The lean between Shopify and WooCommerce flips by criterion. WooCommerce holds tax and legal (4 judges lean WooCommerce, 0 lean Shopify, 2 tie; means 2.0 vs 1.3), extensibility (5–0, 1 tie), data control and exit (6–0; means 8.3 vs 2.7, with an open-source core, any host and 'customizations that stay yours'), sovereignty (5–0, 1 tie) and pricing transparency (5–0, 1 tie; means 8.5 vs 6.7). Shopify's one lean is operations — 6 judges to 0, means 4.7 vs 2.5 — where WooCommerce's verdict finds returns, partial shipments, stock and ERP/accounting links unevidenced; catalog and checkout is even at 4.2 vs 4.2 with 6 ties. Per-judge weighted totals: 4.5–6.5 WooCommerce, 3.3–4.4 Shopify. Sovereignty attributes: Shopify lists legal entity jurisdiction CA, US-default data residency, ownership unknown; WooCommerce lists jurisdiction, ownership and data residency unknown; both carry US Cloud Act subprocessor exposure.
Choose Shopify if
Your team handles returns, partial shipments, stock levels and ERP/accounting links day to day — operations leans Shopify 6 judges to 0 (means 4.7 vs 2.5), and WooCommerce's verdict finds those topics unevidenced.
Your procurement file requires a named vendor jurisdiction — Shopify's legal entity jurisdiction is listed as CA, while WooCommerce's is unknown.
Your data-residency policy accepts a US default but requires the residency stated — Shopify's data residency reads as a US default; WooCommerce's data residency is unknown.
Your intra-group transfers run on approved binding corporate rules — Shopify's verdict records approved binding corporate rules and an Irish recipient entity.
Choose WooCommerce if
You need to own your stack and exit without vendor metering — data control and exit leans WooCommerce 6 judges to 0 (means 8.3 vs 2.7); the verdict cites open source, any host and 0% revenue share.
Your roadmap depends on deep platform customization — extensibility leans WooCommerce 5 judges to 0 (means 7.0 vs 6.0), with per-judge scores spanning 6–8.
You want a free core with itemized cost ranges — pricing transparency leans WooCommerce 5 judges to 0 (means 8.5 vs 6.7); the verdict lists free core, hosting $25–$350/month, extensions $29–$299/year each and WooPayments ~2.5–2.9% + 30¢, though one judge notes these are ranges, not computable line items.
You need an EEA-facing controller and contractual transfer safeguards — WooCommerce's verdict records WooCommerce Ireland Ltd. as controller for Woo services in Designated Countries and SCCs for transfers outside the EEA; sovereignty leans 5 judges to 0 (means 3.2 vs 1.5).
Your buying decision rests with developers — the developer-oriented judge's weighted total reads 6.5 for WooCommerce vs 4.4 for Shopify.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Developer
Will maintain this for five years. Wants local development, version control for themes, a plugin architecture with a dependency model, and upgrades that do not orphan the customisations. Reads a closed template editor as a future migration.
Shopify
WooCommerce
This judge's pick
Criterion by criterion
Catalogue & checkout
Shopify
Checkout is the headline: Shop Pay is claimed to convert up to 50 % better than guest checkout, buyers can check out directly inside AI chats, B2B catalogues run to three on standard plans with unlimited on Plus, and Shopify Markets carries localised selling. Checkout customisation reads 'Eingeschränkt' on every plan except Plus, and we found no public information on variant or bundle mechanics, tiered pricing, or the payment methods a German shop needs such as invoice and direct debit.
WooCommerce
Unlimited variants, a checkout customisable without forced upgrades, free gateway choice and unlimited-market selling are confirmed, which clears the anchor-3 bar. But bundles, tiered and customer-group pricing, guest checkout and German payment methods (invoice, direct debit) appear nowhere in the evidence, so the anchor-5 list is only half-evidenced.
Tax & German legal correctness
Shopify
The only legal material on the captured pages is privacy compliance and PCI DSS Level 1 certification; we found no public information on VAT determination, OSS, reverse charge, e-invoicing (XRechnung/ZUGFeRD) or the checkout texts German law imposes. A merchant would have to verify every one of those pieces elsewhere before signing.
WooCommerce
A product named WooCommerce Tax exists in the Woo services list and that is the entire tax record — no VAT-by-destination, no reverse charge or VAT-ID validation, no OSS, no XRechnung/ZUGFeRD, no German checkout elements. For a shop I maintain five years under German law, silence of this depth reads as absence.
Extensibility & developer surface
Shopify
What I can verify as a developer is a store of more than 21,000 apps, the Hydrogen headless toolkit with one headless storefront on standard plans and twenty-five on Plus, and API rate limits published as a plan feature ('Bis zu 10x für ausgewählte APIs' on Plus). What I would live in for five years is unverified: we found no public information on local development, version control for themes, an extension framework with its own dependency model, staging environments, or an upgrade path that preserves customisations — and checkout customisation itself is 'Eingeschränkt' below the Plus tier.
WooCommerce
Open-source core runnable on any host, a marketplace of hundreds of extensions and themes, developer resources, and vendor statements that customisations stay yours and upgrades force nothing — that is the ownership model I want. It stops short of the top because the API surface is evidenced only as 'APIs: unlimited', with no documented REST or headless API, webhooks, theme version control or plugin dependency model in the evidence.
Order operations & back office
Shopify
Multi-channel intake is real and priced: unlimited marketplace imports with fifty synced orders free per month before a 1 % fee, stock across ten locations (two hundred on Plus), POS keeping online and offline sales in sync, Collective for sourcing products, and over 200 real-time reports. We found no public information on returns and refunds, partial shipments, carrier label printing, or maintained interfaces to ERP and accounting systems.
WooCommerce
A merchant mobile app, an online/offline selling claim, and a service named WooCommerce Shipping are all the evidence offers. Partial shipments, multi-warehouse stock, returns handling and any ERP or accounting interface are entirely unevidenced, so I cannot score above the basic order-handling anchor.
Data ownership & exit
Shopify
Hosting sits with the vendor in every subscription and we found no public information on a self-hosting option, on export of catalogue, customers or order history, or on a documented migration path. The exit that is documented runs on the vendor's clock — store information is retained for two years after closure before deletion begins — with portability exercised as a privacy right through the privacy portal.
WooCommerce
Open source, free to download, any host — the database sits in my own stack, and with zero revenue share, unlimited products/orders/APIs and costs tied to infrastructure there is no metering that can price an exit. Only the absence of documented export tooling or migration paths keeps this from a 10.
European sovereignty
Shopify
EEA users contract with the Irish subsidiary Shopify International Ltd. and the binding corporate rules carry European approval, but the company is Canadian, personal data is described as flowing onward 'einschließlich Kanada (wo wir ansässig sind) und der USA', and data residency is not confirmed on the vendor's own pages. We found no public information naming individual subprocessors, only categories such as cloud hosting, content delivery, data analysis, internal logging, fulfilment services and email transmission.
WooCommerce
The vendor is US-based (Automattic Inc.), but WooCommerce Ireland Ltd is the named controller for EU Woo customers, with SCCs covering non-EEA transfers, and self-hosting on any host puts the core shop data wherever I choose. Against that, the pipeline finds data residency and every subprocessor unconfirmed and no subprocessor list is published, which the anchors treat as a serious gap.
Pricing transparency
Shopify
Close to fully computable: annual prices per tier ('27 € EUR/Monat', '79 € EUR/Monat', '289 € EUR/Monat'), card fees per tier and card type ('2,1 % + 0,30 €' on Basic), external-provider transaction fees from 2 % down to 0,2 %, the POS Pro add-on at '+79 €/Mo.', hosting and unlimited bandwidth included, no setup fees, and the Plus commitment stated as one or three years. The gaps: VAT treatment of the listed prices is not stated, and we found no public information on order or GMV limits or on what the commonly needed apps cost.
WooCommerce
Free core with unlimited products, orders and APIs, 0% revenue share, no platform payment fee, WooPayments at 2.5-2.9% + 30 cents, hosting stated as $25-350/month and extensions at $29-299/year make the annual cost computable within stated bands. Only VAT treatment and minimum terms are unstated, and the hosting and extension figures are ranges rather than the cost of what a specific shop needs.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
Shopify
WooCommerce
Legal entity
Incorporated in CA
Not determined
Ownership
Not determined
Not determined
Data residency
Not determined
Not determined
Subprocessors
Not determined
US CLOUD Act reach
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.