Shopify
Best for: Selling being the point of the site, now or soon.
The stronger of the two for a real shop, and the one that stays workable as the catalog grows.
Platform comparison
Shopify vs Wix for Online Stores
Both are fully hosted, so neither needs a hosting plan and neither makes you patch software. They differ in what they were built to be: Shopify is a shop that also has pages, and Wix is a website builder that also has a shop.
The short answer
If the shop is the business, choose Shopify. If the website is the business and the shop is a side of it, Wix is a reasonable choice and moving to a dedicated store platform later is a rebuild you can postpone.
Neither answer involves buying hosting, and that is worth stating because both platforms include it. If you are comparing these two, the thing to get right outside the platform is your domain name and your business email.
Side by side
| Shopify | Wix | |
|---|---|---|
| Built to be | A shop, with pages attached | A website builder, with a shop attached |
| Hosting | Included | Included |
| Software updates | Platform's job | Platform's job |
| Large catalogs | Comfortable, and stays manageable as products multiply | Fine while small, harder as it grows |
| Design freedom | Themes, edited within the platform's structure | Drag and drop, which is its main appeal |
| Where it hurts later | Anything the platform will not allow, filled in with apps | Outgrowing the store side, which means a rebuild elsewhere |
Neither platform's pricing or plan features are restated here on purpose. Both change them, and a page that is confidently out of date is worse than one that sends you to the source.
If neither is quite right
Both of these are hosted platforms, so if the reason you are comparing them is that something about your business does not fit, the answer may be in the third column.
WooCommerce
Best for: A site you want to own outright, on hosting you control.
Neither Wix nor Shopify gives you the files. WooCommerce does, at the cost of maintaining it. See WooCommerce hosting.
A build by AldoMedia
Best for: Anything a drag and drop builder or a theme will not carry.
If you are comparing builders because none of them quite fits, that is worth ten minutes with somebody who builds stores rather than another trial account.
Comparing these two for a real business?
Tell us what the shop has to do and how big the catalog gets. It usually takes one conversation to say which of these fits, or whether neither does.
Shopify and Wix questions
Is Shopify or Wix better for an online store?
Shopify, if selling is the point of the site. It was built around a catalog, stock, shipping and a checkout, and it keeps working as those grow. Wix is the better answer when the site is mostly pages and the shop is a small part of it, because the site building side is where its strength is.
Do I need hosting for Wix or Shopify?
Neither. Both are fully hosted, so servers, updates and the storefront certificate come with the platform. In both cases you should still register your domain name at a registrar in your own name rather than inside the platform.
Can I move a Wix site to Shopify later?
You can move the business, but not the site. Neither platform's pages or theme transfer to the other, so it is a rebuild with a data export in the middle. Plan the redirects from the old URLs to the new ones, because that is the part that decides whether you keep your search rankings.
Which is better for SEO, Shopify or Wix?
Both have become perfectly capable, and old advice claiming Wix cannot rank is out of date. On a store specifically, Shopify's structure suits a large catalog better, and it stays manageable as products multiply. For a handful of products attached to a content site, the difference is not what will decide your rankings.