Shopify and WooCommerce split online retail between hosted simplicity and self-hosted control. A practical comparison, plus how to tell which platform (and which apps) a store runs.
Shopify is hosted and opinionated; WooCommerce is a self-hosted WordPress plugin you control. Shopify wins on speed-to-launch and reliability, WooCommerce on flexibility and cost control. But the platform is only half the story. The reviews, email, and analytics apps bolted around the cart tell you more about how a store actually runs.
Most online stores run on one of these two. The choice is less about features on a checklist and more about a trade you make once: do you want someone else to run the store for you, or do you want to run it yourself?
The core trade-off
Shopify hosts everything. You pay a monthly fee, you get a fast and reliable store, and you live inside their ecosystem. WooCommerce is a plugin for WordPress, so you host it, you own the data, and you can change anything, which also means you maintain it. One trades control for convenience. The other trades convenience for control.
| Shopify | WooCommerce | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Hosted SaaS | Self-hosted WordPress plugin |
| You manage | Your store | Hosting, updates, security, the store |
| Cost shape | Predictable monthly fee | Lower base, variable hosting and plugins |
| Best for | Fast launch, low ops | Control, custom workflows, owning data |
| How to detect | cdn.shopify.com, the Shopify object | wp-content, WooCommerce REST routes |
The platform is only half the stack
If you only record "Shopify" or "WooCommerce," you have missed the part that matters. Two stores on the same platform can operate completely differently depending on what they bolt around the cart: a reviews widget, a subscriptions app, an email and SMS tool, a tag manager, the payment providers. That layer is where a store spends money and where it reveals how it actually sells.
For anyone sizing up the market, the apps are the signal. A WooCommerce store with a subscriptions plugin and Klaviyo is a different business from a bare WooCommerce install, even though the platform line reads the same.
How to detect the ecommerce stack
Both platforms are easy to spot. Shopify stores load assets from cdn.shopify.com and expose a Shopify object in the page. WooCommerce sites carry the WordPress wp-content path and answer on WooCommerce REST routes. The apps around them each leave their own fingerprint in the page's requests.
Reading all of that by hand is slow. Look up a store in our directory and you get the platform plus the apps layered on it, and you can run a reverse lookup to pull every store on a given platform at once.
Check the stack behind any store.
Look up a storeFAQ
Is Shopify or WooCommerce more popular?
They lead different segments. Shopify dominates hosted, launch-fast stores; WooCommerce leads among WordPress sites that want self-hosted control. Counting depends on whether you measure new stores or the whole long tail of existing ones.
How can I tell if a store uses Shopify or WooCommerce?
Shopify stores load from cdn.shopify.com and expose a Shopify object in the page source. WooCommerce stores run on WordPress, so look for the wp-content path and WooCommerce REST routes. A detection tool confirms it in one lookup.
Why look at the apps and not just the platform?
Two stores on the same platform can run completely differently. The reviews, email, subscriptions and analytics apps around the cart show how a store actually operates and what it spends on.
