WooCommerce is still the best all-around solution – its popularity backs that up [1]<\/sup> – but what if you want to make a multivendor store or sell subscriptions? Some of the WooCommerce alternatives are quite appealing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n \u231b In a hurry?<\/strong> \u23e9 Skip to a summary of the alternatives<\/a> that provides a simple recap of the six tools and the reasons why you’d might want to use them instead of WooCommerce.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n Below, we’ll go through some WooCommerce alternatives that might be a better option for specific use cases<\/em>. We’ll also explain why they’re better and some of the downsides in comparison to WooCommerce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The options we’ll review are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let’s get started!<\/p>\n\n\n Easy Digital Downloads<\/a>, commonly abbreviated as EDD, is as straightforward as it sounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It can turn any WordPress site into a digital ecommerce store.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n Different add-ons are sold for frontend submissions, software licensing, and payment gateways, but the basic plugin creates a store, accepts payments, and manages marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The core plugin is free, and the add-on packages start at $99.50 per year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n EDD is the simplest option for selling digital downloads. WooCommerce supports digital sales, but it has a confusing configuration process<\/a>, and some of the free advanced features in EDD require paid extensions in WooCommerce<\/a> (like Product Bundles<\/a>). Easy Digital Downloads adds a shopping cart, discount codes, customer management, and data reporting with one installation. Furthermore, if you’re only selling digital items, your dashboard isn’t cluttered with physical product features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n EDD is limited to virtual goods. So, if you plan on selling physical products in the future, WooCommerce is best. The EDD Simple Shipping add-on helps with physical items, but it’s limited (no variable shipping costs, no shipping company integrations, and watered down reporting).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Consider Easy Digital Downloads for a quick way to sell digital products and nothing else. Music, eBooks, photography<\/a>, and videos all work well with EDD.<\/p>\n\n\n MemberPress<\/a> is a WordPress plugin with what seems like every membership feature you’ll need. With drip content, subscription management, and awesome pricing pages<\/a>, the majority of your subscription or membership operation is set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MemberPress stands out because of its premium support. Membership sites are a completely different breed compared to regular ecommerce stores. The WooCommerce documentation is fine for quick fixes, but sometimes you want to speak with a real person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n WooCommerce also requires extra extensions for full membership functionality. The WooCommerce Memberships plugin<\/a> is amazing, but you’ll need other extensions for affiliate programs, pricing pages, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n Also, MemberPress is cheaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MemberPress lacks a regular ecommerce shop for fixed-price items. Also, WooCommerce has support for more payment gateways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyone who needs a complete membership or subscription suite in one place.<\/p>\n\n\n As the name implies, Wix eCommerce<\/a> is the ecommerce extension of the popular website builder Wix<\/a>. You can set up an online store with Wix super easily with hundreds of ecommerce templates, tens of payment possibilities, dropshipping functionality, and many other tools that you can integrate with your online shop.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n With Wix eCommerce, you can sell anything anywhere through multiple channels – be it online or via a POS system. Apart from the technical features, the builder offers marketing tools<\/a> to grow and promote your business, such as social ads, product subscriptions, analytics, gift cards, and SEO<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wix eCommerce plans start at $27 per month for basic ecommerce features. To expand the ecommerce suite, you can upgrade to the higher plans that cost $32 and $159 per month, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wix eCommerce is an all-in-one ecommerce solution. It’s more straightforward to set up and build an online store with it than with WooCommerce, which requires extra steps and configurations on your side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wix just builds the website for you so you can then use the drag-and-drop<\/a> editor to add features and apps. Everything happens in one place, as opposed to WooCommerce, which you need to install and configure separately in WordPress, plus also find hosting and a WooCommerce theme<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wix does most of the work for you, while WooCommerce requires some know-how to put it together. Wix is also more user-friendly than WooCommerce when it comes to the interface and design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even though Wix eCommerce is more user-friendly and non-technical, it’s not as versatile as WooCommerce. The latter comes with many more options for customization in terms of layouts, design<\/a>, and core functionality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s because WordPress provides a lot of plugins, themes, and advanced code that let you add almost any possible feature to WooCommerce. Wix is more limited when it comes to personalization and custom functionality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Use Wix eCommerce if you want to sell or dropship online but you do not want to spend time on technicalities. If you’re looking for a platform that handles most of the logistics so you can just start selling, Wix eCommerce will build a cool online store for you rather quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n Both WooCommerce and WordPress are open source and self-hosted platforms. That means you must find hosting and maintain the website. That’s not a bad thing for most people, but web design beginners might find this intimidating.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n That’s where Shopify<\/a> comes in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shopify has a complete ecommerce builder, with hosting, domain names, design, themes, and marketing, all in the dashboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shopify pricing is a moving target because they adjust it based on where in the world you live (or whatever your IP address says). We will share the U.S. based pricing below, but if you are reading this from another part of the world, you’ll have to go directly to the pricing page<\/a> to see what the numbers look like. Finally, all prices below are for annual plans. Month-to-month plans cost a bit more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shopify makes building a store less complicated, with all tools in one dashboard. You never need to worry about things like hosting<\/a>, security<\/a>, or updates<\/a> – Shopify does all that for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can find a wider variety of themes for WooCommerce<\/a>. It’s also easier to scale up with WooCommerce, since you have full website control. Finally, Shopify uses the Liquid coding language, so advanced changes are tougher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Learn more about Shopify vs WooCommerce<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shopify is good for absolute beginners who still want a great-looking, fully-functional store.<\/p>\n\n\n Arcadier<\/a> generates a complete multivendor marketplace for anything from service bookings<\/a> to retail goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s fully hosted with unique features like customer chat boxes<\/a>, negotiation tools, and social logins<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n Arcadier Marketplace offers only one pricing package at $99 per month (with a 30-day trial period).<\/p>\n\n\n\nSix best WooCommerce alternatives for 2018 \ud83d\udecd\ufe0f<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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1. Easy Digital Downloads for selling digital downloads<\/h3>\n\n\n
![\"EDD](\"https:\/\/mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com\/cb:c5QE.37290\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/themeisle.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Easy-Digital-Download.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nPricing \ud83d\udcb0<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
What it does better than WooCommerce \ud83d\udc4d<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Downsides compared to WooCommerce \ud83d\udc4e<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Who should use it? \ud83d\ude4b<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
2. MemberPress for selling membership subscriptions<\/h3>\n\n\n
Pricing \ud83d\udcb0<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n
![\"memberpress](\"https:\/\/mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com\/cb:c5QE.37290\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/themeisle.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/MemberPress.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nWhat it does better than WooCommerce \ud83d\udc4d<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
![\"WooCommerce](\"https:\/\/mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com\/cb:c5QE.37290\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/themeisle.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/WooCommerce-Memberships-plugin.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nDownsides compared to WooCommerce \ud83d\udc4e<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Who should use it? \ud83d\ude4b<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
3. Wix eCommerce for a beginner-friendly all-in-one ecommerce experience<\/h3>\n\n\n
![\"Wix](\"https:\/\/mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com\/cb:c5QE.37290\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/themeisle.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/wix-ecommerce.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nPricing \ud83d\udcb0<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
What it does better than WooCommerce \ud83d\udc4d<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Downsides compared to WooCommerce \ud83d\udc4e<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Who should use it? \ud83d\ude4b<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
4. Shopify for a simpler approach to ecommerce<\/h3>\n\n\n
![\"Shopify.\"](\"https:\/\/mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com\/cb:c5QE.37290\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/themeisle.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Shopify-1.png\")
\n\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nPricing \ud83d\udcb0<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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What it does better than WooCommerce \ud83d\udc4d<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Downsides compared to WooCommerce \ud83d\udc4e<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Who should use it? \ud83d\ude4b<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
5. Arcadier for creating a multivendor store<\/h3>\n\n\n
![\"Arcadier.\"](\"https:\/\/mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com\/cb:c5QE.37290\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/themeisle.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Arcadier.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nPricing \ud83d\udcb0<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
What it does better than WooCommerce \ud83d\udc4d<\/h4>\n\n\n