Selling online comes down to one early decision: rent a platform that runs the store for you, or run the store yourself on hosting you control. Everything else follows from that. Here is the difference in plain terms, and what you still have to buy either way.
An online store is a website plus four things an ordinary website does not have: a product catalog, a cart, a way to take money, and a way to get goods to people. Every platform on the market solves those four the same way in outline. What separates them is who is responsible when something breaks.
That is the real question behind "which platform should I use", and it is worth answering before you look at a single screenshot. If you would rather not think about software updates, plugin conflicts or PCI scope, you want a hosted platform. If you want the store to do something unusual, or it has to talk to systems you already run, you want to be able to get at the code.
Most businesses land in one of these. None of them is the right answer for everybody, and we will tell you when you are in the wrong column.
Best for: Selling ordinary products and wanting to be open this month.
A hosted platform. Shopify runs the servers, the software and the storefront certificate, so there is no hosting plan to buy and nothing to patch. You trade some control for not being responsible.
Best for: A business already on WordPress, or one that wants to own the whole stack.
Self-hosted software that turns a WordPress site into a store. It needs a hosting plan, and somebody has to keep WordPress, the plugins and the theme current. That somebody can be you, or it can be us.
Best for: A catalog or a sales process a template will not carry.
A store built around how you actually sell, on the platform that fits it. AldoMedia has been building ecommerce sites since 1999, and hosts the ones that are self-hosted.
Some of this is included in a hosted platform and some of it never is. The table is the short version of what you are actually buying.
| What the store needs | Hosted platform (Shopify and similar) | Self-hosted (WooCommerce) |
|---|---|---|
| Servers and storefront SSL | Included in the platform | Your hosting plan, with an SSL certificate |
| Software updates | The platform's job | Yours, or whoever maintains the site |
| Domain name | Bought separately. Hold it at a registrar, not inside the platform | Bought separately, same advice |
| Email at your domain | Separate product. See business email | Separate product, same |
| Backups | Platform keeps its own. Your product data is still worth exporting | Yours to arrange. See website backups |
| Payments | Through the platform's own processing or a supported gateway | A gateway you choose and connect |
| Shipping and tax | Built in, configured by you | Plugins, configured by you |
The row people get wrong is the first one. A hosted platform already includes the hosting, so buying a hosting plan alongside a Shopify store gets you a plan with nothing on it. We would rather say that than sell you one.
We are an authorized reseller of the hosting, domain, email and security products on this site, and we are a paid affiliate of some of the platforms we point you at. What we are not is the operator of Shopify. Shopify hosts Shopify stores, so there is no such thing as AldoMedia Shopify hosting and we will not invent one.
What we do sell is the infrastructure a self-hosted store needs, the domain, email and security that every store needs, and, through AldoMedia web design, the build itself when a template will not do.
The rest of this section, in the order most people need it.
The decision framework, by what you sell and who maintains the software.
Compare platformsWhat a fully hosted platform includes, what it does not, and who should skip it.
Read about ShopifyWhat a self-hosted store actually needs from a plan, and what it does not.
Read the guideRunning a store on WordPress, and who is on the hook for updates.
Read the guideThe comparison that decides it for most small businesses.
Compare the twoThe recurring costs behind any site, store or not.
Read the guideTell us what you sell, how many products, and whether anyone at the business wants to be responsible for software. That is usually enough for us to say which of the three routes fits, including when the answer is the one we earn nothing from.
Yes. Shopify is a fully hosted platform, so the servers, the software updates and the SSL certificate for the storefront are part of what you pay Shopify. You do not buy a separate hosting plan for a Shopify store, and anyone selling you one is selling you an empty plan. You do still want your own domain name, registered in your own name, so the address is yours if you ever leave.
No. The only things a Shopify store normally needs from outside Shopify are the domain name and, if you want addresses at that domain, business email. Email is a separate product from the store on every platform, hosted or not.
The cheapest start is usually a hosted platform on its entry plan, because there is nothing else to buy and nothing to maintain. Self-hosting looks cheaper on the monthly line and often is not once your time is counted, since somebody has to keep the software patched. The honest answer depends on whether that somebody is you.
Use Shopify if you want to sell rather than administer software. Use WooCommerce if you already run WordPress, you want to own the whole stack, or you need the store to behave in a way a hosted platform will not allow. We wrote the long version at Shopify vs WooCommerce.
Usually, but it is work. Products and customers export reasonably well; your theme, apps and URL structure do not travel, and the URL changes are what cost you search rankings if they are handled carelessly. That is a good reason to hold your domain at a registrar rather than inside the platform, and a good reason to think about the choice now rather than twice.
