Which fits your store: Shopify Plus or WooCommerce
Shopify Plus fits merchants who want hosted checkout and a managed app ecosystem, while WooCommerce fits teams who want the code and order data on their own infrastructure and already run WordPress. If your Shopify Plus renewal, a data residency requirement or a lock-in concern is pushing you to look at alternatives, or if your store is content-led and already sits on WordPress, the choice comes down to who will operate the stack. The decision turns on four questions: who runs hosting, who carries PCI scope, who patches WordPress, PHP and every extension, and how much catalog, B2B and checkout customization the business needs.
Start with operations. Shopify runs the platform and its checkout for you, and Shopify states 99.99% uptime on average, according to the Shopify Plus page. With WooCommerce, the uptime, backups, PHP and database versions and security updates become your responsibility. WooCommerce recommends PHP 8.3 or greater and MySQL 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.6+, and WordPress itself recommends PHP 8.3 or greater, so confirm that your hosting provider can keep those versions supported. Ask who owns the on-call rota, the restore tests and the patch window before you sign.
Next, check the extensions and checkout you depend on. WooCommerce is GPL-licensed, but many subscription, B2B and shipping features come from paid extensions with their own update cycles and support terms, so price every extension you need, not only the core plugin. Confirm in writing which payment gateway handles card data, because that choice sets much of your PCI scope. If your catalog is large or your B2B pricing is complex, test a representative product set and a full checkout in a staging copy before you commit to either platform.
Which platform fits which scenario
This table matches common Shopify Plus merchant situations to the platform that fits better, with the condition that decides it. Read each row against your own catalog, team skills and compliance obligations, and treat the condition column as the question to answer before choosing.
| Scenario | Better fit | Condition that drives it |
|---|---|---|
| Content-heavy store already on WordPress | WooCommerce | Your editorial team already runs WordPress, and products sit alongside articles, landing pages and SEO content in one site |
| Hosted checkout with no ops team | Shopify Plus | No one on staff can patch PHP, WordPress, the database or payment-related plugins on a schedule |
| Team with in-house PHP skills | WooCommerce | You can staff people who maintain themes, child plugins, hooks and upgrades, and who own the hosting stack |
| Heavy subscription or B2B needs | Depends on extensions | Compare the specific paid extensions for recurring billing, B2B pricing and invoicing against the Shopify apps you use today, and confirm each one's update policy |
| Strict data residency requirement | WooCommerce | You need order, customer and payment-adjacent data in a named region or your own data center, which Shopify's hosted model may not meet, so confirm Shopify's data location terms |
| High order volume and custom database tuning | WooCommerce | You can run and tune MySQL or MariaDB and enable High-Performance Order Storage, with capacity planning owned by your team |
| Peak traffic on a fixed launch calendar | Shopify Plus | Your uptime promise to customers depends on a vendor-run platform rather than on hosts and caching you must size yourself |
| Cost predictability for plugin-heavy stores | Undecided | Model the paid extensions, hosting, security monitoring and developer time together, because a free core does not make the total free |
What WooCommerce's GPL license does and does not give you
WooCommerce is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2 or later, and the WordPress platform it runs on is also GPLv2 or later. In practice, you may install, run, copy, modify and redistribute the core plugin and WordPress without paying a license fee to Automattic or the WordPress Foundation. That freedom covers the code, not the operation. Nothing in the license runs your store, patches it, backs up its database or answers for an outage, so those costs sit with your team or your implementation partner from day one.
The revenue-generating parts of a WooCommerce store are usually commercial add-ons. Many extensions, payment connectors, subscription and B2B features, and premium themes are sold through WooCommerce.com or by third-party vendors, each with its own license terms, renewal period and update policy. Shopify Plus works differently: the platform is a subscription, and apps from the Shopify App Store are priced separately, so both models carry recurring third-party spend. The useful comparison is the list of extensions you need for your checkout, tax, shipping and B2B rules, with each one's annual cost and what happens to it if you stop renewing.
Before you commit, confirm for every extension you plan to use: whether its license is GPL-compatible, how many sites it covers, whether updates and security fixes are included for the life of the subscription, and what support tier you receive. Ask vendors whether a lapsed license stops updates or disables features. Your WooCommerce README check should also note how security issues are reported, because the core project routes those reports through Automattic's HackerOne program, while extension vulnerabilities go to each vendor. Write these terms into your cost model rather than assuming the free core covers the whole stack.
Capabilities side by side: Shopify Plus and WooCommerce
This table compares how Shopify Plus and self-hosted WooCommerce handle checkout, extensions, catalog, exports, order storage, API access, uptime and updates. Read each row as a question about who controls the capability and who carries the work. The main takeaway is that Shopify Plus bundles hosting and uptime into the subscription, while WooCommerce moves those duties, and the PCI and patching work that comes with them, onto your team or partner.
| Capability | Shopify Plus | Self-hosted WooCommerce on WordPress |
|---|---|---|
| Checkout | Hosted by Shopify. Confirm which checkout changes your plan allows and whether your payment gateway is supported before you commit. | Checkout runs on your own WordPress server. Confirm which gateway plugins, checkout hooks and custom templates your team needs, and who maintains them. |
| App or extension ecosystem | Shopify app store with apps billed through Shopify. Check each critical app for a WooCommerce equivalent and its licensing terms. | Free core plugin under GPL v2 or later, with paid extensions and themes sold separately. Review each extension's license, renewal and update support. |
| Catalog and variants | Products, variants and metafields managed in the admin and API. Confirm variant limits and metafield coverage for your catalog. | Products and variations managed in WordPress. Test large variant sets and custom fields in staging, since performance depends on your database and hosting. |
| Customer and order export | Products, customers and orders export as CSV from the admin. Customer CSVs are limited to 15 MB, so plan batched exports for large files. | Exports depend on your setup and plugins. Confirm whether your team will use the built-in tools, the REST API or a custom script, and test on a full data copy. |
| Order storage | Managed by Shopify. You do not choose or tune the underlying storage. | From WooCommerce 8.2, High-Performance Order Storage is stable and enabled by default for new installations, keeping orders in dedicated wc_orders and wc_orders_meta tables. Confirm how older stores were migrated. |
| REST API access | Shopify Admin API, with access controlled through app credentials. Confirm which endpoints your integrations need. | WooCommerce REST API under the wc/v3 namespace, authenticated with API keys over HTTPS or OAuth 1.0a. Check that each integration uses the least privileges it needs. |
| Uptime responsibility | Shopify states 99.99% uptime on average for Shopify Plus. Ask for the contractual SLA in writing, since an average is not a guarantee. | Your hosting provider, your infrastructure and your team own uptime, backups and failover. Define the target and the on-call model before launch. |
| Update model | Shopify runs platform updates for you. Your team manages app and theme changes on your schedule. | WordPress core, PHP, MySQL or MariaDB, WooCommerce and every plugin need your patching. WordPress applies some automatic updates, but plugin updates are limited by default, so plan a regular patch cycle. |
Where your data lives and who holds the keys
Shopify Plus keeps the store, its data and its payment environment in Shopify's hosted platform, while WooCommerce places orders, customers and admin access in your own WordPress and database stack. Each card below covers a decision that moves from Shopify to you when you self-host, and what to confirm before you sign off.
Where order data sits
On Shopify Plus, orders, customers and metafields live in Shopify's hosted environment, and you reach them through the admin, exports and APIs. With WooCommerce, orders sit in your own database. From WooCommerce 8.2, High-Performance Order Storage is enabled by default for new installations and keeps orders in dedicated tables such as wc_orders and wc_orders_meta. Confirm which storage mode your store uses and where backups of those tables are kept.
Hosting model and ownership
Shopify runs the platform, its uptime and its infrastructure as a service. With WooCommerce you choose between a managed WordPress host and your own cloud account, and the host, your team or DeployOpen then owns the server, PHP runtime, database and TLS certificates. Ask who signs the hosting terms, who holds root and database credentials, and where the hosting provider's own data centers and subprocessors are located.
Identity and admin access
Shopify Plus staff accounts and permissions are managed inside Shopify's admin. WooCommerce inherits WordPress user roles, so a shop manager, an editor and a plugin can all touch orders, and API keys for the wc/v3 REST namespace authenticate over HTTPS or OAuth 1.0a. Document who can create API keys, how administrator accounts are protected with multifactor sign-in, and how access is removed when staff leave.
PCI scope and attestation
PCI scope depends on how payments are integrated, not on the platform name. A hosted payment page or redirect that keeps card data off your servers narrows the scope, while custom checkout code or a plugin that handles card fields widens it. Your payment processor, your acquirer and a Qualified Security Assessor define the scope and issue any attestation. DeployOpen prepares the controls and evidence for that assessment, but auditors issue the attestation.
Backups and disaster recovery
Shopify holds the platform-level backups, and you rely on its export tools and contractual recovery terms. On WooCommerce, you own the database, the wp-content uploads and the plugin configuration, so a restore is a procedure you must test. Define recovery point and recovery time targets for orders and payment records, keep an off-site copy outside the hosting account, and rehearse a restore before go-live.
Regional data residency
Shopify decides where hosted store data is stored and processed, and you should confirm its current regional commitments in writing. With WooCommerce, residency follows the region you pick for the server, database, backups, CDN and email providers, so each vendor in that chain is part of the decision. List every component that holds personal data, confirm its location, and check the terms of any analytics or fraud tool that loads on the storefront.
Who patches WordPress, PHP, WooCommerce and extensions
On WooCommerce, every layer has its own patch cycle, and you own all of them: WordPress core, PHP, the database server, WooCommerce itself, each paid extension and theme, and the operating system underneath. WordPress does backport security fixes to older releases so that older sites receive critical fixes through auto-updates, but the WordPress security team states that only the latest release is officially supported. Plugin and theme auto-updates are not general: by default, WordPress applies them only in special cases determined by the WordPress.org API, which the security team controls to patch critical vulnerabilities. Your team should confirm which of your extensions fall outside that path and who reviews their updates each month.
The version floors are set by the platform, and they are not optional. WooCommerce recommends PHP 8.3 or greater, MySQL 8.0 or later, or MariaDB 10.6 or later, and WordPress.org recommends PHP 8.3 or greater with MariaDB 10.11 or later or MySQL 8.0 or later. The WooCommerce server requirements note that PHP 7.4 and MySQL 5.6 may still run legacy stores, but both versions are end of life and pose security risks. Check the current WooCommerce and WordPress requirement pages before you build the environment, because the WooCommerce release line moves quickly, and then set a written rule for how far behind each component may fall.
Every extension, theme, PHP runtime, database, web server and WordPress host needs a named owner, a test environment and a rollback plan, and that work continues for the life of the store. On Shopify Plus, Shopify operates the platform and its hosted checkout, and the 99.99% average uptime figure on its Plus page describes that hosted service. Moving to WooCommerce means that work lands on your team or your partner, under a written scope with a support retainer. Ask any integrator to show a patch calendar, a staging process and the escalation path for a critical WooCommerce or extension vulnerability before you commit.
What WooCommerce costs to run compared with Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus bundles hosting, checkout and platform upkeep into a subscription, while WooCommerce moves those costs onto your own hosting, plugin licenses and staff time. The cards below separate one-time build work from recurring spend, and show what drives each line up or down. No prices are quoted here; the written scope and quote are where the numbers become specific to your store.
Shopify Plus subscription, apps and payment fees
On Shopify Plus, the platform subscription, app subscriptions and payment processing fees recur for as long as the store runs. These are the lines a WooCommerce comparison must replace, not ignore. Ask Shopify for the current subscription terms, your app list with each app's recurring fee, and the payment rates that apply to your volume. Apps often carry their own annual fees, so list every one that handles checkout, shipping, tax or subscriptions. Order volume and app count are the usual drivers.
WooCommerce hosting and managed WordPress
Your hosting bill becomes a recurring line. WooCommerce recommends PHP 8.3 or greater and MySQL 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.6+, with a WordPress memory limit of 256 MB or more, so the tier you choose must meet those requirements at your peak traffic. Managed WordPress hosting costs more per month than a basic VPS but often includes backups, staging and patching support. Compare cloud VMs, managed WordPress and container platforms on the same specification. Catalog size, concurrent shoppers and order volume push the tier up.
Extensions and their annual renewals
WooCommerce core is free under GPL, but subscriptions, B2B pricing, multi-currency and shipping rates often come from paid extensions. Each extension typically carries a license with a renewal, and renewal is what keeps updates and support flowing. Map every Shopify app you use to a WooCommerce extension, record its license tier and renewal date, and confirm whether it works with your PHP and WooCommerce versions. Extension count and feature tier are the main drivers.
Build and migration effort
The build is a one-time cost: moving products, variants, images, customers and orders, rebuilding theme and checkout logic, and setting up redirects. Shopify's product CSV excludes images, so image transfer from public URLs needs its own work, and the Shopify store should stay live until that is complete. Customer exports are capped at 15 MB, so large customer files need splitting. Ask for a written scope listing each data set, the redirect map and the test plan before work starts.
PCI scope and security patching
Shopify hosts checkout, which keeps much of the card data environment with the platform. On WooCommerce, your payment gateway and hosting configuration decide how much of your environment falls into PCI scope, and that scope work recurs each assessment cycle. Patching is also yours: WordPress, PHP, MySQL or MariaDB, and each extension need updates, and WordPress automatic plugin updates apply only in special cases. Budget for a recurring patch cadence and an annual scope review, and ask for the responsibility split in writing.
Monitoring, backups and security testing
Uptime, backups and testing move from the vendor to your team or partner. Shopify states 99.99% uptime on average, so a WooCommerce store needs its own monitoring, tested restore procedures and off-site backups of both database and uploads. Security testing of the storefront, checkout and APIs is a separate recurring activity. Ask for the backup frequency, restore test interval, monitoring coverage and a testing schedule, and check whether these are one-time setup or ongoing retainer work.
Support retainers and internal staffing
Shopify includes platform support in the subscription. On WooCommerce, support splits between extension vendors, your hosting provider and internal or partner staff who handle upgrades. A support retainer covers upgrades, incident response and continuous testing on a fixed schedule, and is recurring. Ask what response times the retainer commits to, which systems it covers, how major WooCommerce and WordPress releases are tested before rollout, and what happens to extension renewals during the term.
How a move from Shopify Plus to WooCommerce runs
The sequence turns a hosted Shopify Plus store into a WooCommerce site that you host, patch and reconcile, with the original store kept live until data and images have been verified. Each step ends with a check that tells the team whether it can move on.
Inventory apps, themes and integrations
The merchant and the implementation partner list every Shopify app, theme customization, payment method, shipping rule, tax setting and third-party integration that touches orders, customers or fulfillment. Each item is marked as replaced by a WooCommerce extension, rebuilt as custom code, or retired. The output is a signed-off inventory that names an owner for each open decision, and the team can point to a WooCommerce or WordPress option for every dependency it keeps.
Export products, customers and orders
The team exports products and customers from the Shopify admin as CSV files, then uses the Admin API or a reporting export for metafields and full order history, since the standard exports do not carry everything. Product images are not in the product CSV, so the original store stays live until the images have been imported from their public URLs. The check is a row count and a sample of records per file compared with the source store, with the export files stored in a controlled location.
Build the WooCommerce environment and choose extensions
The partner provisions a WordPress and WooCommerce environment on the merchant's own hosting, with PHP, MySQL or MariaDB, HTTPS and memory limits set to the WooCommerce server requirements. Each extension needed for subscriptions, B2B pricing, shipping or tax is selected, licensed and tested in a staging copy, and High-Performance Order Storage is confirmed as the order storage mode. The check is a staging site that completes a test order and a written list of extensions with their licenses, update sources and support terms.
Import data and reconcile
Products, variations, customers and historical orders are loaded into staging, with images fetched from the public URLs captured in the export. The team reconciles counts, totals, tax lines, stock levels and customer tags against the Shopify source, and logs every record that cannot be mapped. The check is a reconciliation report signed by the merchant's finance and operations owners, with each exception either fixed or accepted in writing.
Set URL redirects and SEO
The team maps every Shopify product, collection, page and blog URL to its WooCommerce equivalent, adds 301 redirects in the web server or a redirect plugin, and carries over page titles, meta descriptions, canonical tags and the XML sitemap. Search Console or equivalent tooling is prepared for the new domain structure. The check is a crawl of the old URL list that returns a single redirect hop to a live page, with no broken internal links.
Configure payments, checkout and notifications
The payment gateway, tax calculation, shipping methods and transactional emails are configured against WooCommerce in test mode, and the checkout is reviewed for card data handling. The merchant confirms which gateway holds cardholder data and what the PCI responsibilities are for the chosen setup, and the partner documents the cardholder data flow. The check is a set of test transactions across payment methods, refunds and failed payments, with results recorded.
Test, cut over and hand over the run-book
The team runs functional, performance and security tests on staging, then schedules the cutover with the Shopify store kept live until the final delta sync is complete, and DNS and redirects switch together. After go-live, a run-book is handed over covering WordPress, PHP, WooCommerce and extension update cadence, backup and restore tests, monitoring, and who reviews security advisories. The check is a signed go-live checklist and a run-book the merchant's team has rehearsed at least once.
Questions buyers ask before choosing WooCommerce over Shopify Plus
What does switching from Shopify Plus to WooCommerce cost in effort, and what drives it?
The switch cost is mostly labor, and the size of that labor depends on your catalog, integrations and how many Shopify apps you rely on. Shopify Plus is a subscription with app and transaction fees, while WooCommerce is free under the GNU General Public License version 2 or later, so the recurring spend moves to hosting, managed WordPress operations, paid extensions, developer time and support. Expect one-time costs for data migration, theme work, checkout and payment setup, and testing. Ask any partner for a fixed-scope quote that lists each Shopify app you need replaced, each integration, and who maintains the result after launch.
How long does a move from Shopify Plus to WooCommerce take?
The timeline is set by scope, not by the platform alone. The main drivers are the number of products and variants, how many images must be re-imported, how many Shopify apps need a WooCommerce plugin or custom code, the complexity of checkout and tax rules, and how many systems (ERP, shipping, marketing) must be reconnected. Shopify's product export does not include images, so Shopify advises keeping the original store live until the new store has imported them from public URLs. Ask for a written timeline tied to named deliverables and a parallel-run period before cutover.
Can our team run WooCommerce ourselves after launch?
Yes, if you have people who can operate a PHP and WordPress stack with confidence. WooCommerce recommends PHP 8.3 or greater, MySQL 8.0 or MariaDB 10.6 or greater, WordPress 6.9 or greater, a WordPress memory limit of 256 MB or more and HTTPS. Your team will own server patching, backups, performance tuning, plugin compatibility and release testing. Shopify removes that work because it hosts the platform. Before you decide, count the staff hours you can commit each month and confirm whether a retainer for upgrades, monitoring and security testing fits your budget.
What does the migration need from our internal staff?
Your staff must supply decisions and domain knowledge that no contractor can infer. Merchandising owns category structure, product data rules and URL redirects. Finance owns tax, invoice and refund rules. Operations owns shipping, fulfillment and returns. Engineering owns the integration points and access to the new server. Plan for a named owner in each area, a sign-off step for test orders, and time for staff to validate data after each import. Missing owners is one of the most common reasons a migration slips, so ask who on your side approves each deliverable.
How does PCI scope change when we self-host WooCommerce?
Your PCI scope usually grows when you run your own payment-handling environment, because you become responsible for the systems that touch cardholder data. With Shopify Plus, much of the checkout and payment environment sits in Shopify's hosted platform. With WooCommerce, you control the server, the database, the plugins and the checkout pages. The safest pattern is to use a payment provider's hosted fields or redirect so card data never reaches your servers, then document that design. Ask your qualified assessor to confirm the scope in writing, and do not assume a payment plugin removes it.
Who patches WordPress, PHP and WooCommerce extensions after the move?
You do, unless you contract someone to do it. WordPress only officially supports its latest version, and the WordPress Security Team backports critical fixes to older versions as a courtesy. Automatic background updates for WordPress core are available, but by default WordPress applies automatic updates to plugins and themes only in special cases chosen through the WordPress.org API. That means paid and third-party WooCommerce extensions often need manual updates, testing and vendor follow-up. PHP and the database also need supported versions, and the WooCommerce server requirements warn that older PHP and MySQL versions are end of life and pose security risks. Write a patch calendar with an owner for each component.
Does High-Performance Order Storage matter at our order volume?
It matters more as order history, reporting and concurrent checkout load grow, and it is worth confirming early. From WooCommerce 8.2, released in October 2023, High-Performance Order Storage is stable and enabled by default for new installations, storing orders in dedicated tables such as wc_orders and wc_orders_meta instead of the general WordPress post tables. Existing stores may need to migrate to it, and extensions must be compatible with it. Ask your partner to test your heaviest reports and checkout flows on production-like data, and to confirm your database sizing and backup window against your expected order history.
Questions to answer before you commit
Start with the extension count, because it decides how much of the store you will be rebuilding. List every plugin the store depends on today, from subscriptions and B2B pricing to shipping, tax and payment gateways, and mark whether each one is free, paid or custom. For each paid extension, confirm with its vendor that it has a maintained license, supports the PHP and WordPress versions you plan to run, and offers a named support path. A plugin with no active maintainer is a patching liability you will own, and an extension that only exists inside Shopify has no WooCommerce equivalent to migrate to.
Next, test the operating skills in the team. WooCommerce on self-hosted WordPress means someone owns PHP upgrades, database maintenance, WordPress core and plugin updates, caching, backups and restores, and the security response when a plugin is disclosed as vulnerable. Check whether your engineers have run a PHP application in production and who would be paged at 2 a.m. during a checkout failure. If the answer is unclear, a managed WordPress host or a retained partner should be priced into the decision before the migration starts, not after.
Then decide what is actually driving the move. If the trigger is data residency, lock-in or a fee change, confirm that the self-hosted option solves that specific problem and that the store's hosting location, backups and logs will meet your own policies. If the trigger is cost alone, model the recurring hosting, extension, monitoring and staff time against the current Shopify Plus invoice over several years. Finally, name the owner of uptime. Shopify states 99.99% uptime on average on its Shopify Plus page, and a self-hosted store carries that commitment only if your own team or host can match it. A stable Shopify store may well be the right answer, and staying put is a valid outcome of this review.
How DeployOpen helps evaluate, implement and migrate WooCommerce
DeployOpen is a Chainscore Labs company that plans, implements, hardens, backs up, upgrades and documents self-hosted open-source platforms inside the client's own infrastructure. For a WooCommerce decision, that means working from a written scope so the team can judge the hosting, patching and PCI responsibilities before committing to a move away from Shopify Plus.
How we scope
- Engagements are fixed-scope, with deliverables and timelines agreed in writing before work starts.
- The written scope lists which Shopify Plus apps, checkout logic and data exports are in and out.
- We confirm the target hosting, PHP and database versions against current WooCommerce requirements.
How we build
- We set up WooCommerce on your cloud account, data center or air-gapped network, with HPOS enabled.
- Extensions for subscriptions, B2B and payments are selected, configured and tested against your catalog.
- Security testing of the store, its APIs and its plugins runs before go-live, with findings tracked to closure.
How we hand over
- You receive documentation covering architecture, configuration, backup and restore, and the patch routine.
- Runbooks define who applies WordPress, PHP, WooCommerce and extension updates, and how often.
- Control evidence is organized for your compliance assessor, which DeployOpen prepares but does not issue.
How we support
- Ongoing support, upgrades and continuous testing are available as retainers after handover.
- Retainers can cover WordPress and WooCommerce release tracking, patch testing and backup verification.
- Ask for the support scope, response expectations and exit terms in writing before signing.
