BigCommerce vs Shopify Comparison Chart

Pros

We moved from Shopify to Bigcommerce because Shopify lacked features that Bigcommerce had out of the box such as proper product categories, saved payments, one-page checkout among others.

Cons

Bigcommerce continues to build out new features rather than fixing problems with current ones. Every week I hear about a new payment processor or some random feature that's built half-baked. I've been very, very frustrated at the lack of thought behind many features and their inability to fix simple problems. Their API's are a mess, with some of the API's passing all the data you need, and other's missing important data needed - so we're creating functions to call information that should be (and easily can be) included in the objects returned by the API. There is NO mobile application, even to check simple things like orders, which is the most ridiculous thing given we're in 2019.

Rating breakdown

Time used: 1-2 years

Frequency of use: Daily

Likelihood to recommend

BigCommerce

Redefining Enterprise Ecommerce

Pros

Simple platform that is easy to setup. Tons of options to choose form to get the look you want for your website.

Cons

Lack of new integrations that platforms like Shopify and the like now offer making it hard to add additional selling networks.

Rating breakdown

Time used: 2+ years

Frequency of use: Daily

Likelihood to recommend

BigCommerce

Redefining Enterprise Ecommerce

Pros

Value for money, and easy to get started. Very good customer support and easy to integrate and update any information.

Cons

There are not many apps/softwares to integrate/implement to use like in Shopify. And there are limitations to customize checkouts etc.

Rating breakdown

Time used: 1-2 years

Frequency of use: Weekly

Likelihood to recommend

BigCommerce

Redefining Enterprise Ecommerce

Pros

Bigcommerce has just about everything you'd want in an ecommerce platform, easily enough to build out an entire online store

Cons

Doesn't have much really going for it over competitors like Shopify. Pricing is the same, fewer features, etc.

Rating breakdown

Time used: 6-12 months

Frequency of use: Daily

BigCommerce

Redefining Enterprise Ecommerce

Pros

Great intergrations like the same day express postage with Zoom2U. Great pricing better than other platforms. Great online portal.

Cons

Switched to Shopify

Rating breakdown

Time used: Less than 6 months

Frequency of use: Daily

BigCommerce

Redefining Enterprise Ecommerce

Pros

I first encountered Big Commerce when a new client was stymied by the fact that Shopify made it nearly impossible for him to sell digital downloads.

Cons

It is perhaps a little expensive when compared to other options BUT for the project I used it for it got my client exactly what he needed and the jump in revenue for him has meant that the software more than pays for itself.

Rating breakdown

Time used: Less than 6 months

Frequency of use: Other

Likelihood to recommend

BigCommerce

Redefining Enterprise Ecommerce

Pros

It is cheaper than Shopify and has everything you need to implement a successful eCommerce business.

Cons

Still more expensive than regular hosting but with all the bells and whistles it is actually a good value, especially for someone without website knowledge.

Rating breakdown

Time used: Less than 6 months

Frequency of use: Daily

BigCommerce

Redefining Enterprise Ecommerce

Pros

BigCommerce does make it easy to list and sell products online. The product manager is pretty comprehensive, and most of the pages are made for you - including the home page. It includes several SEO features out of the box, which encourages users to make higher quality listings that will sell easier. There are many custom themes for Bigcommerce, and most of them look great. The interface has gotten a much needed facelift in the past few years.

Cons

If you're trying to do more than the basics, Bigcommerce (BC) is difficult to work with. App extensions are present, but nowhere close to the breadth and depth of functionality available to WordPress. They do have a theme editor, but it requires tricky setup and command-line actions to update. Compared to Shopify's theme editor which is all in-browser, the BC theme editor is lacking. Documentation is available, but I found myself scrounging around on forums for many basic features not listed in the docs. The in-browser theme editor is buggy and unreliable. For editing static pages, BC's WYSIWYG editor is meager and unnecessarily strict. The linter strips out perfectly valid code (like blank divs), and there's no way to include CSS on a page – meaning that any @media queries or breakpoints have to clutter up the main CSS file. There are very limited options editing your home page, and almost no options to edit your shop pages. And maybe it's just the theme we started using, but the pages load VERY slowly. It takes several seconds to asynchronously load the page content, so javascript running on a product page may not run for 3-4 seconds after the user lands! Not ideal The email editor is painful. We found ourselves designing in mailchimp and copy/pasting into BC when done. There's no way to send a test email either, do you have to complete an order each time you want to see that updated order email. I mentioned the interface is better, but it's still quite buggy.

Rating breakdown

Time used: 1-2 years

Frequency of use: Weekly

Likelihood to recommend

BigCommerce

Redefining Enterprise Ecommerce

Pros

Cloud based, more-reliable-than-magento hosting, decent discount rules engine, compatible with most major "Shipping Manager" softwares like Shipstation etc No overly-restrictive terms of use, suitable platform for sellers of "high-risk" items. Better than Magneto in practice for 85% of small to medium businesses.

Cons

Poor optimization for speed, poor user-facing checkout experience, tepid app ecosystem, objectively inferior automation and reporting tools, admin UI is clunky, customization of themes is difficult and costly, new features/product launches are paywalled and often incomplete, didn't stop billing us when we canceled service to switch to Shopify, experienced a glitch which inexplicably hid paid orders...

Rating breakdown

Time used: 1-2 years

Frequency of use: Other

Likelihood to recommend

BigCommerce

Redefining Enterprise Ecommerce

Pros

Bigcommerce has more features out of the box than most any other shopping cart including Shopify. It's just the little things like being able to put custom messages like "ships in 1-2 days" on each product.

Cons

There is a huge gap from mid tier plan to the enterprise solutions. The Pro and Enterprise Solutions include some features that are only accessible when you pay 3 times as much. Things such as faceted Search, so you can get a more "Amazon" like experience. We have experienced an overall reduction in site traffic since switching to Big C. We are not sure if this is because of how Google treats these sites in search, or if it's just that more and more people shop through marketplaces only. It's hard to say. 3rd Party App Marketplace is somewhat limited when compared to other solutions.

Rating breakdown

Time used: 2+ years

Frequency of use: Daily

BigCommerce

Redefining Enterprise Ecommerce

Pros

Easy to get up and running. Features are some of the best offered in this class. Pricing doesn't take a cut off of sales.

Cons

The only reason I stay is because either the better platforms are unaffordable (Magento, Demandware, Netsuite, Miva, etc) or the ones comparable in price lack essential features or have their own problems that I can't workaround (Shopify, Volusion, etc.)

Rating breakdown

Time used: 2+ years

Frequency of use: Daily

Likelihood to recommend

BigCommerce

Redefining Enterprise Ecommerce

Pros

The variety of free templates available for use was very good. Also, they are completely customizable and can be adjusted to fit your brand and theme. It is easy to create new products for your store.

Cons

The custom coding is a bit difficult since shopify uses a code called liquid. It is similar to HTML, so it isn't impossible to edit, but it takes an advanced coder.

Rating breakdown

Time used: Less than 6 months

Frequency of use: Daily

Likelihood to recommend

Shopify

Everything you need to sell anywhere. Trusted by 160k stores

Pros

It just works so good, you don't have to worry about setting up and especially the running of your eComemrce store

Cons

Right now very little, there are​ a couple of small things that I would like the software to have but tbh its not important.

Rating breakdown

Time used: 2+ years

Frequency of use: Daily

Likelihood to recommend

Shopify

Everything you need to sell anywhere. Trusted by 160k stores