Shopify vs WooCommerce, Magento & co: which e-commerce platform fits your SME?

Which e-commerce platform you choose determines years of your webshop life: your costs, your speed, your findability and how much technical work lands on your plate. Which platform is best depends on your profile. In this article we compare Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento (Adobe Commerce), BigCommerce, Wix and the Belgian players, with current market figures, the AI developments of 2026 and a concrete decision framework per type of SME. One thing upfront, in full transparency: ClickForest is a Shopify Partner and builds Shopify webshops for SMEs in Flanders. Precisely for that reason we also spell out the downsides of Shopify below, and the situations where another platform is the better choice. The market is worth it: Belgians spent 18.3 billion euros online in 2025, 5.4% more than a year earlier, even though Belgian e-commerce companies themselves grew by only 3.43%.

Which e-commerce platform is best for your webshop?

The best e-commerce platform is the one that fits your profile. The rule of thumb: choose Shopify if you want to sell without technical management, WooCommerce if you already run on WordPress and want control, Adobe Commerce for complex B2B catalogs, and an entry-level builder like Wix only for a very small shop next to an existing site.

We work out that rule of thumb below, because the details matter: your technical knowledge, your product range, your growth plans and even your payment methods weigh in. And the market is moving: selling through AI channels is coming, and platforms differ strongly in how ready they are. So also look at what will still fit in three years. On top of that, you compete with the big marketplaces. In June 2026, Becom director Greet Dekocker explained their appeal:

“Consumers easily find their way to online marketplaces because an enormous range comes together there.”

— Greet Dekocker, managing director of Becom (June 2026, translated from Dutch)

From the same Becom figures for 2025: 90% of Belgians aged 18 and over bought online at least once. Foreign players are gaining ground, though, so whoever positions their webshop well is fishing in a big but crowded pond.

How do the big e-commerce platforms differ from each other?

The fundamental difference lies in the model: SaaS or open source. With SaaS platforms (Shopify, BigCommerce, Wix) you rent a total solution in which hosting, security and updates are included. With open source (WooCommerce, PrestaShop, Magento Open Source) the software is free, but you arrange hosting, maintenance and security yourself or through a party you pay for it.

Platform	Model	Share of e-commerce systems worldwide (W3Techs, September 2026)	Typical profile
WooCommerce	Open source (WordPress plugin)	47.8%	Content-heavy sites, control, own management
Shopify	SaaS	32.1%	Selling without technical management, fast scaling
PrestaShop	Open source (or Hosted)	2.8%	EU/French-speaking market, own management
Adobe Commerce (Magento)	Open source (Magento Open Source) or licence, also as SaaS	1.6%	Enterprise and complex B2B
BigCommerce	SaaS	0.6%	Mid-sized shops, B2B via B2B Edition (enterprise)

An important nuance to those figures: W3Techs counts numbers of websites and says nothing about revenue. One possible explanation for WooCommerce’s lead is that every WordPress site can add a shop for free, including very small stores. Wix (4.2%) and Squarespace (2.4%) aren’t in the table because W3Techs only gives them a share of all websites, including portfolios without a store.

What does that look like in Belgium? On 11 September 2026, Store Leads, a crawler that counts live webshops per country, found 24,128 WooCommerce stores, 18,635 Shopify stores, 7,767 Wix stores, 1,839 PrestaShop stores, 1,302 Magento stores and 577 Lightspeed stores. Among all live webshops, then, WooCommerce leads, and Wix counts more stores than PrestaShop and Magento combined. Data firm Tembi, which counts active webshops, did see around half of the 20,500 active Belgian webshops on Shopify in June 2025: how you count and what you call active determine who comes out on top. Read the Store Leads figures as an order of magnitude, because they remain one crawler’s estimate.

Shopify vs WooCommerce: which do you choose when?

Choose WooCommerce if you already run firmly on WordPress, publish a lot of content and want or can manage the technical side yourself. Choose Shopify if you want selling to just work: hosting, security, updates and checkout are handled, so your time goes to products and marketing.

WooCommerce keeps developing actively: version 10.9 (23 June 2026) made checkout faster and put a first set of “abilities” for AI agents into core. And the plugin itself is free, which keeps the starting budget low. But “free” shifts the costs to hosting, premium extensions, updates and security, and that responsibility sits with you. Automattic (the parent company) is meanwhile working on AI help in the WooCommerce ecosystem itself:

“You will see AI support in terms of this Sidekick-type implementation coming out from Automattic in this extension territory.”

— James LePage, Director of Engineering AI at Automattic

Shopify stands differently in 2026 than the comparisons of a few years ago suggest: the Winter ‘26 Edition brought agentic storefronts (your products findable and buyable in AI platforms), Sidekick Pulse and SimGym, and the Spring ‘26 Edition of 17 June 2026 switched on Shopify Catalog and the Universal Commerce Protocol by default, so products automatically appear in ChatGPT, Copilot, AI Mode in Google Search and the Gemini app. Want to start step by step, read our guide on setting up a Shopify webshop; doubting the search side, our Shopify SEO checklist shows both platforms can rank fine as long as you get the SEO basics right.

What are the best alternatives to Shopify?

The best alternatives to Shopify are WooCommerce if you already run on WordPress, PrestaShop for self-management in the French-speaking market, Adobe Commerce for complex B2B catalogs, Wix or Squarespace for a mini-shop, Lightspeed or CCV Shop if you’re in their point-of-sale ecosystem, and BigCommerce if you want SaaS with strong APIs.

• WooCommerce: the plugin is free, hosting and updates are at your own expense. Choose this if your site already runs on WordPress and someone follows up the technical management.
• PrestaShop: open source, self-hosted or as PrestaShop Hosted for €29 per month excl. VAT. Choose this if you mainly sell in the French-speaking market.
• Adobe Commerce (Magento): unmatched customisation and B2B functionality, but the classic self-hosted variant puts the patch responsibility on you. How heavy that weighs showed in the SessionReaper vulnerability of late 2025: security firm Sansec reported active exploitation and stated that 62% of Magento stores were still vulnerable weeks after the emergency patches. Alongside the classic versions, Adobe now also offers Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service, a SaaS variant in which Adobe rolls out updates and security patches itself. Choose this if you have a complex B2B catalog and a regular development partner; for an average Flemish SME webshop it is usually too heavy.
• Wix and Squarespace: site builders with a shop module, without the e-commerce foundation to scale on. Choose this for a small shop next to a services site.
• Lightspeed and CCV Shop: in Belgium Lightspeed sells eCom packages from €68 per month excl. VAT, and CCV Shop is a name active in Belgium for starters. Choose this if your physical store already runs on their point-of-sale or payment system.
• BigCommerce: presented BigCommerce Payments, the AI assistant BigCommerce Companion and agent-enabled checkout at Commerce Live 2026, and syndicates product catalogs through sister company Feedonomics directly to ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity. For heavy B2B there is the enterprise edition, B2B Edition. Choose this if you want SaaS that you can build on through its APIs.

One of BigCommerce’s most compelling advantages is the depth of features available even on lower-tier plans. Unlike competitors that gate core functionality behind expensive upgrades, BigCommerce includes built-in multi-currency support, advanced SEO tools, real-time shipping quotes, and zero transaction fees across all plans. For growing businesses that need professional-grade capabilities without committing to enterprise pricing, BigCommerce offers a rare combination of power and accessibility. Its open API architecture also makes it a strong choice for businesses looking to build custom integrations or adopt a headless commerce setup as they scale.

Which e-commerce platform suits B2B?

For simple B2B selling next to your webshop, Shopify is now enough: B2B is on every plan, with up to 3 active B2B catalogs on Basic, Grow and Advanced and an unlimited number on Shopify Plus. Only with customer-specific prices across thousands of references, quote flows or deep ERP integrations do you move on to Adobe Commerce or BigCommerce B2B Edition.

On every Shopify plan you manage company profiles and volume pricing from your admin at no extra cost. Shopify Plus adds catalogs per company, deposits and partial payments, among other things. Shopify’s own figures show how firmly it is pushing this: according to Shopify, B2B gross merchandise volume (GMV) on the platform grew 76% year over year in the second quarter of 2026.

For heavy B2B, BigCommerce has a separate B2B Edition, aimed at enterprise customers and priced on request. Adobe Commerce remains the reference for complex custom B2B catalogs and needs a developer or regular partner for build and management. Moving on only pays off if your pricing logic, quote flows or integrations truly don’t fit in Shopify, because then what you gain outweighs the extra build and management cost.

What does an e-commerce platform really cost?

Compare the total cost of ownership, including subscription, apps, hosting and management. With SaaS you pay a predictable subscription plus any apps and transaction fees; hosting, security and updates are included. With open source the software is free, but you pay separately for hosting, extensions, a developer for updates and the hours (or the risk) of security.

In Belgium Shopify costs from €32 per month (€24 with annual billing, September 2026), plus apps and any transaction fees. The WooCommerce plugin costs nothing, but a professionally maintained WooCommerce shop needs a hosting party, current plugins and someone following up patches; the Magento example above shows what happens when that slips. Conversely, a Shopify shop can quietly get more expensive if you stack a paid app for every function; a critical look at your app stack keeps that healthy. So always calculate on three levels: platform cost, build cost and monthly management cost. We make that calculation transparent upfront in every startup or migration project, so you compare on the real total cost.

Which platform is ready for AI and agentic commerce?

This is the new dividing line in 2026. Consumers are starting to buy through AI assistants, and in a December 2025 forecast Bain estimates that agentic commerce in the US could reach 300 to 500 billion dollars by 2030, some 15 to 25% of e-commerce. Platforms differ sharply in how ready they are, and that should weigh into your choice today.

Shopify leads: agentic storefronts, a structured product catalog for AI channels and checkout that also works beyond your own site. According to Shopify’s own figures for the second quarter of 2026, both the traffic and the orders reaching Shopify stores via AI tripled year-over-year, albeit from a small base. President Harley Finkelstein put the strategy this way in May 2026:

“Agents do not [bypass] Shopify, just the opposite. In fact, they write right into Shopify.”

— Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify

BigCommerce is moving just as hard with agent-ready data and catalog syndication:

“Agentic commerce is quickly shifting from experimentation to real-world application, and merchants need a reliable way to participate.”

— Sharon Gee, Senior Vice President of Product for AI at Commerce (BigCommerce)

WooCommerce is building the same foundations: version 10.9 puts “abilities” for products and orders into core, and the MCP integration is in a developer preview that you have to switch on yourself and that may still change. What all this concretely means for your product data and findability is in our guide on agentic commerce for webshops; it connects directly to the broader e-commerce trends in Belgium.

Unsure which platform fits your growth plan? As a Shopify Partner, ClickForest guides SMEs in Flanders through platform choice, build and migration. See our Shopify approach or book a no-obligation video call.

What are the downsides of Shopify?

Fair is fair: with Shopify you rent your platform. You’re tied to one vendor’s ecosystem and rules, apps can push up the monthly cost, very deep customisation hits limits sooner than open source, the blog function is weaker than WordPress, and with an external payment provider Shopify charges up to 2% extra per transaction.

Concretely we see three profiles for which we ourselves don’t immediately advise Shopify: businesses whose site is mainly a content machine with a small shop attached (WordPress + WooCommerce is the obvious route), organisations with extremely specific B2B customisation such as customer-specific pricing logic across thousands of references (Adobe Commerce territory), and teams that deliberately want to run everything in-house and have the technical people for it. For the other profiles, the ease of one integrated, secured and AI-ready platform outweighs the downsides in our experience; the time you don’t spend on servers goes to your shop and your conversion.

Which platform fits your SME profile?

Choose based on your profile. Starter without technical baggage: Shopify or possibly Wix for a mini-shop. Growing D2C brand: Shopify. Content-first business with a small shop: WordPress with WooCommerce. Simple B2B: any Shopify plan. Complex B2B with deep customisation: Adobe Commerce or BigCommerce B2B Edition. Already in a point-of-sale ecosystem: look at your own supplier first, such as Lightspeed.

• The starter: you want to sell this month without learning to manage servers. Shopify gives you checkout, payments (including Bancontact via Shopify Payments) and hosting in one go.
• The growing D2C brand: your marketing and range are growing, you want A/B tests, apps and soon AI channels. Shopify’s ecosystem and agentic roadmap are strongest here.
• The content-first business: your site is mainly a blog or knowledge base and the shop is secondary. Stay on WordPress and attach WooCommerce, with a good hosting and maintenance partner.
• The B2B player: simple B2B works on any Shopify plan. For customer-specific prices across thousands of references and quote flows, look at Adobe Commerce or BigCommerce B2B Edition, and honestly count the management.
• The Belgian point-of-sale customer: if your physical store runs on Lightspeed or CCV, first weigh their own webshop module against the switching cost of a separate platform.

And the payment side: check per platform whether Bancontact works smoothly. On Shopify it sits natively in Shopify Payments; on WooCommerce, Magento and PrestaShop you arrange it through a payment provider like Mollie.

How do you switch without breaking things?

A platform migration is a project, not a button. Carefully bring along products, customers, orders, URL structure and redirects, plan the switch in a quiet period and measure your organic positions before and after. Approach it in a structured way and your SEO and customer data stay intact after go-live too.

The biggest pitfall is the URL structure: every old product page that disappears without a redirect is built-up findability you’re throwing away. Our approach in a startup or migration: first a complete inventory of pages and positions, then a redirect plan, only then build, and after go-live ongoing maintenance and support so the shop keeps performing after the migration too.

What should you remember about the platform choice?

WooCommerce is the biggest in number of shops, Shopify the strongest total solution, and the right choice follows from your profile: technical management or not, content or commerce first, standard or custom. Calculate the total cost over several years, check your Belgian payment methods and also weigh how AI-ready your platform is, because that’s where the next growth round will be decided.

How to build up that total cost is broken down fully for websites in what having a website built costs. Once the platform choice is settled and you are looking for someone to build it, how to choose a Shopify partner in Belgium covers the six criteria that really count.

As a Shopify Partner, ClickForest helps SMEs in Flanders with that choice, from first webshop to migration from an existing platform. Honest advice included: if Shopify doesn’t fit your profile, we’ll say so. See our Shopify e-commerce approach or plan a video call and you’ll quickly know which platform carries your growth for the years ahead.