PrestaShop vs. Shopify [closed]

Question

I have seen several Questions comparing different ECommerce CMS's:

1. Prestashop compared to Zen-Cart and osCommerce
2. Magento or Prestashop, which is better?
3. Best php/ruby/python e-commerce solution

I was hoping to get some people to weigh in with which they prefer for a relatively small E-shop. I am now primarily looking at PrestaShop and Shopify. I really like that Shopify does the hosting, has quality service, and is simple to understand and theme. However PrestaShop is free and seems to be able to do just as much if not more than Shopify.

I have decided that Magento is too clunky for the project, and have read that many other solutions (osCommerce, ZenCart, OpenCart) are outdated, buggy, or just inferior.

Windbag

You should try this module : prestadget.com , you can follow your store from your iPhone and Android Phone, very useful ! – Denicedenie

Answer 1

"Free" in the e-commerce industry usually works out to a few thousand dollars a month of real cost. E-commerce stores are powering the livelihood of businesses, so there is no way to go with a value hosting company. Additionally security is a huge concern so updates are incredibly important. So this leaves you with a server configuration of at least 2 servers setup in HA environment and a part time operations person performing the maintenance. So once you ensure that you can keep your site up you then have to invest into things that most people don't think off:

• Email service that guarantees delivery
• CDN, your store needs to be fast or you won't sell.
• Fraud protection services ($$$)

Anyways, you get all of the above for 30 bucks a month from a hosted service.

Full disclosure: I'm founder of Shopify. I used to host my own e-commerce store before I started Shopify. 95% of our customers recover the monthly Shopify bill in the first few hours of the first day of each month.

Porcupine

you're a founder of Shopify? Or did you mean fonder? In any case thank you very much for the excellent advice. – Windbag

Founder and CEO :-) You are welcome. – Hamper

A "few thousand dollars a month"? Sounds like sales-speak to me. Care to elaborate on your numbers? – Capercaillie

@Capercaillie it's not sales-speak. I'm a developer who wanted to set up his store in Drupal, spent months fighting the bloody thing, gave up and surrendered to Shopify. Boy. I should have done that ages and ages earlier. It's true what he says, now within a day I recoup my shopify fees. It's a no brainer. I hate Drupal and the braindead community it has grown around it now. It was hell and a chore. After switching to Shopify I actually have fun! I do not have the long hours of stress any more. I have long hours of fun doing business and making profit, not fighting with Drupal's tantrums. Ugh. – Sidonnie

I love open source and what it stands for. However 98% of open source software have horrible UI & UX. I suppose that's probably because real designers don't really have tools to contribute to open source and it's the engineers doing the UI / UX. It's really horrible though. One doesn't realise the stress of horrible UI / UX until one has a chance to use a well thought out and designed product. Any techie who disagrees with this statement better not have had an iPhone or Macbook ever. – Sidonnie

@Sidonnie And how exactely does this answer my question? – Capercaillie

@Capercaillie I posted 2 comments. First one answered your question. – Sidonnie

Answer 2

The prices is not the main difference between Shopify and PrestaShop. Talking about the scope- I think both will suit you.

1. Technical Level

The choice of hosted Shopify or open-source PrestaShop may depends on the level of technical skills. Without doubt it is easier to maintain your store with hosted shopping cart which supplies you with regular updates and takes care of bug fixes.

PrestaShop administration is quite intuitive as well. It has the interface with numerous themes, modern designs and easily guided catalogues is attractive for the customers. It goes without saying, that such details help you raise your traffic rates.

1. Performance

Non-hosted installed platforms provide you with control over the speed. As the store is located on your server, you can maintain the necessary speed of connection. Unfortunately, this is not the case with hosted solutions. So, using Shopify you can face issues with low connection speed.

Overwork

-> A hosted cart has an array of programmers & customer service people available to you for $x per mth, far cheaper than the hours you will put into it to debug issues and figure out stuff. -> Performance is better on self-hosted platforms?? Are you kidding? If you're not an expert on database caching & slave / master setups, cdn setup, high availabilty configuration etc etc, you should leave it to the huge team of system admins the hosted platform offers you for $x per mth. You want to run a business or spend time with a spanner inside your server? shakes head in disbelief – Sidonnie