality: Each application has its unique functionalities and an ecommerce store needs them for different purposes. Firstly, it needs the facility to easily create content pages and forms for you. Besides these, you may require flexible options like payment integration, security, and online support & documentation, and many more.
• Customer Support: Whether it’s an online business, most consumers will rely on the customer service of your store. They can knock or call you anytime 24/7 and you have to be aware to respond to them with care.
• Payment Gateways: This is a very crucial option to be included with your store that will make a secure payment transaction between you and the buyers. Check the system, processing fee, and complexity.

Top Rated Ecommerce Platforms 2024

Now, it’s time to let you know the best platforms for starting a successful ecommerce business. Here is the list.

1. Shopify
2. BigCommerce
3. WooCommerce
4. Magento
5. 3dcart
6. Volusion
7. Weebly
8. Squarespace
9. Wix
10. CoreCommerce

Let’s learn in detail about them one by one.

1. Shopify

No matter what business you’re in, Shopify brings a comprehensive solution to make it comfortable and easier for you. It’s a Canadian multinational ecommerce company that was founded in 2004. Since then, it has been running its operations across 175 countries with over 1 million businesses.

Shopify offers to build online stores of various industries like beauty & cosmetics, fashion & apparel, food & beverage, home furnishing, and many other small and medium-sized businesses. As it supports third-party extensions, you can easily upgrade your store with them anytime by yourself.

Pros

• It lets you have a user-friendly interface and beginner guides with useful documentation.
• Shopify is a scalable and one of the best SaaS ecommerce platforms that help business owners build their stores according to their demands.
• It gives the facility for inventory tracking and real-time sales statistics.
• Also, it provides 24/7 online and community support for customers.
• It gives 14 day free trial. You don’t need any credit cards for using it.

Cons

• Shopify is sometimes hard to customize its themes and templates. To work with them, you may need an expert developer.
• If you are willing to make a large store, it can be expensive.
• It uses subdirectories in the URL structure. And, it generates the Robots.txt file automatically. That’s the reason it’s not ideal for SEO.

Pricing Plan

• Basic Shopify: $29/month
• Shopify: $79/month
• Advanced Shopify: $299/month

2. BigCommerce

Founded in 2009, BigCommerce has been the first and most reliable choice for many large and fast-growing online businesses. It’s a Texas-based technology. BigCommerce is now one of the leading ecommerce builders with lots of features, including security, scalability, and flexibility.

It lets you customize your ecommerce store even if you have no prior coding knowledge. Other important advantages of this platform are its advanced SEO functionality and shipping integrations. You can reach the maximum number of consumers at affordable fees using this eCommerce platform.

Pros

• Scalable and most secure ecommerce platform with many pre-built features.
• Includes customizable and mobile-optimized themes and templates.
• Gives the facility to create SEO-friendly URLs and Robots.txt file.
• It’s a secure and ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certified platform.
• Has the capability of integrating with shipping, various social media, and POS software.

Cons

• Advanced features are complex to operate for beginners.
• Expensive for large stores.

Pricing Plan 

• BigCommerce Standard: $29.95/month
• BigCommerce Plus: $79.95/month
• BigCommerce Pro: $299.95/month
• BigCommerce Enterprise: Customized Plan

3. WooCommerce

Once again, WooCommerce is one of the best e-commerce platforms released in 2011. It’s mainly a popular and renowned open-source WordPress plugin that helps to build a powerful online store. The most interesting part of this tool is to use many essential features without spending a penny.

Users can install this anytime and set up their stores using the options integrated with WooCommerce. It also offers flexible and secure payment systems.

Pros

• Compatible for both medium and large online stores.
• Includes free & premium themes and templates with attractive functionalities.
• Budget-friendly platform for ecommerce business owners.
• Provides mobile-optimized store along with catalog & inventory management facilities.

Cons

• Theme setup can be tough for new users.
• Support is comparatively less than other platforms.

Pricing Plan

• WooCommerce Starter: $13.99/month
• WooCommerce Plus: $17.99/month
• WooCommerce Pro: $31.99/month

4. Magento

Magento is another open-source ecommerce platform that started its journey in the year 2008. Since then, it’s been a trustworthy name for many large brands like Nike, Cisco, and many other ecommerce businesses. It has some amazing facilities to enhance the power of your online store with improved catalog management, marketing tools, order management, and many more.

All in all, Magento gives the best shopping experience that helps to boost conversion rates of your business.

Pros

• It gives the facility to control multiple stores from a single Admin panel.
• Supports multiple languages and currencies.
• Strong site management and Search Engine Optimization facilities.
• Secure payment and shipping options.
• Dedicated technical and account support.

Cons

• Not suitable for beginners who don’t have development skills.
• Needs a large space and memory.
• Time-consuming and Costly.

Pricing Plan

• Magento Community: Free
• Magento Commerce: $1988/month

5. 3dcart

3dcart is a simple but powerful ecommerce software with all the necessary tools along with pre-built themes. This technology company was founded in 1997. Since then, it’s assisting thousands of ecommerce owners to build great-looking stores at affordable prices. Also, it gives an advanced solution for shipping without the help of any API.

Besides the regular features, it provides budget-friendly plans for different-sized businesses. That’s one of the most essential parts by which you can select the best plan according to your requirements.

Pros

• It provides mobile-optimized customizable themes.
• Secure platform with HTTPS, two-factor authentication, and PCI certification.
• Can be expanded with new features anytime.
• Offers free domain (1^st year) and free trial facilities.
• Live chat support 24/7.

Cons

• Limited number of free templates.
• Needs prior technical knowledge and time to build a store.
• Sometimes poor customer service.

Pricing Plan

• 3dcart Startup Store: $19/month
• 3dcart Basic Store: $29/month
• 3dcart Plus Store: $79/month
• 3dcart Power Store: $129/month
• 3dcart Pro Store: $229/month

6. Volusion

Founded in 1999, Volusion is another one of the best ecommerce platforms that let you have the ideal solution for both small to large businesses. Currently, more than 180000 online stores are powered by Volusion and the number is increasing.

It provides some amazing features to make your business smooth with inventory management, payment collection, unlimited product options, search functionality, and many more. Besides these, you can also integrate the business with various social media like Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Pros

• Provides customizable and responsive themes along with a custom domain name.
• Integrated with social media and other third-party addons.
• Facility to search and locate items quickly.
• Includes an easy-to-use and rich content editor.
• Extensive customer support with a live consultant.

Cons

• Lack of blogging and selling functionality.
• Limited product plan.
• Poor URL structure and blogging functionality.

Pricing Plan

• Volusion Personal: $29/month
• Volusion Pro: $79/month
• Volusion Business: $299/month
• Volusion Prime: Custom

7. Weebly

Weebly is a free and user-friendly website builder that helps to build a functional online store even you have no prior technical experience. Started in 2006, it’s been tested by more than 40 million people around the world. It lets you have the facility to track performance and manage your store from anywhere.

Weebly has varieties of design tools by which you are completely free to utilize them to make your business site stands out. Also, it has powerful SEO tools to assist in getting your store easily in search engine results.

Pros

• Comparatively low prices in building online stores.
• Includes drag & drop facility to design website fluently.
• Simple and easy-to-use interface with stunning and responsive templates.
• It lets you build an optimized store and provides fast load speed along with high secured technology.
• Powerful marketing tools.

Cons

• Not properly compatible with designing international websites with multiple languages.
• Offers limited design features.
• Problems with uploading photos.

Pricing Plan

• Weebly Free: $0
• Weebly Connect: $5/month
• Weebly Pro: $12/month
• Weebly Business: $25/month
• Weebly Plus: $38/month

8. Squarespace

With a drag and drop design facility, Squarespace comes with a lot of features to make your online store highly functional and attractive. It includes features to enhance the capability with various marketing tools, inventory, customizable content layout, gallery blocks, audio collections, and many more.

You can easily set up the desired store and integrate it with several premium options. To help in SEO settings, it generates auto sitemap.xml and Robots.txt file. It also lets you see traffic overview, popular content, Google search keywords, sales overview, etc. to monitor the business properly.

Pros

• It offers over 100 pre-built stunning themes that are highly customizable and feature enrich.
• User-friendly interface and easy to set up.
• Powerful blogging feature and SEO tools.
• Compatible with multiple social & professional media, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Medium, Tumblr, Github, Behance, etc.
• Strong support team to assist customers.

Cons

• Not compatible with dropshipping, and Amazon integration.
• Sometimes low experience in page speed as well as in SEO.
• Limited features and functionalities.

Pricing Plan

• Squarespace Personal: $12/month
• Squarespace Business: $18/month
• Squarespace Basic Commerce: $26/month
• Squarespace Advanced Commerce: $40/month

9. Wix

Wix is one of the most popular and best ecommerce software that enables building beautiful and professional-looking websites for both individuals and businesses. It has a simple but robust interface where all the necessary modifications can be done with its pre-built templates and exclusive options.

As it has the drag and drop page building facility, you don’t have to be worried to customize it by yourself. You have the full design freedom to do what you want. Besides these, it offers custom domain name, professional mailbox, and various social tools to make the working process smooth.

Pros

• Drag & drop facility along with over 500 designer-made templates.
• It lets users track the site’s performance and stats.
• Provides multiple payment methods, including PayPal, credit cards, etc.
• Allows adding animated texts and other elements.
• It also offers reliable and secure hosting services.
• Includes a customizable music player.
• Premium customer support through email, live chat, & phone.

Cons

• Complexity may occur in changing the initial template.
• Limited marketing tools.
• Comparatively lower speed in mobile devices.

Pricing Plan

• Wix Business VIP: $35/month
• Wix Business Unlimited: $25/month
• Wix Business Basic: $17/month

10. CoreCommerce

CoreCommerce is a Tennessee-based customizable ecommerce platform founded in 2001. Although it’s not a popular and best choice for large businesses, you may think of this for creating startups and medium size stores. It offers free and stunning templates to make mobile responsive designs. To increase response, it lets you integrate your store with the Facebook business page so that you can sell more products there.

Also, you will find amazing product reviews comparison tools along with a powerful coupon engine to attract more audience. Apart from this, it provides the facility to integrate Google Analytics to generate a variety of reports.

Pros

• Provides secure hosting and ensures fraud & spam protection along with maximum uptime.
• It lets you import/export and update batch product information.
• Can be easily monitored through the Admin dashboard.
• Authorized multilingual & multi-currency payment gateways with special discounted rates.
• Facility to integrate with Google Analytics to track the business report.

Cons

• Limited facility to integrate with third-party applications.
• Lack of SEO advanced features.
• Storage space may not be good enough for larger stores.

Pricing Plan

• CoreCommerce: $29/month
• CoreCommerce Pro: $79/month
• CoreCommerce Business: $229/month
• CoreCommerce Enterprise: Custom

Top Ecommerce Platforms for Startups & Small Businesses

In most cases, people got confused about choosing the right platform to begin their startups or small businesses. Here, some criteria should be considered wisely. Otherwise, it may cost more for unexpected and unplanned features. That’s why you have to check the scalability so that you can choose the functionalities according to your requirements.

Apart from this, it needs to check the control over your products, SEO facility, sales features, and more. After doing in-depth research based on various factors mentioned above, we are giving a shortlist of the best ecommerce platform for startups and small businesses to get a solid idea.

• Wix
• Shopify
• BigCommerce
• 3dcart
• Volusion

Top Ecommerce Platforms for SEO

Whether you are planning to start an online business (small or large), you won’t achieve your targeted audience or customer if it’s not properly SEO optimized. Your website should be ranked and discovered through search engines. To check this feature, you have to select the platform that ensures the maximum page speed, optimized content and URLs, mobile-friendliness, user experience, secure website, etc.

In this case, you don’t need to depend on the popularity and active users of a platform. This can’t judge whether it’s suitable for SEO or not. To help you out finding the appropriate one, we’ve researched and prepared this for you.

• WooCommerce
• Magento
• BigCommerce
• Weebly
• Squarespace

Best Ecommerce Platforms for Dropshipping

There are many technical hurdles to learn while you are going to start a dropshipping business. Although this one may seem similar in many ways, you need some extra preparation, especially in choosing the platform in terms of your business type and size. Then, what to consider before starting with a platform?

Well! It should be simple and easy to use for users. You may have to include some additional plugins to enhance the functionalities of your store. So it requires the integration capability with third-party plugins. Besides these, you’ll need mostly excellent customer support for consumers. Here is a shortlist of them that covers these aspects well.

• WooCommerce
• BigCommerce
• Magento
• Shopify
• OpenCart

Top Ecommerce Platforms for Large Business

While you are planning to start a business comparatively on a large scale or expand your small store, then you need something more to operate it smoothly. Firstly, you’ll need a larger space with a dedicated server to set up the platform properly for your store.

You have to find out the platform that gives you enough flexibility to integrate with various ecommerce and marketing tools and other management systems. As you have to monitor the store in real-time, you must have control over there. Here are some of the recommended platforms.

• Magento
• BigCommerce
• WooCommerce
• Volusion
• CoreCommerce

Recommended Ecommerce Platforms 2024

Before recommending the best ecommerce platforms, firstly it’s essential to clarify the requirements. Maybe, you have a plan for startups or small businesses. Then, the recommendation will not be the same as for medium or large-scale businesses. But the most important thing to be considered is to determine the actual demands of your store.

You don’t need a huge space and a lot of options to add for a small size business. It will increase unwanted costs and make complexity to operate. On the other hand, you have to look over the advanced functionalities along with space, performance, and management issues for a large business.

As you see, we already mentioned the shortlist in terms of these conditions. Hopefully, you have a comprehensive solution there. If you have still any confusion, don’t hesitate to share your thoughts with us.