head to head
Shopify vs WooCommerce
WooCommerce is the open source alternative to Shopify — e-commerce platform. Here is the honest comparison.
Yes — WooCommerce is a viable free replacement for Shopify. WooCommerce is open source under its own open-source terms, written in PHP, with 10,514 GitHub stars, 10,675 forks and 1,638 open issues; it was last pushed 6 hours ago. Shopify costs from $29, while self-hosting WooCommerce carries no licence fee — the trade is your operational time instead of a subscription. 3 other open source Shopify alternatives are tracked here, led by Medusa at 36,356 stars. WooCommerce ranks #3 of 4 tracked open source Shopify alternatives by stars. The tracked set, by adoption: Medusa (36,356 stars), Saleor (23,339 stars), Vendure (8,446 stars). Replacement criteria on this page: 4 reasons to move to WooCommerce and 3 reasons to stay on Shopify.
choose WooCommerce if
- Your Shopify bill is growing with seats or usage
- You need your data in a format and server you control
- Your compliance posture requires auditing the code that touches sensitive data
- You have (or can rent) a server and basic Docker comfort
stick with Shopify if
- You need the polished onboarding and support SLAs of a commercial vendor
- Your team has zero capacity to operate software, even self-hosted-simple
- You depend on a Shopify integration ecosystem that the OSS alternatives have not replicated
Side by side
| WooCommerce (open source) | Shopify | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (self-hosted) | $29-$299/month |
| License | Custom / other | Proprietary |
| Source code | Public, auditable | Closed |
| Self-hosting | Yes — woocommerce/woocommerce | Cloud only |
| Data ownership | Your server, your format | Vendor's cloud |
| Community | ★ 11K · ⑂ 11K | — |
| Built with | PHP | — |
Why people look for a Shopify alternative
About WooCommerce
WooCommerce is an open source ecommerce platform built on WordPress. It lives in the WordPress ecosystem, where a website owner can add commerce functionality through a plugin. The project is described as customizable and positioned as an open alternative to Shopify.
read the full WooCommerce overview →
Other open source alternatives to Shopify
last updated nightly · ranking method: github stars, live-tracked
Frequently asked questions
Is WooCommerce a good replacement for Shopify?
WooCommerce is an open source alternative to Shopify (E-commerce platform). It is written in PHP and licensed under its own terms, with 10,514 GitHub stars.
Is WooCommerce free compared to Shopify?
Yes. WooCommerce is open source — there is no licence fee, and you can self-host it. Shopify is typically a paid subscription, so the trade-off is licence cost against the operational work of running it yourself.
How do I migrate from Shopify to WooCommerce?
Migration effort depends on the data formats involved. Check WooCommerce's documentation for import options, and compare the feature table above to confirm the capabilities you depend on are covered before switching.