Ecwid by Lightspeed vs. Laravel PHP Framework

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Ecwid allows customers the ability to create an online store to any webpage or social media profile. Boasting hundreds of thousands of merchants in 175 countries as users, Ecwid aims to provide everything needed to reach customers wherever they are: in-person, through a website, Instagram, Facebook, Amazon, or Google Shopping. In addition, Ecwid’s point-of-sale integrations, email marketing integrations, and dedicated mobile app allow sellers to manage marketing merchandising, and sales - any…
$0
Laravel PHP Framework
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Laravel is a free, open source web application PHP framework.N/A
Pricing
Ecwid by LightspeedLaravel PHP Framework
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Venture
$15
Business
$35
Unlimited
$99
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Ecwid by LightspeedLaravel PHP Framework
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Ecwid by LightspeedLaravel PHP Framework
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Ecwid by LightspeedLaravel PHP Framework
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
Ecwid by Lightspeed
8.7
12 Ratings
11% above category average
Laravel PHP Framework
-
Ratings
Product catalog & listings9.712 Ratings00 Ratings
Product management8.712 Ratings00 Ratings
Bulk product upload7.55 Ratings00 Ratings
Branding8.010 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile storefront9.410 Ratings00 Ratings
Product variations9.112 Ratings00 Ratings
Website integration9.411 Ratings00 Ratings
Visual customization8.112 Ratings00 Ratings
Online Shopping Cart
Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Product A and Product B
Ecwid by Lightspeed
8.7
11 Ratings
13% above category average
Laravel PHP Framework
-
Ratings
Abandoned cart recovery8.110 Ratings00 Ratings
Checkout user experience9.310 Ratings00 Ratings
Online Payment System
Comparison of Online Payment System features of Product A and Product B
Ecwid by Lightspeed
9.4
11 Ratings
13% above category average
Laravel PHP Framework
-
Ratings
eCommerce security9.411 Ratings00 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Ecwid by Lightspeed
8.6
10 Ratings
11% above category average
Laravel PHP Framework
-
Ratings
Promotions & discounts9.110 Ratings00 Ratings
Personalized recommendations8.06 Ratings00 Ratings
SEO8.68 Ratings00 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
Ecwid by Lightspeed
8.2
12 Ratings
3% above category average
Laravel PHP Framework
-
Ratings
Order processing8.912 Ratings00 Ratings
Inventory management8.110 Ratings00 Ratings
Shipping8.211 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom functionality7.612 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Ecwid by LightspeedLaravel PHP Framework
Small Businesses
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus
Score 9.1 out of 10
CodeIgniter
CodeIgniter
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus
Score 9.1 out of 10
Symfony
Symfony
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10

No answers on this topic

All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Ecwid by LightspeedLaravel PHP Framework
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(12 ratings)
7.7
(17 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.6
(2 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Ecwid by LightspeedLaravel PHP Framework
Likelihood to Recommend
Ecwid
Ecwid is absolutely perfect for any business that is looking to start out with online sales and mobile point-of-sale. Many times, business owners may have limited experience in setting up a website or point-of-sale. Having to spend on this expertise with a limited budget can be frustrating. Ecwid allows you to have great results even if you are a novice.
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Open Source
Laravel is ideally suited for fluent PHP developers who want a framework that can be used to both rapidly prototype web applications as well as support scalable, enterprise-level solutions. I think where it is less ideal is where the client has an expectation of using a certain CMS, or of having a certain experience on the admin side that would perhaps be better suited to a full CMS such as Drupal or WordPress. Additionally, for developers who don't want to write PHP code, Laravel may not be the best solution.
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Pros
Ecwid
  • Clarity - there has been very little confusion and need to reach out to Customer Support for help
  • Consistency - no big, crazy updates or changes have been made to the format of Ecwid during my time using it, so I know when I log in to preform my business tasks I can always locate what I need and accomplish what is at hand easily
  • Simplicity - everything is so clear and straightforward. It's like e-commerce for dummies.
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Open Source
  • Many libraries available which simplify integration of SaaS APIs within your application (eg, MailChimp, Mandrill, Stripe, Authorize.net)
  • Pre-packaged tools to facilitate common tasks when building applications (eg, User Authentication and Authorization, Background Jobs, Queues, etc)
  • Support for a broad set of technologies out of the box (eg, PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB, MemcacheD, BeanstalkD, Redis, etc)
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Cons
Ecwid
  • Recurring billing - ability to bill subscription customers without having to go to my payment gateway
  • Robust order management - very limited in managing orders, therefore I had to subscribe to a different software
  • Expensive customization - if you want to customize anything, it is very expensive
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Open Source
  • Significant learning curve. You cannot be an expert in a week. It takes many experimentations to properly understand the underlying concept. We ourselves learned it by using it on the job.
  • Too much to soak in. Laravel is in everything. Any part of backend development you wish to do, Laravel has a way to do that. It is great, but also overwhelming at the same time.
  • Vendor lock in. Once you are in Laravel, it would not be easy to switch to something else.
  • Laracasts (their online video tutorials) are paid :( I understand the logic behind it, but I secretly wish it would be free.
  • The eloquent ORM is not my recommendation. Let's say you want to write a join, and based on the result you wish to create two objects. If you use Laravel to do automatic joins for you, Laravel internally actually makes two calls to database and creates your two object rather than making one join call and figuring out the results. This makes your queries slow. For this reason, I use everything except eloquent from Laravel. I rather write my own native queries and control the creation of objects then rely on Laravel to do it. But I am sure with time Laravel will make fewer calls to DB.
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Likelihood to Renew
Ecwid
The value given by Ecwid is unmatched. When combined with the ease of use of the product, it is a no-brainer to continue to use the product. The only thing that could cause us to switch is if some feature we needed which is not available which is unlikely based on the feature list we reviewed when making the decision to go with them.
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Open Source
No answers on this topic
Usability
Ecwid
I gave a 9 instead of a 10 only because I haven't figured out a function or two. I believe it has less to do with Ecwid's overall usability and more to do with my own understanding and skill level, but regardless, it may also have something to do with the limits of Ecwid's functions.
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Open Source
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
Ecwid
Always available. Very reliable
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Open Source
No answers on this topic
Performance
Ecwid
Good overall performance both in desktop and mobile
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Open Source
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Ecwid
I have always received the support I need in a timely manner. I enjoy receiving emails every week on trending business topics and new suggestions. They often serve as a reminder for me to include new e-commerce tools into our strategy. And I've always had great experiences with reaching out to the support team with specific questions.
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Open Source
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Ecwid
Fast and simple implementation of Ecwid's solutions. Easy to learn and navigate
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Open Source
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Ecwid
We sell a product that requires certain controls to sell and most of the companies we researched had specific policies preventing us from selling on their platform. We aren't selling anything dangerous, they are parts of ammunition (the shell casings) and not entire ammunition rounds. Most other vendors restrict the sales of firearms and ammunition, but even when just selling a part used to create ammunition, we were still restricted. I'm not really sure why they restrict sales of products like ours from different vendors. Ecwid had no such restrictions and were happy to confirm that for us.
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Open Source
Supporting unit testing is bigger plus point in Laravel than any other framework. Developing with Laravel is much easier. Other frameworks have value in market, but Laravel has taken the lead in popularity among PHP developers in recent years. The large community supports you if you have problems. Using Laravel, integration became easy with third-party libraries, but it was costly too.
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Scalability
Ecwid
Good scalability. I use the second plan and there are 2 more plans that I could use if I needed other features or services
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Open Source
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Ecwid
  • We have not been able to measure the ROI as of yet, as we cannot get out of the gate with customization required.
  • It can be implemented quickly for basic online stores.
  • Once the system is configured, ROI will dramatically go up.
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Open Source
  • Laravel allows us to rapidly prototype and build complete, scalable applications internally, which saves us time and allows us to have internal tools that fit out precise needs. We use Symfony for a similar purpose, but Laravel is an even higher-level framework that we find saves us substantially more time when building many types of web applications.
  • Laravel solves many of the underlying concerns of building a large application (such as authentication, authorization, secure input handling) in the right ways. It saves us from handling those low-level concerns ourselves, potentially in a way that could take a lot of time or sets us up for issues in the future. It's tough to assign an ROI to this, but I'm sure it has prevented issues and saved time, which both have an impact on our financial situation.
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ScreenShots

Ecwid by Lightspeed Screenshots

Screenshot of Ecwid store looks perfect on any smartphone and automatically adapts to your customer’s screen size — laptops, tablets, smart TVs or smart watches.Screenshot of Manage your Ecwid store wherever you are from your mobile device.Screenshot of Mobile app for every store. Your customers can shop from their mobile devices with your own dedicated native app and utilize advanced features like Apple Pay.