WooCommerce: Ecommerce Plugin for WordPress

WooCommerce is a popular ecommerce plugin for WordPress, presented on WordPress.org as one technical approach among several for selling online with WordPress. Alternatives listed alongside it include a SaaS backend integrated through the BigCommerce plugin, and integrations with other platforms such as Shopify and Magento. Stores can run entirely on WordPress, including headless setups for custom applications, or combine WordPress with a SaaS provider for added capability.

• Ecommerce plugin for WordPress
• One of multiple WordPress ecommerce options
• Supports standard and headless implementations

WordPress.org cites WooCommerce as running more than 20% of online stores on its own. Ecommerce on WordPress is described as proven to scale across a wide range of applications and markets, from single product stores to complex catalogues covering tens of thousands of digital and physical products. Use cases extend to multi-lingual and multi-currency catalogues as well as simple transactional sites.

• More than 20% of online stores run on WooCommerce
• Used for single-product and large-catalogue stores
• Applied to multi-lingual and multi-currency catalogues

Hundreds of extensions help WooCommerce stores support existing vendors and foundational systems, making it straightforward to build custom experiences without creating components from scratch. WordPress itself is built for integrations, with more than 50,000 plugins in the official plugin repository, extensive documentation and a developer community. Store data remains portable through a built-in API and support for query technologies such as GraphQL.

• Hundreds of WooCommerce extensions
• More than 50,000 plugins in the WordPress repository
• Built-in API and GraphQL support for data portability

WordPress carries no licensing costs itself, and WordPress.org states that total cost of ownership is typically lower than on most other enterprise ecommerce platforms because of the large ecosystem of integrations and service providers. WordPress is open source, built on four core freedoms and licensed under a General Public License, with development happening in the open and no restrictive licences or additional terms of service.

• No licensing cost for WordPress itself
• Licensed under the General Public License
• Large ecosystem of integrations and service providers

Because WooCommerce runs on WordPress, it requires a web host that meets the WordPress minimum requirements. WordPress.org maintains a hosting page listing recommended providers, among them Pressable, Bluehost and Hostinger. Hostinger's managed WordPress hosting is described as allowing customers to create and manage a WooCommerce store, with a free domain, business email, built-in CDN, automated backups, unlimited migrations and 24/7 support.

• Requires a host meeting WordPress minimum requirements
• Recommended hosts listed at wordpress.org/hosting
• Hostinger offers WooCommerce store creation and management