What is the best software for an e-commerce? Choosing the right platform is the first step to better manage your e-commerce portal: in the article we will make a PrestaShop vs Shopify comparison to analyze the pros and cons.
What are the differences between PrestaShop and Shopify?
Hosting and autonomy
PrestaShop is a free self-hosted platform that means it needs an external hosting to rely on, thus offering greater operational freedom. With us PrestaShop is already pre-installed on the hosting plan . The control with PrestaShop is therefore extremely high, offering greater operational freedom because it is possible to modify the source code and consequently, the operation of some parts of the shop.
On the contrary, Shopify is a paid Saas software that works simply by entering login credentials, without a hosting to rely on but it will be necessary to point the DNS of your domain. If on the one hand you will gain in terms of platform intuitiveness, on the other you will lose in terms of autonomy and flexibility.
Personalization
PrestaShop allows you to quickly and easily change logos, colors and designs by offering a wide choice of themes, as does Shopify which offers modern and functional themes. The advantage of PrestaShop is the possibility of integrating numerous applications and extensions in order to better customize the e-commerce functions.
Costs
Shopify, being a hosted platform, requires a monthly subscription based on the chosen plan but, for example, the basic plan (the cheapest) does not offer the possibility of creating gift cards and complete reports and holds commissions equal to 2%.
Conversely, PrestaShop is a free open-source platform and does not hold a percentage of sales. The only cost to face is the one related to the modules and extensions with which to customize the e-commerce.
Performance and loading speed
Relying on Shopify also means relying blindly on hosting: several tests show that the performance is solid but the service is limiting as, in the case of e-commerce in strong growth with the need for greater performance, it would be necessary to start over on another platform.
On the contrary, PrestaShop, being self-hosted, allows you to independently choose the hosting provider on which to host the platform, thus evaluating all the features and performance of the service.
