Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued) vs. WooCommerce

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Adobe Business Catalyst was a cloud-hosted system for building and managing web content and online stores with a built-in CRM framework in addition to sales, service, and marketing features including eCommerce and Email Marketing tools. It has been end of life (EOL) since 2020.
$10
per month
WooCommerce
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
WooCommerce is an eCommerce plugin for WordPress, developed by WooThemes (recently acquired by Automattic). Like WordPress, it is designed to be an extendable, adaptable, open-sourced platform. WooCommerce allows merchants to sell physical products, downloadables, or services.N/A
Pricing
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)WooCommerce
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)WooCommerce
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsContact sales team for pricing
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)WooCommerce
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)WooCommerce
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
6.6
14 Ratings
15% below category average
WooCommerce
-
Ratings
API7.911 Ratings00 Ratings
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
WooCommerce
6.0
84 Ratings
25% below category average
Product catalog & listings00 Ratings6.683 Ratings
Product management00 Ratings6.184 Ratings
Bulk product upload00 Ratings2.267 Ratings
Branding00 Ratings6.673 Ratings
Mobile storefront00 Ratings6.177 Ratings
Product variations00 Ratings6.677 Ratings
Website integration00 Ratings6.784 Ratings
Visual customization00 Ratings6.681 Ratings
CMS00 Ratings6.663 Ratings
Online Shopping Cart
Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
WooCommerce
6.0
80 Ratings
23% below category average
Abandoned cart recovery00 Ratings6.552 Ratings
Checkout user experience00 Ratings5.580 Ratings
Online Payment System
Comparison of Online Payment System features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
WooCommerce
5.5
75 Ratings
41% below category average
eCommerce security00 Ratings5.575 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
WooCommerce
5.1
83 Ratings
38% below category average
Promotions & discounts00 Ratings5.580 Ratings
Personalized recommendations00 Ratings4.966 Ratings
SEO00 Ratings4.972 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
WooCommerce
4.4
81 Ratings
56% below category average
Multi-site management00 Ratings1.740 Ratings
Order processing00 Ratings6.179 Ratings
Inventory management00 Ratings6.678 Ratings
Shipping00 Ratings2.273 Ratings
Custom functionality00 Ratings5.575 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)WooCommerce
Small Businesses
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)WooCommerce
Likelihood to Recommend
6.0
(21 ratings)
7.1
(84 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.4
(10 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Usability
9.7
(4 ratings)
7.1
(3 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(5 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.6
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued)WooCommerce
Likelihood to Recommend
Discontinued Products
The service provision is good the accounts customer service is poor so I would struggle to give BC a better than average review, if only they could offer customers a better accounts service then the value would be much higher.
Read full review
Automattic
[WooCommerce] does really well for simple stores that don't have a lot of products. It's really easy to set up and get products added so people can purchase them online. It's not the best for really complicated stores with products that need a lot of customization; you have to find 3rd-party plugins to add additional functionality to your store and sometimes those can create conflicts between one another.
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Pros
Discontinued Products
  • Probably one of the easiest e-commerce platforms to work in, it does take setup, but compared to a lot of other e-commerce solutions, this is probably the best one that I have seen that can be designed and implemented custom.
  • Their template system works very well and allows you to create and re-use templates across Adobe Business Catalyst.
  • Their pre-built modules are great, giving people a great way to use common web elements without having to use a plug-in or find some solution, it is simply built in and generally works exactly as you would expect.
  • Adobe Business Catalyst is more of an all-around solution, providing elements that most smaller companies would have a hard time figuring out, since it includes the ability to build websites, send and track e-mails, analytics. It really is a powerful tool that would typically require a fair amount of coding knowledge and expertise but with the system already built, it can be easily modified and edited by those with limited or no coding knowledge at all.
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Automattic
  • Keeps track of product inventory, including details of product variations such as colors and sizes if required.
  • Keeps track of orders so that the shopkeeper has one place to log in and see the status and history of orders to her shop.
  • Creates shop-related pages automatically. Once you add one or more products, they will automatically appear on your shop home page. Additionally, pages for viewing shopping carts and for checking out are automatically created.
Read full review
Cons
Discontinued Products
  • Multi Client Management: The dashboard for managing multiple clients as a reseller is a little difficult to get to. There is also no very easy way for me to manage multiple clients at once. I have to log into and out of individual client accounts to do billing or management.
  • Lack of Server support: There are certain server protocols and languages that are not supported using BC. For example I cannot build a custom php database and upload to BC. I am required to use their tools.
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Automattic
  • Because of how the Wordpress database is structured, WooCommerce isn't great for large or complex e-commerce sites.
  • More out-of-the-box options would be nice within the base software.
  • Because add-on plugins are developed by 3rd parties, sometimes you get conflicts that break things.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Discontinued Products
Actually with Business Catalyst there is no renewal; once you are a partner, you are a partner for as long as you like. It is an investment in your business not simply a product you purchase...and as an investment in partnership with Adobe, both are committed to each other's success.
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Automattic
Despite very rare glitches, more connected to an excessive number of plugins, that affect the speed of the site, we are extremely satisfied with the platform, the ability to import and export products, even though we just export them, as we have our proprietary system for updating inventories. We love the ease of upgrading, enhancing, innovating, and the freedom we have to do whatever we want, which is a plus, when you consider Shopify can take down your whole store as they please, if they think you aren't abiding to their TOS or their ever changing set of rules.
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Usability
Discontinued Products
Overall it is a "plug and play" interface. The majority of the work is done in other software interfaces. Managing billing, user roles and custom reports are all that you need to manage in the actual BC user interface. For my business this is an incredible benefit as I have to leave my preferred software less.
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Automattic
I gave it lots of points for being a simple product that instantly gives you a store. Very intuitive and simple for the client to update or implement. Loses LOTS of points when you want to do anything besides just sell stuff (coupons, etc) then it makes you pay big money for the add-ons and makes it difficult and time-intensive to develop your own.
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Reliability and Availability
Discontinued Products
very few issues with availability
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Automattic
No answers on this topic
Performance
Discontinued Products
Very few issues
Read full review
Automattic
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Discontinued Products
The support provided by Adobe is excellent. Though the knowledge base, forums, blogs and online chat questions most all answers can be found. In the event that you are unable to find an answer or you have a unique situation simply post a question to the forums. These forums are regularly monitored by Adobe and its users.
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Automattic
not muh support
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Online Training
Discontinued Products
bcgurus.com kiyuco
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Automattic
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Discontinued Products
Pretty easy to do
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Automattic
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Discontinued Products
As far as the CMS for BC goes, there is none out there that compares. In the past we have utilized Joomla, Wordpress, Mambo, Drupal, Concrete 5 and others. None of them were as easy to use and train on that Adobe's Business Catalyst. Our alternative to BC is WordPress when our clients want a less expensive solution. For the most part that works OK but we have had issues with plugin incompatibility among other issues. We lost at least two clients because of similar issues. The other great part about BC's solution is that we can still work with our favorite site creation tool - Dreamweaver. The whole process continues to be more and more simplified with added features to the system. No other solution (that we've found) offers such an easy way to create custom web sites that are easily editable by our clients.
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Automattic
We were pretty sure we wanted a WordPress site so that we had more control over the site itself, having been burned by third-party vendor sites before. The fact that WooCommerce integrates so well with WordPress was a big selling point for us. Magento would have been too heavy of a lift for our small dev team and we didn't want to rely on Shopify or BigCommerce (though all of those products could have their merits for other projects or clients).
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Scalability
Discontinued Products
It's easy to build small sites or large sites and there is lots of templating.
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Automattic
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Discontinued Products
  • As someone who uses it on behalf of other clients, our ROI with BC is definitely positive. We needed a mid-range CMS without huge licensing costs to satisfy mid-range clients who have some dynamic needs but doesn't need the expense or liability of enterprise level products. Without it we would have lost possible customers or taken bigger hits on projects because of the costs involved with satisfying their mid-level needs
  • Our clients are all usually very positive about the BC platform and are able to use it themselves which lessens our Support time/cost.
  • To use the Web App element,. which we do on almost every site, you need to pay for the highest plan. This brings along with it many features most of our clients would never use. A more basic plan with that Web App capability would be a big improvement on our costs.
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Automattic
  • Positive: low cost to start up, and allowed us to start selling right away.
  • Negative: better plug-ins have a high cost of entry. For example if you want to do subscriptions you need a paid plugin for it.
  • Positive: easily integrates with PayPal and Stripe.
Read full review
ScreenShots