JTL-Shop and Shopify split this panel by criterion, not by product. JTL-Shop leads operations (mean 7.3 vs 4.7; 6 judges to 0), sovereignty (3.7 vs 1.5; 6–0), tax and legal (2.3 vs 1.3; 5–0 with one tie) and data control and exit (4.5 vs 2.7; 5–0 with one tie). Shopify leads extensibility (6.0 vs 3.7; 6–0), catalog and checkout (4.2 vs 3.2; 4–0 with two ties) and pricing transparency (6.7 vs 5.7; 4–0 with two ties). Weighted totals: four judges to JTL-Shop — merchant, B2B seller, operations lead, data protection officer — one to Shopify, the developer, with the skeptic tied at 3.6 to 3.6. Scores also spread inside criteria: JTL-Shop's data control and exit runs 4 to 6, Shopify's 1 to 4. The attributes list JTL-Shop's legal entity jurisdiction as Germany; Shopify's as Canada, with data residency US by default and subprocessor exposure US CLOUD Act.
Choose JTL-Shop if
You run marketplace and warehouse operations — the operations lean is 6 judges to 0 for JTL-Shop (mean 7.3 vs 4.7), and the verdict credits synchronised selling on 30+ marketplaces without extra licences, WMS with mobile warehouse devices and shipment tracking.
Your review prioritises European tax handling — tax and legal leans 5 judges to 0 for JTL-Shop (2.3 vs 1.3, one tie); the verdict credits GoBD-conformant finance processes, while the criterion's own scores run 2 to 3.
Your team weighs a self-hosting option — data control and exit leans 5 judges to 0 for JTL-Shop (4.5 vs 2.7, one tie), where judges weighed the 'Lokal – Auf eigenem Server' hosting option.
You report to a data protection officer — sovereignty leans 6 judges to 0 for JTL-Shop (3.7 vs 1.5), and that judge's weighted total is 4.4 vs 3.3.
Your procurement requires a German legal entity — the attributes list JTL-Shop's legal entity jurisdiction as Germany, against Shopify's Canada.
Choose Shopify if
You build on an app ecosystem and headless tooling — extensibility leans 6 judges to 0 for Shopify (mean 6.0 vs 3.7), with more than 21,000 apps, the Hydrogen headless toolkit and API rate limits published per plan in the verdict.
You need published subscription pricing — pricing transparency leans 4 judges to 0 for Shopify (6.7 vs 5.7, two ties), with tiers of 27 €, 79 € and 289 € per month on annual billing public alongside per-plan card fees; the verdict notes the top tier's own price is not public.
Your storefront work centres on catalog and checkout — catalog and checkout leans 4 judges to 0 for Shopify (4.2 vs 3.2, two ties), where JTL-Shop's verdict calls the criterion thin beyond payment integrations and unlimited articles.
You are a developer — the developer judge's weighted total is 4.4 for Shopify vs 3.7 for JTL-Shop.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Skeptic
Knows the headline price is never the invoice here. Reads for the transaction fee, the apps that turn out to be mandatory, the hosting nobody mentioned, and what the platform charges to let a merchant leave with their own order history.
JTL-Shop
Shopify
This judge calls it a tie.
Criterion by criterion
Catalogue & checkout
JTL-Shop
Everything the evidence offers on the selling side is 'unbegrenzte Artikel' and 'Integrationen zu allen beliebigen Payment-Anbietern' — not one word on variants, bundles, tiered pricing, guest checkout, vouchers or German payment habits like invoice and direct debit. For a shop product, checkout evidence this absent is information: I cannot credit conversion features nobody documented.
Shopify
The pricing pages meter the checkout by tier — customisation is shown as limited on every plan except the top one, and B2B stops at three catalogues until you buy up — while localized selling via Markets, multi-channel sales and POS are evidenced. We found no public information on variants, bundles, tiered or customer-group pricing, or payment methods such as invoice and direct debit, so the conversion story rests on vendor-quoted uplift numbers rather than evidenced checkout capability.
Tax & German legal correctness
JTL-Shop
A 'Tax powered by' module name and DSGVO-/GoBD-konforme Abläufe is bookkeeping hygiene, not tax determination; the evidence contains nothing on VAT by destination, OSS, B2B reverse charge, VAT-ID validation or the checkout texts German law demands. Being a German vendor with a DATEV booking service earns nothing on this criterion until the pages say what the shop itself computes.
Shopify
Across the captured pricing pages and privacy policies we found no public information on VAT determination, OSS, reverse charge, VAT-ID validation, e-invoicing, or the checkout texts German law requires — not a rate, not a threshold, not a footnote. The only German-law touchpoint evidenced anywhere is the credit-intermediary arrangement behind merchant financing.
Extensibility & developer surface
JTL-Shop
Schnittstellen, Partner-Apps und Extensions exist, but the REST API is Beta and rented as an add-on at 99–199 €/month — a monthly fee to talk to your own shop is lock-in dressed up as a surface. No evidence of themes, webhooks, headless, staging or a local development story anywhere in the evidence.
Shopify
The developer surface is real and it is priced: more than 21,000 apps, a named headless toolkit in Hydrogen, and API rate limits published as a plan differentiator — standard, up to 2x, up to 10x — with headless storefronts metered at one per shop until twenty-five on the top tier. We found no public information on custom themes and version control, staging environments, or a local development story, so the surface is rented rather than owned.
Order operations & back office
JTL-Shop
This is where the money actually went: WMS with mobile warehouse devices and shipment tracking, 30+ marketplaces synchronised without extra licences to stop overselling, POS connections, production modules, and a named DATEV bank-reconciliation service. It stays off the 8 because shipping labels via JTL-Shipping are only 'coming soon' and supplier, dropshipping and partial-returns flows are entirely unevidenced.
Shopify
Multi-channel intake is evidenced — fifty synced marketplace orders a month free, Collective for sourcing, POS that syncs online and offline — and inventory runs to ten locations (two hundred on the top plan) with over 200 real-time reports. But we found no public information on partial shipments, named carrier integrations with label printing, a returns process in the system, or interfaces to ERP and accounting systems, which is the half of operations that turns orders into a business.
Data ownership & exit
JTL-Shop
'Lokal – Auf eigenem Server' is genuine hosting choice and the only exit-relevant fact in the evidence; export of catalogue, customers or order history, deletion and any data-return commitment are documented nowhere, and 'schrittweise Migration möglich' reads as a path in, never a path out. Ownership is hinted at, not evidenced.
Shopify
The leaving terms are stated plainly — cancel anytime — and store information is retained for two years after closure before deletion begins, with a portability right and a data-subject portal on paper. But we found no public information on export: no evidenced way to take catalogue, customer records or order history out intact and no documented migration path, and hosting comes bundled with the subscription with no self-run alternative evidenced.
European sovereignty
JTL-Shop
The imprint pins a German GmbH to Amtsgericht Mönchengladbach with a German VAT-ID, but data residency is unstated, no subprocessor list exists in the evidence, and third parties like Dealavo, JERA and GREYHOUND are wired into pricing, finance and service functions with no word on where they process. Group-wide data sharing across the JTL-Group companies adds another unexamined hop — EU vendor, unknown chain.
Shopify
The vendor is a Canadian company; for EEA users the data recipient is the Irish subsidiary, but the captured pages show data then moving to Canada and the USA, and subprocessors appear only as categories — cloud hosting, content delivery, data analysis, logging, fulfillment, email — with no names. Data residency is not confirmed on the vendor's own pages, so a European buyer is leaning on standard contractual clauses and approved binding corporate rules rather than an evidenced European chain.
Pricing transparency
JTL-Shop
Credit where due: the order metering is published (ab 0,11–0,22 € je Auftrag in packages of 100 to 10,000), add-ons are priced (Wawi Cloud ab 49,99 €, Workbench 125 €/user, REST-API ab 99 €) and up to 17 % annual discount is stated. But the Start and Pro tier prices never appear, Enterprise is 'Auf Anfrage', and VAT treatment, minimum term and payment-gateway rates are silent — the invoice is half-computable, and the half missing is the expensive half.
Shopify
This is the most computable invoice in the field: tiers at 27 €, 79 € and 289 € per month on annual billing, card fees per plan from 2,1 % + 0,30 € down to 1,3 % + 0,30 €, Amex rates published, a 2 % fee falling to 0,2 % when an external payment provider is used, POS Pro at 79 € per location per month, marketplace sync at 1 % capped at 99 $ USD a month after fifty orders, and a stated 1- or 3-year commitment on the top tier. What keeps the annual cost from being fully derivable: monthly-billing prices are not shown, we found no public information on the top tier's own price, on VAT treatment of the listed prices, or on any order or GMV limits.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
JTL-Shop
Shopify
Legal entity
Incorporated in DE
Incorporated in CA
Ownership
Not determined
Not determined
Data residency
Not determined
Not determined
Subprocessors
Not determined
Not determined
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.