10 Best Ecommerce Platforms in 2025
We compared and tested 38+ providers to summarize the best ecommerce platforms in the following list.
Best Overall
Shopify
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Shopify stands as a leading ecommerce platform, renowned for its user-friendly interface and extensive customization options. Ideal for businesses of all sizes, it offers a comprehensive set of tools for online store creation, inventory management, and seamless integration with numerous apps and payment gateways.
Pros
Heavy discounts on annual plans
Developed app ecosystem
By far the best for international selling
Competitive shipping rates from DHL Express, UPS, or USPS
$5/month plan available for selling via social media only
Cons
Custom programming requires knowing their Liquid language
BigCommerce
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BigCommerce caters to a wide range of online retailers, from startups to large enterprises, offering a robust ecommerce platform with extensive scalability. It's known for its advanced features, like multi-channel selling, extensive API capabilities, and a wide array of built-in integrations.
Pros
Developed app ecosystem
Unlimited staff members
WooCommerce
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WooCommerce is a flexible, open-source ecommerce platform built on WordPress, ideal for businesses looking for customizable online store solutions. Its strength lies in its vast plugin ecosystem and adaptability, allowing users to extend functionality and tailor their sites to specific business needs, making it a popular choice for those who already use or are familiar with WordPress.
In top 3 for
Pros
Free to use
Developed app ecosystem
Extensive features available
Cons
Requires WordPress
Requires web hosting
X-Cart
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X-Cart offers a robust and flexible ecommerce platform, suitable for businesses of all sizes seeking a customizable online store solution. It stands out with its open-source nature, allowing full customization and control over the store's design and functionality. X-Cart is particularly favored by those with specific ecommerce needs and the technical expertise to tailor their online presence to precise specifications.
In top 3 for
Pros
Developed app ecosystem
Extensive features available
Secure website
Cons
Quite expensive
Square
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Square Online integrates ecommerce capabilities with Square's popular payment processing system, catering especially to small businesses and retailers. This platform is particularly effective for those looking to unify their online and offline sales channels.
In top 3 for
Pros
Very user-friendly
Ability to directly sell on social media
Cons
Custom branding not available on base plan
Limited marketing features available
- Our ranking applies to each individual plan that a provider offers. Subsequently, the scores of each plan are merged using a dynamically weighted model.
It can be pain in the neck when you’re trying to find the right ecommerce platform but can’t find the right fit. You’re surfing the internet devotedly, but there’s so much data to crunch, information to process, and research to be done.
Here at Softailed, we provide you access to the best ecommerce platforms in the world. We turn hours of voluminous research into minutes while providing more information about every provider than you could find anywhere on the internet in long, overwhelming hours. First, let’s understand what ecommerce platforms are.
What Is an Ecommerce Platform?
Ecommerce is simply the buying and selling of goods and services online. An ecommerce platform, however, is a software service provider for online marketplaces. It allows you to create and launch your online stores to sell your products and services while allowing other users to buy them. Every ecommerce store has a platform on which it was built.
You may know that some ecommerce platforms vary according to some general features and specifications, such as payment gateways, how the software is hosted, and which possibilities you are getting to manage your online shop. However, when choosing the best of the best, you must take a deep dive into analyzing the in-depth characteristics of each ecommerce platform before making a choice for your business. Let’s get into that right away.
What Makes the Best Ecommerce Platform?
To determine the best ecommerce platform, our software analysts first employ market research to understand the user needs and services in detail.
We then collect primary data from the respective websites of each provider and their customer support teams when the required information is unavailable on the website. This interaction further allows us to evaluate their support quality. After intensive research, interviews with industry-leading experts, and analyzing thousands of user data, we categorically gather more information on each ecommerce platform based on the users’ wants, needs, and perspectives of what makes the best ecommerce platform. These include Price, Ease of Use, Features, International Selling, Integrations, Technical Specifications, Security, and Customer Support.
Once our entire dataset is complete, we assign scores to all the criteria after quantifying them using custom values based on the presence or absence of specific attributes. To quantify these characteristics on a scale of 10, we use the entry-level attribute values and entry price in USD to keep the scores consistent and comparable.
Let’s quickly walk through each criterion and see how they create the overall best ecommerce platforms:
Choose the Best Ecommerce Platform for Your Needs
Choosing the best ecommerce platform can be a hassle when you haven’t precisely defined your needs. To decide on the best ecommerce platform to work with, you need to determine which criteria are most important to you and work with that towards finding the right fit. Do you need something affordable and manageable? Or are you ready to go with the best of the best?
The above list should give you a clear idea about which platforms have the best balance between all criteria. We hope our research is helpful for you in picking an ecommerce platform to launch your online store. Check out our ecommerce platform comparison tool and finder tool if you haven’t decided yet.
Price
On ecommerce platforms, payments are usually categorized under monthly or annual subscriptions, custom plans, transaction commissions, and a free plan or trial period if available. We carefully examine these pricing structures according to each ecommerce platform. We use a binary value system to identify the presence or absence of these attributes and score them on a scale based on their presence or absence and from lowest to highest pricing rates. Pricing makes up 15% of the overall score. Click here to learn more about ecommerce platform pricing and see the cheapest options for ecommerce platforms.
Features
Features involve the characteristics and distinctive traits of an ecommerce platform. Some of the attributes of this criteria include the number of products every seller is allowed to upload to their online store, the presence of a suitable inventory management system, a real-time shipping calculator, and marketing automation, amongst others. Features make up 25% of the overall score. Want more information about the features? Click here for more detail about which features we look for, how they contribute to the score, and which platforms perform the best in terms of features.
International Selling
The international selling criteria reflect the ecommerce platforms' ability to adapt to cultural, geographical, and language diversity. This characteristic of ecommerce platforms describes how easily sellers can market and sell their products or services to a global audience with the right features. International selling makes up 15% of the overall score. You can get more information about how we analyze international selling for ecommerce platforms and check out the best global ecommerce platforms here.
Integrations
Integration means the ability to merge two or more things to improve performance. Therefore, integrations are the ecommerce platform’s ability to combine other applications to enhance its functionality and user experience. These integrations should allow sellers to offer features beyond the platform’s capabilities and provide a more holistic experience. Integrations make up 15% of the overall score. To better understand integrations click here to get more detail and see the ecommerce platforms with the best integrations.
Technical Specifications
This indicates the level of technical management coming from ecommerce providers. Is the platform fully managed, or is it a niche product? We evaluate if the platforms require their users to have experience with coding, if hosting is included and if a CDN is in place. These specifications make up 5% of the overall score. You can also find out more about the technical specifications on ecommerce platforms here.
Security
Security is an essential criterion when analyzing any ecommerce or online platform. You need to know that your business is secure regarding data, payments, and customer information. Security makes up 10% of the overall score. For more information about security in ecommerce and the best secure platforms, click here.
Ease of Use
This attribute indicates how easy the ecommerce platform is to work. We evaluate everything from a beginner's point of view to see how easy it is to navigate through the platform, design and set up your first online store, and manage a running store long-term. Click here to read more about ease of use in ecommerce and see our best picks for the easiest ecommerce platforms. Ease of use makes up 10% of the overall score.
Customer Support
Customer support can be important for sellers because it allows you to seek assistance and complain about technical and operational concerns and issues. Want to know which ecommerce platform has the best customer support? Click here. Customer support makes up 5% of the overall score.
The 10 Best Ecommerce Platforms
Michael E.
Updated: Dec 20, 2024
I used to sell everything online. Today I teach others to do the same. As an ecommerce consultant, I explore opportunities and test new strategies to leverage what others have yet to see.