Shopify vs. Umbraco CMS

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Shopify
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Shopify is a commerce platform designed for both online stores and retail locations. Shopify offers a professional online storefront, a payment solution to accept credit cards, and the Shopify POS application to power retail sales.
$29
per month
Umbraco CMS
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
Umbraco is an open-source .NET Core CMS with over 700,000 active installs worldwide and with more than 200,000 active community members. It was first released on February 16th, 2005, and is still to this day an open-source project backed by a commercial company. To ensure Umbraco is always running the latest technology, the company has aligned with Microsoft's .NET release schedule to always have the Umbraco CMS…
$0
Pricing
ShopifyUmbraco CMS
Editions & Modules
Shopify Lite
$9
per month
Basic Shopify
$29
per month
Shopify
$79
per month
Advanced Shopify
$299
per month
Shopify Plus
2,000
per month
Umbraco Free
$0
Umbraco Cloud Starter
$45
per month
Umbraco Heartcore Mini
$49
per month
Umbraco Heartcore Starter
$239
per month
Umbraco Cloud Standard
$283
per month
Umbraco Cloud Professional
$758
per month
Umbraco Heartcore Professional
$999
per month
Umbraco Professional
$12,000
per year
Umbraco Enterprise
Flexible pricing
per year
Umbraco Cloud Enterprise
Flexible pricing
per month
Umbraco Heartcore Enterprise
Flexible pricing
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ShopifyUmbraco CMS
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThe Umbraco CMS and all of its core features are the same across all plans. The paid on-premise plans include support, onboarding, licenses to add-on products (Umbraco Forms) as well as a discount on developer training courses. Umbraco Cloud is the CMS hosted on Azure Cloud servers with automated upgrades, unlimited hosting, and smooth deployments. All features can be found on Umbraco.com. Umbraco Heartcore is the managed Headless SaaS version of Umbraco.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ShopifyUmbraco CMS
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
ShopifyUmbraco CMS
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
Shopify
7.4
131 Ratings
4% below category average
Umbraco CMS
-
Ratings
Product catalog & listings8.6131 Ratings00 Ratings
Product management7.3129 Ratings00 Ratings
Bulk product upload7.6110 Ratings00 Ratings
Branding8.4130 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile storefront7.5126 Ratings00 Ratings
Product variations6.4123 Ratings00 Ratings
Website integration9.2124 Ratings00 Ratings
Visual customization7.5129 Ratings00 Ratings
CMS4.4105 Ratings00 Ratings
Online Shopping Cart
Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Product A and Product B
Shopify
8.1
125 Ratings
7% above category average
Umbraco CMS
-
Ratings
Abandoned cart recovery7.6116 Ratings00 Ratings
Checkout user experience8.5123 Ratings00 Ratings
Online Payment System
Comparison of Online Payment System features of Product A and Product B
Shopify
9.0
127 Ratings
8% above category average
Umbraco CMS
-
Ratings
eCommerce security9.0127 Ratings00 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Shopify
8.0
129 Ratings
7% above category average
Umbraco CMS
-
Ratings
Promotions & discounts7.2124 Ratings00 Ratings
Personalized recommendations8.432 Ratings00 Ratings
SEO8.5120 Ratings00 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
Shopify
8.0
130 Ratings
2% above category average
Umbraco CMS
-
Ratings
Multi-site management6.719 Ratings00 Ratings
Order processing9.1128 Ratings00 Ratings
Inventory management8.8127 Ratings00 Ratings
Shipping8.2120 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom functionality7.2120 Ratings00 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Shopify
-
Ratings
Umbraco CMS
1.0
11 Ratings
156% below category average
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings1.011 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Shopify
-
Ratings
Umbraco CMS
5.3
10 Ratings
37% below category average
API00 Ratings5.59 Ratings
Internationalization / multi-language00 Ratings5.19 Ratings
Web Content Creation
Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Shopify
-
Ratings
Umbraco CMS
1.6
11 Ratings
130% below category average
WYSIWYG editor00 Ratings1.011 Ratings
Code quality / cleanliness00 Ratings1.011 Ratings
Admin section00 Ratings1.011 Ratings
Page templates00 Ratings1.011 Ratings
Library of website themes00 Ratings1.010 Ratings
Mobile optimization / responsive design00 Ratings1.010 Ratings
Publishing workflow00 Ratings1.011 Ratings
Form generator00 Ratings5.99 Ratings
Web Content Management
Comparison of Web Content Management features of Product A and Product B
Shopify
-
Ratings
Umbraco CMS
3.6
11 Ratings
68% below category average
Content taxonomy00 Ratings1.011 Ratings
SEO support00 Ratings1.010 Ratings
Bulk management00 Ratings4.98 Ratings
Availability / breadth of extensions00 Ratings5.210 Ratings
Community / comment management00 Ratings6.010 Ratings
Best Alternatives
ShopifyUmbraco CMS
Small Businesses
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Score 10.0 out of 10
Divi
Divi
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
Image Relay
Image Relay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
Tridion
Tridion
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
ShopifyUmbraco CMS
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(144 ratings)
1.0
(11 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.2
(15 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(3 ratings)
4.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(2 ratings)
2.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
4.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
ShopifyUmbraco CMS
Likelihood to Recommend
Shopify
Shopify is a great platform for small to medium-sized businesses looking to set up an online store. It's easy to use, offers a wide range of features and integrations, and is perfect for businesses in the retail and food industry. However, large enterprise businesses with complex and custom needs may find Shopify less suitable.
Read full review
Umbraco
Umbraco CMS is the perfect tool for a company that is looking to keep their website updated. The simple to use tools and templates means updating and creating new pages is easy. The WYSIWYG editor is a nice feature, however, for accessibility, there should be some more guidance on what is suitable to be used on the CMS.
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Pros
Shopify
  • It is definitely easy to set up and get going. This does not take a lot of work or effort on the user end, especially if using templates.
  • Low code platform. You can. make customizations without code.
  • The integrations are diverse and increase functionality.
Read full review
Umbraco
  • Quick to learn. For most if cases, developer needs to know Razor coding.
  • Doesn't require back-end programming.
  • Has build in users management (developers, content managers) and members management consoles (users of the site).
  • Clear admin tool (especially in version 7)
  • Fast.
  • Creating code from scratch, so it is easier to create clean code.
Read full review
Cons
Shopify
  • The main drawback that I am facing in Shopify for a long time is that their sales analytics system is not up to mark. As I am using Shopify to run different stores for my organization it does not get updated after-sales and does not provide the right analytics about the product strength and number of sales.
  • Secondly, Shopify has different apps which are best to run the store on max strength but they are very much costly like inventory management, generating multiple discount codes, and more robust customizable editing.
Read full review
Umbraco
  • Speed for older sites - Umbraco content can load slowly if you have thousands of pages of content. Of course, this would not be a problem for simpler websites
  • Complexity - since the product is free out-of-the-box, it will take technical expertise to get Umbraco setup properly
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Shopify
Nothing we have used in the past or have seen thus far even comes close to offering what we get with Shopify Plus, especially for the price. You cannot even come close to getting what we are getting at the price we pay. We are beyond thrilled and Shopify Plus meets and exceeds all of our needs and expectations. We love it!
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Umbraco
No answers on this topic
Usability
Shopify
I think most people are able to suer Shopify that have used a computer. There are some features that take a bit longer to learn. If you are not a creative person it may be a bit more difficult to learn the website customization, but with a help guide or tutorial it will only take a few tries to understand how to work the interface
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Umbraco
Many end users will be overwhelmed with the admin interface. Some common functions are buried in menus
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Reliability and Availability
Shopify
No answers on this topic
Umbraco
Occasionally, errors will appear in the admin that make it impossible to work without developer support.
Read full review
Performance
Shopify
No answers on this topic
Umbraco
Working in the admin panel (adding / reviewing / editing content) is very slow. The public facing site speed is dependent on what the pages are doing and how well the code was written (whether it is optimized for speed).
Read full review
Support Rating
Shopify
In terms of support I give Shopify a 9 out of 10 because they're always very friendly and thorough, and they personally can't solve my problem for me they always point me in the proper direction with the proper information I need to move forward
Read full review
Umbraco
Support for Umbraco-owned paid plugins is nonexistent.
Read full review
Online Training
Shopify
No answers on this topic
Umbraco
Online training is often based on older versions of the platform. So, you'll have to fill in the gaps on your own.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Shopify
Just start now and make the switch, the sooner the better. You will love it and it is really a simple process
Read full review
Umbraco
Spend the time to wireframe the content structure prior to diving in. This helps speed the process of implementation and it serves as documentation for end users.
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Alternatives Considered
Shopify
The old platform that I used could not help us to meet our requirements. It was not helping us properly, then I got to know about Shopify and started using it. After 1 month [of] usage of Shopify we could understand that this is the best platform [for E-commerce] to make better sales and goodwill. Shopify helped us to get a proper idea of the analytics of the website. Shopify [supports] most of the [applications] and helps us to make better results.
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Umbraco
Umbraco's templating is far superior than WordPress, Drupal and Joomla, but it's update process is WAY behind those platforms. The release schedule of Umbraco is way to often and most releases are to fix something missed in the previous release and not an improvement or new feature of the CMS
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Scalability
Shopify
No answers on this topic
Umbraco
Without significant development, the product does not scale well.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Shopify
  • It got the store up quickly so the client could start selling. She was previously selling products on Etsy and Facebook and wanted to consolidate everything onto one website, so the main thing Shopify solved was to reduce the store owner's time in managing all her products on multiple sites. Also, we had previously built a website on Wix with all the custom functionality and branding she needed - a truly great, high-end website - but it performed so slowly that it was unusable. So the speed at which Shopify can be set up and then works on the page is appreciable.
  • The website was manageable by the client - she could figure the system out herself after a while so she saved money on costs for hiring developers. She did have to hire developers to customize some of the plug-ins but costs are all relative; it wasn't a high investment compared to building a full e-commerce website. With the complexity and size of her product base and the functionality and branding she wanted to have in a website, and the potential of her business, she would have needed to invest well over $10,000 to get to where she really needs to be. In the end she kept the budget under $5000.00.
  • Costs kept climbing with plug-ins having to be added with everything. My client became more involved in building the website and began to try multiple plugins, and she did not have the skill base to evaluate the plugins functionalities so she chose plugins that did not do everything she needed, and then ended up paying the plugin developers to customize the plugins. So on one hand, it's pretty amazing to be able to bring up an e-commerce website as quickly as a week or so, but on the other hand if you need anything customized or deeper functionality in regards to product searching and filtering on the web page, and management on the backend, it quickly goes beyond the skills of the average person to manage, and above their expected budget as well. In the end my client really did not get anything close to the functionality for the website we had originally envisioned.
  • Shopify was the easiest way we could find to bring the client's products to a global market. We evaluated several other platforms and the functionality simple did not seem to be adequate, so Shopify seemed like the only solution that could do enough of what we needed and still stay within this client's budget. Really the problem in this project was not platform per se but that the budget wasn't large enough. Shopify managed to provide a solution for an ecommerce store with thousands of products on a tiny budget, so in the sense of pure functionality it provided the best value of all the platforms we evaluated. The solution still isn't big enough for this client's business though so, without having insights into this client's post-build sales results, my guess is that because her new website did not make her products easier to sort through, and she likely didn't have much more budget left to invest in SEO and other marketing of the website, her sales probably didn't increase substantially as a result of having built the website. So I think this project all in all did not likely have a high ROI.
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Umbraco
  • Has helped us to create more engaging pages that push people to complete the online forms
  • We have seen more people buy from us since we launched our new look website
  • We can easily update the content without waiting for the development team to make changes
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ScreenShots

Umbraco CMS Screenshots

Screenshot of Umbraco 8 backoffice UIScreenshot of Umbraco 8 side by side multilingual editingScreenshot of Umbraco 8 Content AppsScreenshot of Umbraco Cloud project overviewScreenshot of Umbraco Cloud environment overview