Compare your eCommerce options
Choose the right eCommerce platform to start and grow your business
VS.
Joomla is a somewhat popular content management system (CMS) for creating websites. It's great for certain purposes, but since it's a general website builder, its focus is not on eCommerce. Online stores built on Joomla are at a disadvantage compared to online stores built on a dedicated eCommerce platform. Plus, to get eCommerce working on Joomla at all, you’ll need to spend a lot of time installing, updating, and troubleshooting software – a process that’s not only time-consuming, but extremely costly unless you’ve got the tech know-how to do it yourself.
In contrast, Shift4Shop is an all-in-one eCommerce solution that includes everything you need right out of the box. Not only will you get access to advanced features and tools for selling online, you also won't have to worry about the technical aspects like hosting, security, or software updates. We do all the heavy lifting behind the scenes so you can focus on what's important: selling and marketing your products.
Ease of useJoomla requires extensive development knowledge and a huge investment in time to get up and running. Users need to find and maintain their own web hosting, install the Joomla software, and choose and install the extensions to turn their site into an eCommerce store. From then on, all components will also need to be updated from time to time, and extensions may become temporarily incompatible as they await their own updates. But with Shift4Shop, you don't have to worry about any of this — we handle all the technical aspects on the back end, and all you need to do is log in and manage your store. It's the fastest way to build, manage, and grow the online business you've always dreamed of.
Technical supportRunning an online store 24/7 means issues can arise at any time of day. Having access to reliable support around-the-clock is critical to your business’s success. Unfortunately, Joomla users are pushed toward their forums for answers from the community, which may not come in a timely (or accurate) manner. In contrast, Shift4Shop offers full live support from our staff at any time of day, and we're ready to help you 24/7/365.
“I went with Joomla ecommerce because at the time, it seemed like the best option in terms of cost and freedom. It wasn’t long before I realized there was no way Joomla could keep up with my business’s growth, and that it was actually holding us back. I needed a scalable platform that was actually meant for ecommerce”
– Ex-Joomla ecommerce customer
Theme selectionJoomla supports responsive designs and has a wide selection of themes available from a community of independent designers. But you'll need to make sure the theme you want to use is compatible with your Joomla version as well as any extensions you use (such as those that power eCommerce). It's also hard to customize a Joomla theme since you need knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. But Shift4Shop maintains a constantly growing theme selection with dozens of free, professional templates that can be easily customized with built-in tools. And if you do want to edit code directly, you have access to all your theme files to make that possible. This makes Shift4Shop the best option no matter your skill level!
Shift4Shop lets you take payments in minutes with a built-in Shift4 integration and also supports more payment solutions than any other eCommerce platform. See a full list of payment providers here.
Joomla doesn't have any built-in payment processing, so you'll need to search for third-party payment plugins to install on your site yourself. Many of these plugins come at a cost, so you'll need to pay for them just to accept payments from customers.
Shift4Shop is everything you need to build, grow and market your online store, with access to countless cutting-edge eCommerce features like innovative email and social media marketing tools, integrated payment and shipping solutions, advanced SEO tools, a POS system, and in-depth reports. Since Joomla is a content management system and not a dedicated eCommerce platform, you’ll have to purchase numerous expensive add-ons and develop custom solutions to sell online.
Shift4Shop offers the most advanced features in SaaS eCommerce, even to merchants using our free, unlimited End-to-End eCommerce plan. Our fully scalable solution includes everything you need to run a successful online store and adapt to complex business needs, unlike Joomla which is only a basic CMS extension.