Magento is another popular choice for eCommerce, and since it's also free and open source, it's similar in many ways to WooCommerce. You'll need to download Magento and install it onto your web server, support is strongly community-based, and custom development is limited only by what you can afford. The biggest difference is that Magento is not a plugin for WordPress or any other website builder: it's a full suite of software for building an online store.

Magento is also much more difficult to use than WooCommerce, and it's intended for larger businesses. The high scalability leads many business owners to go for Magento right away rather than starting out on a smaller platform, but its steep learning curve is also a drawback. Magento also suffers from slow website speeds once your site starts expanding into a large number of products, and it has pretty hefty server requirements for running well in general.

Volusion is different from both WooCommerce and Magento: it's an SaaS platform, which stands for "Software as a Service." This means your web hosting, security, software updates, and other technical details are handled for you by the provider. SaaS eCommerce platforms are much easier to use than open-source eCommerce software, because all you need to do to get started is to create an account, log in, and start building.

Volusion is considered to be one of the easiest SaaS eCommerce platforms to learn how to use. Its interface is clear and streamlined, almost to a fault. Many advanced users feel that the platform is so simplistic that it limits them. Volusion is also somewhat lacking in features, but if ease of use is what you're looking for, it may be a good option — just keep its limits in mind.

Shopify is another SaaS platform and stands as one of the most popular eCommerce solutions in the industry. It has more features than Volusion and is also considered extremely user-friendly, but without the simplistic limits many users feel are imposed by Volusion. It's easy to see why Shopify is the go-to platform for many new entrepreneurs ready to build their online store.

However, Shopify is not without its disadvantages: there are few free themes, and despite having more features than Volusion, a surprising number of important capabilities are missing. You'll need to shore up Shopify's functionality with apps from their app store, which can cause your monthly fee to grow unexpectedly quickly.

Additionally, Shopify charges transaction fees (in addition to the usual fee from your payment provider) unless you use their proprietary processor, Shopify Payments. Shopify Payments is based on Stripe and unavailable in many countries, and cannot be used for heavily regulated ("high-risk") industries like CBD. Shopify has also been known to ban businesses from Shopify Payments without warning or explanation, which essentially closes the store.

Like Volusion and Shopify, BigCommerce is an SaaS eCommerce solution, but has more features than either. It should be considered a strong competitor to both, and is often chosen when a business finds Volusion too limiting and Shopify too expensive. It's not as easy to use as the others, but this is because of the increased feature count.

There are a few disadvantages to BigCommerce, however, and its learning curve could be considered one of them. Worse, though, are its restrictive revenue tiers. Many SaaS eCommerce platforms require you to upgrade to the next plan once your trailing annual sales volume exceeds a certain amount — this ensures your store has the proper infrastructure to give it room to grow. Unfortunately BigCommerce's revenue tiers are much smaller than some competitors', meaning you'll be boosted to a higher plan earlier. Your budget may not be able to handle this without stifling your growth.