Answers that do not mention BigCommerce

For an enterprise catalog with thousands of SKUs and genuinely complex pricing, I’d shortlist platforms based less on SKU count and more on how complicated your customer-specific pricing, catalogs, contracts, ERP integration, and buying workflows are.

One I'd investigate first: Adobe Commerce

Based solely on what you've described, Adobe Commerce is worth putting near the top of your evaluation list. Its B2B functionality supports company-specific shared catalogs, custom prices, tier pricing, customer groups, negotiated quotes, and multiple websites/price scopes. Experience League Experience League Experience League

For example, Adobe's shared catalogs let you expose different product selections and pricing to different companies, while its pricing system supports fixed or percentage custom prices and quantity-based tiers. Experience League

That said, if your pricing is more like "every customer has a contract, price depends on customer + SKU + quantity + region + currency + effective dates + negotiated agreement, with ERP as the ultimate source of truth," I'd put SAP Commerce, commercetools, and Elastic Path into the evaluation alongside Adobe rather than assuming a traditional commerce platform is sufficient. Current enterprise-platform comparisons similarly distinguish integrated suites from composable platforms and emphasize the integration/operating-model tradeoff. CIOPages Elastic Path

The questions I'd use to narrow it down

The most important thing is your pricing model. For example:

• How many SKUs? 10k, 100k, 1M+?
• How many customers/accounts?
• Is pricing customer-specific, contract-specific, or mostly volume-based?
• Do you have customer-specific catalogs where customers can only see certain SKUs?
• Does pricing depend on quantity, geography, currency, channel, contract, dates, or promotions?
• Do prices originate in SAP, Oracle, Dynamics, Salesforce, or another ERP/CPQ?
• Do buyers need quotes, approval workflows, requisitions, purchase orders, or punchout?
• Do you need multiple storefronts/brands/countries?
• Do you want a headless/composable architecture, or would you rather have more functionality built into the platform?

If you give me those details—especially SKU count, number of customers, pricing rules, ERP/CRM, and whether this is B2B or B2C—I can make a much more useful side-by-side architecture comparison of Adobe Commerce vs. SAP Commerce vs. commercetools vs. Salesforce vs. Elastic Path.

Based solely on what you've described, Adobe Commerce is worth putting near the top of your evaluation list. Its B2B functionality supports company-specific shared catalogs, custom prices, tier pricing, customer groups, negotiated quotes, and multiple websites/price scopes. Experience League Experience League Experience League

For example, Adobe's shared catalogs let you expose different product selections and pricing to different companies, while its pricing system supports fixed or percentage custom prices and quantity-based tiers. Experience League

That said, if your pricing is more like "every customer has a contract, price depends on customer + SKU + quantity + region + currency + effective dates + negotiated agreement, with ERP as the ultimate source of truth," I'd put SAP Commerce, commercetools, and Elastic Path into the evaluation alongside Adobe rather than assuming a traditional commerce platform is sufficient. Current enterprise-platform comparisons similarly distinguish integrated suites from composable platforms and emphasize the integration/operating-model tradeoff.

The questions I'd use to narrow it down

The most important thing is your pricing model. For example:

If your core requirement is a marketplace where many independent artisans each have their own seller account, products, orders, commissions, and payouts, I’d narrow the field to CS-Cart Multi-Vendor, Sharetribe, and Mirakl.

My practical shortlist

1. CS-Cart Multi-Vendor — strong fit for an artisan marketplace

cs-cart.com

This is particularly well suited if you're envisioning something like Etsy-style commerce, but want to own the platform.

It provides:

• Individual seller dashboards
• Vendor onboarding and approval
• Vendor-specific storefronts
• Seller commissions and payouts
• Split payments
• Vendor subscriptions/plans
• Vendor ratings
• Product moderation
• Vendor-specific promotions
• Separate vendor checkout
• Inventory management
• Shipping integrations
• API/customization capabilities
• No vendor/product limits according to CS-Cart's current product information www.cs-cart.com/ www.cs-cart.com/

The seller experience is important for artisans: each artisan can manage their own products, orders, inventory and marketplace activity without getting access to another seller's information. www.cs-cart.com/

I'd seriously consider this if your marketplace is primarily physical handmade products.

2. Sharetribe — best if you want to launch/test quickly

sharetribe.com

Sharetribe is designed specifically around marketplace businesses. Sellers can create profiles and listings, and you can configure different transaction/listing types without building everything from scratch. Sharetribe Sharetribe

It's attractive if your priority is:

• Getting an MVP live quickly
• Testing whether artisans and customers will use the marketplace
• Seller profiles/listings
• Messaging
• Payments/transactions
• Different types of marketplace transactions
• Later extending the platform through its APIs/headless architecture

I'd lean toward Sharetribe if you're still validating the business model rather than already planning thousands of sellers.

3. Mirakl — for a much larger operation

mirakl.com

Mirakl is aimed much more at enterprise marketplaces. It has sophisticated seller onboarding, catalog management, order routing, commissions, payouts, KYC, multi-currency and multi-region functionality. Mirakl

It's a very different proposition from a lightweight marketplace builder: Mirakl says most customers go live in 3–6 months, and its current customer base includes large retailers and enterprises. Mirakl

For a startup artisan marketplace, I'd investigate it only if you're expecting enterprise-level complexity and scale from the outset.

What I'd choose for your use case

If you mean:

"I want to build a marketplace where 100s or 1,000s of independent artisans can sign up, create their own shops, upload handmade products, receive orders, and get paid while I take a commission."

Then CS-Cart Multi-Vendor is the platform I'd investigate first.

The key reason isn't simply that it supports multiple sellers; it has marketplace-specific functionality around vendor accounts, commissions, payouts, seller dashboards, moderation, vendor storefronts, inventory, shipping and multi-vendor orders. www.cs-cart.com/ www.cs-cart.com/

If instead your priority is "get an MVP running in weeks and see whether the concept works," I'd look closely at Sharetribe.

If you're building something intended to become a very large, enterprise-grade marketplace, investigate Mirakl.

If you tell me your expected number of artisans (e.g. 100 / 1,000 / 10,000), country, whether products are physical, and whether you need Shopify/WooCommerce integration, I can narrow this down and compare CS-Cart vs Sharetribe vs Shopify + multi-vendor app vs WooCommerce vs Mirakl, including approximate costs and seller payout architecture.

For a one-person print-on-demand shop, I’d start with Etsy if you need customers immediately, or WooCommerce if minimizing ongoing software costs is the priority.

• Etsy: $0.20/listing + 6.5% transaction fee, but you get access to Etsy’s existing marketplace traffic. Tee Verdict
• WooCommerce: Free core software; hosting is typically the main expense, with WooCommerce estimating $25–$350/month depending on the store. WooCommerce
• Shopify: Easiest all-in-one option, but Basic is $29/month annually ($39 monthly) plus payment processing. Shopify

My practical starting setup: Etsy + your POD supplier. Once you're getting consistent sales, add Shopify/WooCommerce rather than paying for a standalone store before you've validated demand.

For a small handmade-goods shop and a first serious online store, I’d start with shopify.com.

Why it fits someone who isn’t tech-savvy:

• No coding required. You choose a theme, add your products, photos, prices, and shipping information, and Shopify handles the underlying hosting and checkout. Shopify Shopify Help Center
• It can grow with you. The Basic plan is specifically aimed at new businesses launching an online store; you can add more sophisticated features later rather than rebuilding the shop. Shopify Help Center
• Good for handmade sellers who also sell in person. Shopify supports online sales plus in-person selling at markets, craft fairs, and other events through its POS tools. Shopify
• Current Basic pricing: $29/month when billed annually, or $39/month month-to-month, with Shopify Payments' standard online card rate listed as 2.9% + 30¢ in the U.S. Shopify

The alternatives I'd consider

Squarespace offers a 14-day trial and lets you sell products on its paid plans. Squarespace Wix also offers a visual editor and ecommerce plans, with payment acceptance requiring a paid plan. wix.com

My practical recommendation: start with Shopify Basic, keep the design simple, and launch with perhaps 10–20 of your best products rather than trying to build a huge website immediately.

If you tell me what kind of handmade goods you sell, roughly how many products you have, and whether you already sell on Etsy/in person, I can narrow this down to the simplest setup for you.

For a two-person boutique on a tight budget, I’d narrow it to three:

• Square Online — best if you already sell in person with Square. You can start at $0/month, and it connects online orders, inventory, payments, pickup, and local delivery with your Square setup. Square Square
• Big Cartel — best if you have a small catalog and want the lowest possible ongoing cost. It has a free tier for up to 5 products, with paid plans starting around $12–$15/month depending on billing. Shopify Shopify
• Shopify Basic — best if you expect the store to become a significant part of the business. It's $29/month when billed annually ($39 month-to-month) and includes unlimited products, hosting, checkout, inventory, and in-person selling. Shopify

What I'd do in your shoes

If you're already using Square at the boutique, I'd start with Square Online to avoid paying for another system.

If you have fewer than ~50 products and mostly want a simple, attractive web storefront, I'd look seriously at Big Cartel.

If you have dozens/hundreds of products, frequent inventory changes, or plans to grow online, I'd spend the extra ~$15–30/month on Shopify rather than having to migrate later.

One important point: monthly subscription isn't the whole cost. Payment-processing fees, apps, shipping tools, and add-ons can matter more than the headline monthly price. TechnologyAdvice

If you tell me roughly how many products you carry, whether you already use Square for in-store checkout, and your monthly online sales target, I can give you a simple cost comparison for the three.

For a solo entrepreneur selling custom T-shirts, I’d lean toward Shopify + a print-on-demand provider such as Printful if your goal is to avoid server administration while still building a real branded store.

Why this setup fits

• No server management: Shopify includes managed hosting, unlimited bandwidth, SSL, checkout, and the core ecommerce infrastructure. Shopify
• Print-on-demand: Printful can print, package, and ship orders automatically, so you don't need to hold T-shirt inventory or run fulfillment yourself. Printful Shopify
• Automation: A customer orders on Shopify → the order is sent to Printful → Printful fulfills and ships it. Printful Help Center
• Brand control: You get your own storefront, domain, product pages, and customer experience rather than relying entirely on a marketplace.
• Solo-friendly pricing: Shopify's current Basic plan is listed at $29/month when paid annually ($39 month-to-month), aimed specifically at solo entrepreneurs. Shopify

The main alternatives

Printful itself offers Quick Stores if you want an even simpler starting point, while also integrating with Shopify, Etsy, and other ecommerce platforms. Printful Help Center

What I'd do in your position

Start with Shopify + Printful. You pay for Shopify's managed infrastructure and let Printful handle production/fulfillment. That leaves your time for the things a solo business actually needs: designs, marketing, customer acquisition, and brand building.

One caveat: Shopify doesn't bring customers to you automatically. If you have zero audience and want to test whether your designs sell before paying for a standalone store, Etsy can be a useful alternative because it has an existing marketplace audience. Printful

If you tell me your monthly budget (e.g. $20, $50, $100) and whether you plan to print yourself or use print-on-demand, I can narrow it down to the most economical setup.

For a small handmade-goods shop on a tight budget, I’d narrow it to these:

My practical pick: Square Online

If you want to get a basic store live without paying a monthly subscription, Square is probably the simplest starting point. Its Free plan has no monthly subscription cost, and you only pay payment-processing fees when you make sales. Square Square

That's particularly useful for handmade goods because you can eventually use Square for in-person markets/craft fairs as well as your website, rather than maintaining separate systems.

squareup.com

When I'd choose Big Cartel instead

If you're selling something like jewelry, candles, prints, pottery, sewn goods, or other maker products and expect to have only a small number of products initially, Big Cartel is worth considering. It explicitly targets artists and makers and has a free Gold plan. Big Cartel Big Cartel

bigcartel.com

Bottom line: I'd start with Square Online if you want the most flexibility for $0/month, or Big Cartel if you want an especially simple maker-focused storefront. You don't need Shopify or an expensive custom website to validate the business.

If you tell me roughly how many products you'll sell (e.g. 5, 20, or 100) and whether you'll sell at local craft fairs too, I can tell you which of those two makes more sense and what your actual monthly/transaction costs would look like.

For a free storefront focused on preorders and crowdfunding-style sales, I’d choose based on whether you want a true “campaign” experience or just a normal store that accepts early orders.

My shortlist

My recommendation

If you are selling a physical product:

Start with Shopify + a free preorder app.

You can make a “campaign” page:

• Product story/video
• Funding goal or minimum order quantity
• Early-bird pricing tiers
• Estimated delivery date
• Email waitlist
• Preorder checkout

Shopify’s app ecosystem includes many preorder tools, including apps that add crowdfunding-style features, deposits, waitlists, and presale campaigns. Shopify App Store Shopify App Store

A low-cost launch stack:

• Storefront: Shopify
• Theme: free Shopify theme
• Preorder tool: a free-plan preorder app
• Payments: Shopify Payments/PayPal
• Marketing: email waitlist + social media

If you need $0/month and are testing an idea:

Use Gumroad or Ko-fi first. You can validate demand before investing in a full ecommerce setup.

If the campaign itself is the product:

Use a crowdfunding platform such as BackerKit or a Kickstarter-style platform rather than a normal store. Those are better when you need:

• funding milestones
• backer updates
• reward tiers
• surveys
• community management

A few questions would change my recommendation:

1. Are you selling physical products, digital products, or services?
2. Do you need to collect payment immediately or just collect pledges/waitlist signups?
3. Are you expecting 10 customers or 10,000+ backers?

For an artisan seller who only wants to sell locally, I’d narrow it to Square Online and Ecwid.

My practical shortlist

• Square Online — simplest low-cost starting point. Square has a $0/month entry plan, and its online store supports both in-store/curbside pickup and local delivery. You can define delivery areas by ZIP code or radius, set delivery fees, minimum orders, and delivery timing. Square Square

squareup.com

• Ecwid — good if you want a more flexible little storefront. It supports pickup, delivery zones, ZIP-code restrictions, delivery fees, pickup times, and delivery minimums. Ecwid | E-Commerce Shopping Cart Ecwid | E-Commerce Shopping Cart

ecwid.com

• Shopify — more capable, but probably more than you need initially. It supports pickup and local delivery by radius or postal code, but its broader feature set makes more sense if you expect the shop to grow substantially. Shopify Help Center

shopify.com

What I'd choose

If your model is something like “I make candles/jewelry/baked goods/artisan products, customers order online, and I either deliver nearby or they pick up”, I'd start with Square Online.

You can set up:

Product → customer orders → choose Pickup OR Local Delivery → pay online → you fulfill it.

You don't need to deal with conventional shipping at all. Square also lets you use your own delivery or third-party couriers. Square

If you tell me roughly how many products you sell and whether you already use Square for payments, I can tell you which of Square vs. Ecwid would likely cost you less.

For a shoestring subscription box launch, I’d usually avoid building a custom system and pick a platform that already handles:

• recurring card charges
• failed payment retries (“dunning”)
• customer self-service (skip, pause, cancel)
• subscription changes
• basic inventory/order workflows

Here are the strongest low-cost options:

Subbly Shopify## My recommendation for a lean launch

1. Best “just launch the box” choice: Subbly

For a true subscription box (monthly coffee, snacks, beauty items, pet products, etc.), Subbly is purpose-built. Its lower-tier plans are aimed at getting subscription checkout running without custom development, and it supports payment integrations such as Stripe. Subbly

A typical lean stack:

• Subbly for subscriptions + customer management
• Stripe for payments
• Simple landing page (or Subbly site)
• ShipStation/Shippo later when volume grows

2. Best if you expect a bigger ecommerce brand: Shopify

If the box is only one part of the business (you’ll also sell one-off products, bundles, gifts, etc.), Shopify is often the better foundation. Shopify offers subscription tools, including its own Shopify Subscriptions app, plus third-party subscription apps. Shopify

3. Cheapest if you have technical help: Stripe Billing

If you already have a website and someone can build checkout/customer flows, Stripe can be very cost-efficient. It gives you the billing engine, but you’ll need to create more of the subscription experience yourself. Shopify

What I would avoid at the beginning

• Enterprise subscription tools like Chargebee/Recurly unless you already have significant revenue.
• Building your own recurring billing logic.
• Paying for advanced analytics/CRM features before you have subscribers.

For a first 100–500 subscribers, I’d lean Subbly if the product is a pure subscription box, or Shopify + subscriptions if you want a full ecommerce brand. Subbly Shopify

If you tell me your box type (physical goods vs digital, expected monthly price, and whether you already have a website), I can narrow it down to the cheapest stack.

Yes. If your goal is “test one product for 2–4 weeks without committing to Shopify or another monthly subscription,” there are a few good options.

My shortlist

Payhip's free plan is genuinely $0/month, includes all features and unlimited products, and takes 5% per sale on top of payment-processor fees. It also supports physical products. Payhip Payhip

Big Cartel's Gold plan is also $0 and lets you list up to 5 products, accept cards/PayPal, and run a basic storefront. Big Cartel

Gumroad has no monthly fee, but its direct-sale fee is currently 10% + $0.50 per transaction, before applicable processing/other fees. Gumroad Gumroad

What I'd use for your experiment

If you're selling a physical product, I'd start with Big Cartel if you want it to feel like a tiny conventional ecommerce store.

If you want a landing-page-style sales page → checkout, I'd lean toward Payhip. You can essentially make the whole experiment:

Ad/social post → product page → checkout → payment → order fulfillment

with $0/month while you're testing.

One important distinction: “free” doesn't mean zero cost per sale. Payment processing and, depending on the platform, transaction fees still apply. Payhip Big Cartel

If you tell me what the product is, its selling price, and whether it's physical or digital, I can tell you which of these makes the most sense and what I'd use for the landing page.

For a farmers’ co-op, I’d focus on software that supports multiple independent vendors, shared checkout, vendor commissions/payouts, product inventory, and pickup/delivery, without requiring a big custom build.

Shortlist

Sharetribe is probably the easiest place to start. It is purpose-built for marketplaces, doesn't require coding, supports product marketplaces and online payments, and its current live plans start at $99/month when billed annually. Sharetribe Sharetribe

sharetribe.com

WooCommerce is worth considering if someone in your co-op is comfortable administering WordPress. WooCommerce itself doesn't provide multi-vendor functionality—you add a marketplace plugin—but this approach can give you considerably more control over product variations, local pickup, subscriptions, farmers' boxes, and other agricultural-specific workflows. Dokan

CS-Cart Multi-Vendor is the more full-featured option. Its current cloud Basic plan is $95/month and supports up to 50 vendors; the platform specifically includes vendor commissions and marketplace-oriented payment flows. Its annual on-premise Standard plan is $725/year. www.cs-cart.com/ CS-Cart Documentation

What I'd prioritize for your co-op

Rather than paying for a conventional e-commerce store, I'd make sure the platform can handle this workflow:

Customer orders from 5 farms → one checkout → each farmer sees only their items → co-op takes its agreed commission → farmer gets their share → everything is consolidated for one pickup/delivery.

That last part is particularly important. A platform can technically be a "multi-vendor marketplace" while still being awkward for a farmers' market-style weekly ordering + centralized pickup model.

If you tell me roughly how many vendors you have, how many customers/orders you expect per week, whether customers pick up at one location or get delivery, and your monthly software budget, I can narrow this to 2–3 concrete setups and estimate the total monthly cost.

For an indie game, itch.io is probably the most budget-friendly fit if you want both direct downloads and license/key distribution.

Why itch.io fits

• No upfront cost: creating and hosting a game page is free. You choose the percentage of revenue you want to share with itch.io, from 0–100%. itch.io itch.io
• Direct game downloads: you upload your Windows/macOS/Linux builds, and buyers get access through their purchase/download page. itch.io itch.io
• Unique download keys: you can generate individual or bulk keys for press, testers, backers, giveaways, etc., and keys can be labeled, tracked, and revoked. itch.io
• External keys: if you also sell on Steam, you can stock Steam keys and make them available to qualifying itch.io purchasers. itch.io itch.io
• No forced DRM: itch.io distributes the files as you uploaded them. itch.io
• Payments/tax handling: itch.io supports Stripe and PayPal, and its "Collected by itch.io" payout model can handle VAT collection for you. itch.io

How I'd structure it

Your website → itch.io checkout → itch.io ownership/download page → game download

Then use itch.io's keys for:

• Steam keys
• review/press copies
• Kickstarter/backer rewards
• beta testers
• giveaways
• influencer copies

One important distinction: itch.io's "license" is primarily ownership/access to your downloadable files, rather than a sophisticated DRM/license-server system. If by license distribution you mean unique activation codes that your own game validates against an API, you'd want a different service or a custom licensing backend.

For a small indie studio trying to keep fixed costs near zero, though, itch.io is a particularly good starting point. itch.io itch.io

If you tell me whether you need Steam keys, DRM-style activation, or simply unique purchase/download licenses, I can narrow it down to 2–3 storefronts and compare their fees.

For a 10-person startup building a headless storefront that needs to handle high traffic, I’d shortlist Medusa, Saleor, and Vendure. I would not start with WooCommerce/Magento unless you have a specific reason to want their ecosystems.

My shortlist

1. Medusa — my default starting point

medusajs.com

If your team is primarily TypeScript/React/Next.js, I'd investigate Medusa first. Its Node/TypeScript backend means your commerce engineers can stay in essentially the same ecosystem as the storefront. Its architecture is modular, so you're not forced into a giant monolith when you need custom pricing, fulfillment, promotions, etc. OSSAlt Kryeo

For a startup, that matters: engineering velocity and simplicity are often more important than having every enterprise commerce feature on day one.

I'd architect it roughly as:

                    CDN / Edge
                        │
                 Next.js storefront
                        │
                  BFF / API layer
                        │
                ┌───────┴───────┐
                │    Medusa     │
                │ commerce core │
                └───────┬───────┘
                        │
              ┌─────────┼─────────┐
           Postgres   Redis    Workers
              │                  │
          commerce DB       async jobs

For high traffic, I'd make the storefront independently scalable from the commerce backend. Don't assume that "headless" automatically makes the commerce engine infinitely scalable—the architecture around it matters at least as much.

2. Saleor — particularly interesting for very high scale

saleor.io

Saleor deserves serious consideration if GraphQL, multi-channel commerce, and scale are major requirements. It's Python/Django-based and GraphQL-native. Saleor currently reports production Cloud activity exceeding 1B requests/month and 400k orders/month, which is useful evidence that the architecture has been exercised at substantial scale. Saleor Commerce Saleor Commerce

Its API-first approach also fits nicely if you expect multiple clients—web, mobile, kiosks, partner applications, etc. Saleor Commerce

The tradeoff is that you're introducing a Python/Django commerce backend into your stack. For a TypeScript-heavy startup, that's meaningful.

3. Vendure — worth evaluating if customization is central

vendure.io

Vendure is another strong choice for a TypeScript team. It's built around Node.js, NestJS and GraphQL, with a plugin architecture designed to let you modify commerce behavior without forking the core. GitHub

I'd particularly investigate it if you anticipate unusual commerce requirements—marketplaces, complex B2B, custom pricing, multiple channels, subscriptions, etc. Vendure explicitly positions its extension model around these kinds of use cases. GitHub

The big thing to investigate with your legal team is its GPLv3 licensing, although Vendure says storefronts/services consuming its GraphQL API aren't thereby subject to GPLv3 and provides a plugin license exception. GitHub

What I'd choose for your startup

Assuming:

• 10 engineers
• primarily TypeScript
• Next.js/React storefront
• consumer/DTC rather than extremely complicated B2B
• substantial traffic spikes
• you want to own the infrastructure
• you don't want to spend half the team maintaining an ecommerce platform

I'd prototype with Medusa and Saleor, with Vendure as the third candidate.

The important thing is not to benchmark "requests per second" in isolation. I'd build the same representative flow in each:

1. Product/category page
2. Search/filter
3. Add-to-cart
4. Checkout
5. Promotion/discount
6. Inventory reservation
7. Order creation
8. Webhook/event processing
9. Admin/catalog update

Then load-test checkout and inventory, not just catalog reads. Catalog traffic can be heavily cached; checkout and inventory are where concurrency and consistency become much more interesting.

Also, for genuinely high traffic, I'd keep search, CMS, media, analytics, and possibly recommendations outside the commerce engine rather than turning the ecommerce backend into the entire application.

If you tell me your stack (Next.js? Remix?), expected peak requests/orders, catalog size, DTC vs B2B, and whether you need multi-region, I can narrow these three down much more concretely and sketch the production architecture.

                    CDN / Edge
                        │
                 Next.js storefront
                        │
                  BFF / API layer
                        │
                ┌───────┴───────┐
                │    Medusa     │
                │ commerce core │
                └───────┬───────┘
                        │
              ┌─────────┼─────────┐
           Postgres   Redis    Workers
              │                  │
          commerce DB       async jobs

For high traffic, I'd make the storefront independently scalable from the commerce backend. Don't assume that "headless" automatically makes the commerce engine infinitely scalable—the architecture around it matters at least as much.

2. Saleor — particularly interesting for very high scale

saleor.io

Saleor deserves serious consideration if GraphQL, multi-channel commerce, and scale are major requirements. It's Python/Django-based and GraphQL-native. Saleor currently reports production Cloud activity exceeding 1B requests/month and 400k orders/month, which is useful evidence that the architecture has been exercised at substantial scale. Saleor Commerce Saleor Commerce

Its API-first approach also fits nicely if you expect multiple clients—web, mobile, kiosks, partner applications, etc. Saleor Commerce

The tradeoff is that you're introducing a Python/Django commerce backend into your stack. For a TypeScript-heavy startup, that's meaningful.

3. Vendure — worth evaluating if customization is central

vendure.io

Vendure is another strong choice for a TypeScript team. It's built around Node.js, NestJS and GraphQL, with a plugin architecture designed to let you modify commerce behavior without forking the core. github.com

I'd particularly investigate it if you anticipate unusual commerce requirements—marketplaces, complex B2B, custom pricing, multiple channels, subscriptions, etc. Vendure explicitly positions its extension model around these kinds of use cases.

For a freelance developer doing custom integrations across many client stores, I’d look hardest at Medusa and WooCommerce, with Saleor as a strong option if you prefer an API-first/headless architecture.

My practical breakdown

🥇 Medusa — probably the most interesting for your use case

Medusa is specifically designed around customization. You can create modules, data models, API routes, workflows, event subscribers, scheduled jobs, admin extensions, and plugins rather than having to bolt everything onto an existing monolith. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

The particularly useful part for client work is that integrations can become reusable modules/plugins. For example, you could build an ERP connector once and reuse it across multiple client projects. Medusa's plugins can package modules, workflows, API routes, hooks, subscribers, scheduled jobs, and admin extensions. Medusa Docs

Its architecture also explicitly supports third-party integrations through modules and workflows, including cross-system operations such as ERP synchronization. Medusa Docs

If you're comfortable with TypeScript/Node, I'd seriously consider making Medusa your default custom-commerce stack.

🥈 WooCommerce — easiest if clients want conventional WordPress stores

WooCommerce is extremely extensible from a developer's perspective. You have PHP hooks, filters, APIs, custom payment gateways, shipping methods, REST APIs, webhooks, and the entire WordPress ecosystem. The WooCommerce Developer Blog The WooCommerce Developer Blog

Its REST API covers things like products, orders, customers, coupons, and shipping zones, while webhooks can notify external systems about store events. The WooCommerce Developer Blog The WooCommerce Developer Blog

The advantage for a freelancer is client familiarity: many businesses already have WordPress hosting, WordPress skills, and WooCommerce experience.

The downside is architectural complexity. A heavily customized WooCommerce installation can eventually become a collection of plugins, hooks, theme overrides, and WordPress-specific behavior that you have to maintain.

🥉 Saleor — excellent for API-first/headless projects

Saleor takes a different approach: instead of modifying the core, you extend it with apps and APIs. Its backend is API-only, and its extensibility model includes webhooks, metadata, apps, API extensions, and dashboard extensions. GitHub Saleor Commerce

That makes it attractive when your typical client says:

"We have an ERP, PIM, CRM, custom frontend, warehouse system and several external services. Make them all work together."

Saleor also supports self-hosting and lets you build integrations in essentially any language because you're interacting through GraphQL rather than directly with its Python core. Saleor Commerce

What I'd choose as a freelancer

If your business is primarily "I build custom commerce systems and integrations", rather than "I build WordPress websites that happen to sell things," I'd lean toward:

Medusa → default custom-commerce stack
WooCommerce → clients who specifically want WordPress
Saleor → clients wanting sophisticated headless/API-first commerce

The biggest reason I'd put Medusa first is reuse. You can turn solutions you build for client A into modules/plugins/workflows that accelerate client B, rather than repeatedly fighting the platform's extension points. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

If you tell me your preferred stack (TypeScript, PHP, Python, etc.) and the kinds of integrations you usually build (ERP, Shopify migration, marketplaces, subscriptions, fulfillment, custom pricing, etc.), I can narrow this down considerably.

If multi-vendor marketplace functionality + total control of your data and infrastructure are the two hard requirements, I’d shortlist Bagisto, Mercur, and Vendure rather than a hosted marketplace platform.

My practical shortlist

1. Bagisto — strongest if you want marketplace features out of the box

Bagisto is particularly interesting because its official repository explicitly includes a Multi Vendor Marketplace capability: vendor dashboards, seller management, commissions, product approval, order handling, etc. It also has multi-tenant capabilities. The core project is MIT licensed. GitHub GitHub

That makes it attractive if your goal is:

• Multiple independent sellers
• Vendor dashboards
• Vendor catalogs
• Commissions
• Product approval
• Marketplace order management
• PHP/Laravel expertise
• Maximum control over your database and hosting

Tradeoff: its Laravel architecture may be less attractive if your engineering organization is primarily TypeScript/Node.js.

2. Mercur — particularly compelling for a modern marketplace

Mercur is purpose-built around the marketplace problem rather than simply being an ecommerce platform that you extend. It provides marketplace-specific primitives such as vendors, commissions, payouts, multi-vendor catalogs, an admin panel, vendor panel, and storefronts, while using Medusa underneath. GitHub GitHub

Its architecture is also explicitly designed for self-hosting: Node.js + PostgreSQL + Redis, with deployment options including containers/Kubernetes and even air-gapped environments. GitHub

For a company saying "we want Amazon/AliExpress-style marketplace functionality, but we want to own the infrastructure and data," I'd investigate Mercur first.

One important consideration is that Mercur also has an Enterprise layer, so you should carefully distinguish which functionality you need from the fully open-source core versus licensed additions. GitHub

3. Vendure — excellent if your marketplace is highly customized

Vendure is a TypeScript/NestJS/GraphQL platform with a plugin architecture and is explicitly positioned for B2B, multi-vendor marketplaces, and custom commerce models. GitHub GitHub

I'd lean toward Vendure when your marketplace has unusual business rules—for example:

• Complex vendor-specific pricing
• Multiple sales channels
• Sophisticated catalog relationships
• Custom fulfillment
• B2B + B2C
• Complex permissions
• Significant custom development

Its plugin-first architecture lets you extend the system without maintaining a heavily modified fork. GitHub

What about Medusa itself?

Medusa is a very good commerce foundation, but I'd distinguish Medusa from Mercur for this particular requirement.

Medusa's core is MIT-licensed and can be used to build marketplaces, but historically marketplace functionality was not native; the project itself described marketplace functionality as something that needed to be extended. GitHub GitHub

Mercur essentially addresses that gap by putting a dedicated marketplace layer on top of Medusa. GitHub

What I'd choose

For your stated requirements, I'd evaluate them in this order:

Mercur → Bagisto → Vendure

But the deciding factor is your technology stack:

• Laravel/PHP team: Bagisto
• Node/TypeScript team + modern marketplace: Mercur
• Node/TypeScript team + very complex/custom enterprise commerce: Vendure
• You want to assemble your own commerce architecture: Medusa

And by "total data ownership," I'd specifically verify that the deployment you choose lets you own/control the PostgreSQL database, object storage, search indexes, logs, backups, payment-related data, and analytics data. "Open source" by itself doesn't guarantee that every associated SaaS service is self-hostable.

If you tell me your stack (PHP vs Node), expected number of vendors, B2B/B2C, and whether you need vendor payouts/commissions, I can narrow this to the most appropriate architecture and compare the actual marketplace features and licensing in detail. GitHub GitHub GitHub

What I'd choose

For your stated requirements, I'd evaluate them in this order:

For a subscription box business with recurring physical-product billing, I’d narrow it to WooCommerce, Medusa, or Saleor—but they fit very different architectures.

My practical recommendation: WooCommerce

If your primary goal is running a subscription-box business rather than building ecommerce infrastructure, I'd use WordPress + WooCommerce + WooCommerce Subscriptions.

WooCommerce Subscriptions supports weekly/monthly/annual recurring payments, automatic renewals, failed-payment rebilling, customer self-service, trials, sign-up fees, and subscription changes. It also explicitly supports subscription-box use cases. WooCommerce WooCommerce

The important caveat: WooCommerce itself is open source, but WooCommerce Subscriptions is a paid extension. The current listed price is $279/year. WooCommerce

When I'd choose Medusa instead

Choose Medusa if you're comfortable writing code and want something like:

Next.js storefront → Medusa → PostgreSQL → Stripe → fulfillment/shipping system

Medusa is open source and designed as a customizable commerce framework. Its official subscription recipe covers recurring orders, renewal, expiration, cancellation, and Stripe integration—but subscriptions are not a native turnkey feature; you'd implement the subscription layer yourself. GitHub Medusa Docs

That makes Medusa particularly interesting if your box has unusual rules, such as:

• Customers choose items every month.
• Box contents change based on inventory.
• Skip/pause/upgrade logic is complex.
• Different subscription tiers have different fulfillment schedules.
• You need custom customer/account experiences.
• You eventually want mobile apps or multiple storefronts.

Saleor

Saleor is another strong self-hosted option. It's API-first and GraphQL-native, with an extensible architecture and integrations for payments, shipping, taxes, etc. Saleor Documentation Saleor Commerce

But for a subscription-box startup, I'd expect more custom subscription work than with WooCommerce.

What I'd build

If you're a small team and want to validate the business:

WordPress + WooCommerce + WooCommerce Subscriptions + Stripe

If you're a developer-led company and the subscription/fulfillment logic itself is a major differentiator:

Next.js + Medusa + Stripe + PostgreSQL

I'd avoid choosing a platform solely because it is "more modern." For subscription boxes, the difficult parts tend to be renewal handling, failed payments, skips/pauses, inventory allocation, shipping synchronization, taxes, and fulfillment, rather than the basic storefront.

If you tell me your expected number of subscribers, whether customers choose box contents, and whether you want Stripe, I can sketch the self-hosted architecture and database/subscription model I'd use.

If your priority is one self-hosted open-source store that handles physical + digital products in the same catalog and checkout, I’d put WooCommerce at the top of the shortlist.

How I’d compare them

Why WooCommerce stands out for your use case: its core product model explicitly supports physical, virtual, and downloadable products. A downloadable product can still require shipping, so you can sell something like physical book + PDF, while purely digital products can bypass shipping. WooCommerce WooCommerce

It also handles mixed orders naturally: a cart can contain physical and digital products, with shipping calculated only for the shippable items. WooCommerce can grant digital access after payment even when the physical portion of the order hasn't shipped yet. WooCommerce

For products with variations, downloads can be attached to individual variations and physical inventory can be managed alongside them. WooCommerce

My practical recommendation

Go with WooCommerce if you want:

• One catalog for physical and digital goods
• Physical + digital products in the same order
• Straightforward inventory/shipping for physical items
• Secure downloadable-file delivery
• A mature self-hosted ecosystem
• The option to add subscriptions, memberships, bundles, licenses, etc. later

woocommerce.com

I'd choose Medusa or Saleor instead if you're specifically building a custom/headless commerce application and have developers who want an API-first architecture. A recent comparison, for example, describes Medusa as TypeScript/REST-oriented and Saleor as Python/GraphQL-oriented, with different customization approaches. Eryx Innovations Lab

Bottom line: for a normal merchant who wants to self-host and sell both physical and digital products without engineering a lot of commerce behavior themselves, WooCommerce is probably the most straightforward fit.

If you tell me roughly how many products/orders you expect and what kinds of digital products you sell (PDFs, software licenses, courses, audio/video, etc.), I can narrow this down between WooCommerce, Medusa, Saleor, and Sylius.

Go with WooCommerce if you want:

WooCommerce is the strongest choice if your priorities are plugin ecosystem + developer/community support. It inherits WordPress’s enormous plugin and developer ecosystem and has extensive third-party integrations. Open Source Groups AFCommerce

For a modern, developer-first/headless stack, Medusa is a strong alternative, especially with TypeScript/React. OSSAlt Open Source Projects

For a low-traffic boutique store run by a non-technical owner, I’d generally choose WooCommerce—provided you use managed WordPress/WooCommerce hosting rather than maintaining the server yourself.

How I’d compare the main options

Why WooCommerce: the day-to-day interface is familiar to WordPress users, installation is handled through the WordPress admin, and there is a large ecosystem of themes and extensions. WooCommerce WooCommerce

The important caveat is that self-hosted doesn't mean maintenance-free. WooCommerce requires keeping WordPress, PHP, WooCommerce, themes, and plugins current, and WooCommerce specifically recommends current supported PHP/MySQL versions. WooCommerce WooCommerce

OpenCart is a reasonable second choice. Its admin interface is specifically designed around store management, and its current upgrade tool can download and install updates from the admin panel. However, its own documentation recommends backups, staging, and checking extension compatibility before upgrades—tasks that are less appealing for a non-technical owner. OpenCart Documentation OpenCart Documentation

PrestaShop is powerful, but I'd be less inclined to use it for this particular scenario. Its current requirements and upgrade process involve more server/configuration considerations, and PrestaShop 9 recommends PHP 8.4 and substantial server memory. PrestaShop Help Center PrestaShop

My practical setup

For this particular store, I'd use:

WooCommerce + managed WordPress hosting + automatic backups + a hosted payment gateway + as few plugins as possible.

That combination is considerably easier for an owner to operate than handing them a bare VPS and saying "here's your self-hosted ecommerce system."

If by self-hosted you mean "I want to own/control the software and host it myself, but I don't want to become the sysadmin," I can also compare WooCommerce vs OpenCart vs PrestaShop vs Saleor specifically on setup time, updates, backups, security, and ongoing owner workload.

For strong security and compliance controls around payments and customer data, I would shortlist platforms based less on “features” and more on your ability to operate a secure environment: patching, access control, audit logging, payment architecture, hosting model, and compliance ownership.

A practical ranking by security/compliance needs:

My recommendation by scenario

1. Enterprise payments + sensitive customer data

Choose Magento Open Source / Adobe Commerce architecture if you have:

• dedicated security engineering or DevOps
• formal vulnerability management
• SIEM/log monitoring
• strict IAM requirements
• multiple integrations (ERP, CRM, fraud systems)
• large product catalogs or B2B workflows

The tradeoff: you need strong operational maturity. A poorly maintained Magento deployment can still be risky.

2. Strong compliance with lower operational burden

Consider Shopware if you want:

• open-source flexibility
• enterprise features
• modern extensibility
• a vendor ecosystem with documented security practices

Shopware states that its security program includes measures such as ISO 27001 certification and SOC 2 Type II alignment for hosted environments. Shopware

3. Cost-conscious teams

WooCommerce can work if you design it securely:

• never store raw card data
• use hosted payment fields/tokenization
• minimize plugins
• enforce MFA and least privilege
• use managed hosting with patching/WAF capabilities
• maintain vulnerability scanning and backups

WooCommerce notes that PCI DSS responsibility depends on the entire environment, including hosting, plugins, access controls, and payment integrations. WooCommerce

Controls I would require regardless of platform

For a payment/customer-data environment, I would require:

Payment security

• Use a PCI-compliant payment provider with hosted checkout/tokenization
• Do not store card numbers or CVV data
• Separate payment systems from customer-data systems where possible

Identity and access

• MFA for all admin users
• Role-based access control
• Separate developer/staging/production accounts
• Quarterly access reviews

Application security

• Automated security updates and patch SLAs
• Dependency scanning (SCA)
• Web application firewall
• Secure code review for custom modules
• Penetration testing before launch and periodically

Data protection

• Encryption in transit and at rest
• Database encryption/backups
• Customer-data retention policies
• Audit logs for customer-data access

Operations

• Centralized logging/SIEM
• Incident response plan
• Disaster recovery testing
• Vendor/security review process for plugins/extensions

Short answer

If you are a regulated or enterprise retailer, I would start with Magento Open Source/Adobe Commerce or Shopware.

If you are a smaller company, WooCommerce can meet strong security requirements, but only with disciplined hosting, payment architecture, and governance.

If you share:

• annual order volume,
• number of SKUs,
• countries served,
• compliance targets (PCI DSS, SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, etc.),
• cloud preference (AWS/Azure/GCP/self-hosted),

I can narrow this to a specific platform and deployment architecture.

If ERP + shipping integrations are the main requirement, I’d shortlist Shopware, Medusa, and Sylius rather than choosing purely on storefront features.

My practical comparison

Shopware

Shopware is particularly compelling if you want lots of existing connectors rather than building everything yourself.

Its API-first architecture supports ERP, PIM, CRM and other systems, and Shopware says its ecosystem has hundreds of extensions/connectors, including ERP and shipping integrations. Shopware Shopware

Its current integration ecosystem specifically lists things such as ShipStation for shipping and Xentral for ERP, while its marketplace also has an Odoo connector. Shopware Shopware Store

I'd lean Shopware if: you're a growing retailer and want integration flexibility without turning the ecommerce platform itself into a major software-development project.

Medusa

Medusa is arguably the most attractive if your developers will own the integrations.

Medusa treats external systems as modules and explicitly supports custom ERP integrations. Its documentation includes an ERP integration recipe and an Odoo integration, while its fulfillment modules include ShipStation. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

That architecture is useful when, for example, you need:

ERP → inventory/pricing → ecommerce → order → shipping provider → tracking → ERP

and the standard workflow doesn't quite match your business. Medusa is designed to let you insert custom flows and logic into those processes. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

I'd lean Medusa if: you have a competent TypeScript/Node team and expect significant custom integration work.

Sylius

Sylius is another strong option, particularly for a company with PHP/Symfony expertise. It's API-oriented and deliberately designed as a framework for highly customized commerce rather than simply a ready-made shop. GitHub

Its marketplace currently has a dedicated integrations category with dozens of integration plugins for ERPs, CRMs and external services. Sylius Addons Marketplace

I'd lean Sylius if: you're building something unusually customized and already have a strong Symfony/PHP engineering team.

The key distinction

I'd frame the decision this way:

• Want the largest ready-made integration ecosystem: Shopware
• Want maximum API/customization flexibility with modern TypeScript: Medusa
• Want a highly programmable commerce framework with Symfony/PHP: Sylius
• Want WordPress + ecommerce: WooCommerce

For a growing store, rather than an engineering-heavy custom commerce project, Shopware is probably the first platform I'd investigate. If you tell me which ERP (e.g. SAP, NetSuite, Odoo, Dynamics, Acumatica) and which shipping providers (e.g. ShipStation, Shippo, EasyPost, UPS/FedEx APIs) you're using, I can compare the actual integration paths and likely custom-development burden for each.

Shopware

Shopware is particularly compelling if you want lots of existing connectors rather than building everything yourself.

Its API-first architecture supports ERP, PIM, CRM and other systems, and Shopware says its ecosystem has hundreds of extensions/connectors, including ERP and shipping integrations. Shopware Shopware

Its current integration ecosystem specifically lists things such as ShipStation for shipping and Xentral for ERP, while its marketplace also has an Odoo connector. Shopware Shopware Store

I'd lean Shopware if: you're a growing retailer and want integration flexibility without turning the ecommerce platform itself into a major software-development project.

Medusa

Medusa is arguably the most attractive if your developers will own the integrations.

Medusa treats external systems as modules and explicitly supports custom ERP integrations. Its documentation includes an ERP integration recipe and an Odoo integration, while its fulfillment modules include ShipStation. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

That architecture is useful when, for example, you need:

ERP → inventory/pricing → ecommerce → order → shipping provider → tracking → ERP

and the standard workflow doesn't quite match your business. Medusa is designed to let you insert custom flows and logic into those processes. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

I'd lean Medusa if: you have a competent TypeScript/Node team and expect significant custom integration work.

Sylius

Sylius is another strong option, particularly for a company with PHP/Symfony expertise. It's API-oriented and deliberately designed as a framework for highly customized commerce rather than simply a ready-made shop. github.com

Its marketplace currently has a dedicated integrations category with dozens of integration plugins for ERPs, CRMs and external services.

I'd lean Sylius if: you're building something unusually customized and already have a strong Symfony/PHP engineering team.

The key distinction

I'd frame the decision this way:

For a small indie studio selling large downloadable builds + game keys, I’d look primarily at SendOwl and Lemon Squeezy. The right choice depends on whether file delivery or licensing/commerce is the bigger concern.

My shortlist

SendOwl is probably the closest match if you already have your own website/store and mainly need a secure delivery layer. It supports software and archive files, large-file delivery, expiring/time-limited download links, download limits, and license-key management. SendOwl Help Center SendOwl SendOwl Help Center

One particularly useful setup is private Amazon S3 + SendOwl: keep the actual game builds in a private S3 bucket, and let SendOwl generate time-limited signed download URLs. That means customers never get a permanent public S3 URL. SendOwl Help Center

Lemon Squeezy is attractive if you want the commerce side handled too. It can host your ZIP/build files, automatically deliver them after purchase, generate license keys, and enforce activation limits. Its licensing API also lets your game itself validate and activate keys. LemonSqueezy Lemon Squeezy Docs Lemon Squeezy Docs

itch.io makes sense if you want a game-native ecosystem rather than simply a delivery service. Its download keys are unique URLs, and account-linked keys can only be viewed by their owner while logged in. It also has APIs for purchase verification. itch.io itch.io

What I'd use for your situation

If you're selling directly from your own studio website, I'd lean toward:

Your website → payment/checkout → SendOwl → private S3 → expiring download → license key

For example:

1. Customer purchases Game X.
2. Your payment system confirms the transaction.
3. Customer receives a unique download page.
4. SendOwl provides a time-limited download URL to the build.
5. The customer receives a unique game key.
6. Your game optionally phones home to validate the key/activation.
7. Refunds or revoked orders can have their download access removed.

That gives you considerably more control than simply putting a ZIP behind a permanent URL. SendOwl explicitly supports download limits, expiration, revocation, and private S3 delivery. SendOwl Help Center SendOwl Help Center

One important distinction: secure file delivery can't really prevent a legitimate customer from copying a game after they've downloaded it. It primarily protects the distribution channel—preventing leaked URLs, unauthorized downloads, and easy sharing. If you also need to control how many machines can run the game, that's where license activation becomes important; Lemon Squeezy, for example, supports configurable activation limits and an API for validating keys. Lemon Squeezy Docs Lemon Squeezy Docs

If you tell me roughly build size (e.g. 5 GB vs 100 GB), monthly sales/downloads, whether you're already using Stripe, and whether you need Steam/Epic-style keys, I can narrow this down to a specific architecture and compare the likely costs.

itch.io makes sense if you want a game-native ecosystem rather than simply a delivery service. Its download keys are unique URLs, and account-linked keys can only be viewed by their owner while logged in. It also has APIs for purchase verification.

What I'd use for your situation

If you're selling directly from your own studio website, I'd lean toward:

Your website → payment/checkout → SendOwl → private S3 → expiring download → license key

For example:

If your core need is selling high-res photo downloads while showing protected previews, the main photography-focused storefronts worth comparing are Pixieset, Pic-Time, and ShootProof.

Pixieset

pixieset.com is probably the cleanest match if you want a straightforward "browse → preview → buy → automatically download" experience.

Its watermark system applies watermarks to displayed images, while your original remains unwatermarked. You can also configure web-size downloads to retain the watermark. Importantly, high-resolution/original downloads are delivered without the watermark, so buyers get the actual file they purchased. Pixieset Website Help Center Pixieset Website Help Center

For variants, you can create digital-download products with different resolutions—for example, a web-resolution product versus a high-resolution product—and sell either individual images or an entire collection. Pixieset Website Help Center

Pic-Time

pic-time.com is particularly interesting if you're selling fine-art/stock-like photography rather than just delivering client galleries.

It supports watermarked gallery and shop previews, including flexible or permanently burned-in low-resolution watermarks. High-resolution downloads aren't watermarked. Pic-Time Help Center Pic-Time Help Center

It also supports high-res download products priced per image, by volume, or as tiered packages, which is useful if you want things like "1 image / 5 images / entire set" offerings. Pic-Time Help Center

ShootProof

shootproof.com also checks the major boxes. Its current watermarking supports text/image watermarks with control over position, size and opacity, plus an optional AI-protection mode. Purchased digital downloads are delivered without the watermark. ShootProof Support

What I'd look at for your particular business

If you're selling individual high-resolution photographs as a product, rather than primarily delivering wedding/portrait galleries to clients, I'd pay particular attention to:

1. Pic-Time — strong fit if you want sophisticated storefront merchandising and packages.
2. Pixieset — strong fit if you want the simplest polished storefront and gallery combination.
3. ShootProof — worth considering if its broader client-management workflow fits your business.

One important distinction: watermarks generally belong on the preview, not the purchased high-res file. All three platforms support that basic model, which is what you'd want for selling downloadable originals. Pixieset Website Help Center Pic-Time Help Center ShootProof Support

If you tell me (a) whether you sell individual images or collections, (b) whether you need RAW/TIFF or just JPEG, and (c) your approximate monthly sales volume, I can narrow this down further and compare pricing, transaction fees, storage, custom-domain support, and download-size controls.

For variants, you can create digital-download products with different resolutions—for example, a web-resolution product versus a high-resolution product—and sell either individual images or an entire collection. Pixieset Website Help Center

Pic-Time

pic-time.com is particularly interesting if you're selling fine-art/stock-like photography rather than just delivering client galleries.

It supports watermarked gallery and shop previews, including flexible or permanently burned-in low-resolution watermarks. High-resolution downloads aren't watermarked. help.pic-time.com help.pic-time.com

It also supports high-res download products priced per image, by volume, or as tiered packages, which is useful if you want things like "1 image / 5 images / entire set" offerings. help.pic-time.com

ShootProof

shootproof.com also checks the major boxes. Its current watermarking supports text/image watermarks with control over position, size and opacity, plus an optional AI-protection mode. Purchased digital downloads are delivered without the watermark.

What I'd look at for your particular business

If you sell mostly digital products but occasionally ship physical items, you want a platform that doesn't treat physical goods as an afterthought. The best choice depends on how much of your business is physical versus digital.

Here's how the main options compare:

If you want the smoothest all-around experience: Shopify

shopify.com

For a small shop selling both ebooks, templates, downloads, and physical products, Shopify is one of the most polished options. It offers:

• Native support for digital downloads (through Shopify's own app or third-party apps)
• Built-in shipping labels and shipping rate management
• Inventory tracking for physical products
• Multiple payment gateways
• Room to grow into POS, social selling, and marketplaces later

You manage everything from one dashboard rather than juggling separate systems. It's consistently rated among the strongest all-around ecommerce platforms for mixed-product businesses. Fit Small Business Shopify

If you're primarily a creator: Sellfy

sellfy.com

Sellfy was built around digital products but also supports:

• Physical merchandise
• Print-on-demand
• Subscriptions

It's simpler than Shopify and can be a better fit if 80–90% of your sales are digital and physical shipping is occasional. Sellfy Dola

If you already have WordPress: WooCommerce

woocommerce.com

WooCommerce handles both digital and physical products very well, with extensive shipping and payment extensions. The trade-off is that you're responsible for hosting, updates, and maintenance, so it's best if you're comfortable with a bit more technical setup. TechnologyAdvice Hostinger

My recommendation based on different situations

• Mostly digital, occasional physical shipments: Shopify or Sellfy.
• About half digital and half physical: Shopify.
• Already invested in WordPress: WooCommerce.
• Want the simplest website builder with light ecommerce: Wix or Squarespace. Fit Small Business TechnologyAdvice

If you can share what kinds of digital products (e.g. PDFs, courses, software, music) and what physical goods you sell, I can narrow it down further based on your workflow and budget.

Medusa is particularly well-suited if digital downloads are central. Its current docs provide workflows, custom REST APIs, private file storage, authenticated download URLs, and digital-product fulfillment; there’s also a dedicated digital-products plugin with entitlements and expiring download tokens. docs.medusajs.com medusajs.com

Saleor is the main alternative if you prefer GraphQL and a more API-first architecture; it also has a digital-products recipe. saleor.io docs.saleor.io

For a TypeScript-heavy stack, I’d investigate Medusa first.

If you're selling large datasets to enterprise customers, I’d separate the problem into two needs: secure delivery/access control and customer-facing analytics/auditability. The strongest options I’d shortlist are:

My take

For a turnkey enterprise product: Egnyte is probably the first one I'd evaluate. Its audit system covers file activity, logins, permissions and user provisioning, and it can report on downloads through share links. Egnyte Help Desk Egnyte Help Desk Its Document Room product is specifically designed around controlled external access, with granular permissions and reporting on user visits, file views/downloads and permissions. Egnyte Help Desk Egnyte

egnyte.com

If the experience is more "customer buys a dataset and gets a secure delivery room," Digify is interesting. Its API explicitly supports granular access, download restrictions, expiry and watermarking, while its event model tracks opens, views, downloads and revocations and exposes webhooks. Digify

digify.com

If you're building the actual marketplace/application yourself, I'd seriously consider object storage + your own entitlement layer rather than a traditional file-sharing product. Cloudflare R2 supports expiring presigned URLs, so your application can decide exactly which customer can download which object and for how long. Cloudflare Docs Cloudflare Docs R2's Data Access Logs can capture per-request object operations, including GetObject, HeadObject, uploads and deletes. Cloudflare Docs

cloudflare.com

One architectural distinction I'd make

If you're selling 10–500 GB+ datasets repeatedly, I'd lean toward:

Your application → customer entitlement/identity → signed download URL → object storage/CDN → centralized audit/analytics

rather than putting the datasets directly into Dropbox-style folders.

That lets you record events such as:

• Customer/account
• Individual user
• Dataset purchased/licensed
• Version of dataset
• File/object accessed
• Download started/completed
• Bytes transferred
• IP/device
• Timestamp
• Link/token used
• Expiration/revocation
• Number of downloads
• Last access
• Contract/license expiration

It also lets you distinguish "the customer was authorized to download Dataset X" from "Dataset X was actually downloaded 17 times." That's an important distinction for enterprise licensing and usage reporting.

If you tell me your approximate dataset size, number of customers, whether customers download files or query data via API, and whether you need billing/checkout, I can narrow this to a 3–4 option architecture comparison (e.g. Egnyte vs DocSend vs Digify vs S3/R2 + custom portal) and include estimated implementation complexity.

If the experience is more "customer buys a dataset and gets a secure delivery room," Digify is interesting. Its API explicitly supports granular access, download restrictions, expiry and watermarking, while its event model tracks opens, views, downloads and revocations and exposes webhooks. Digify

digify.com

If you're building the actual marketplace/application yourself, I'd seriously consider object storage + your own entitlement layer rather than a traditional file-sharing product. Cloudflare R2 supports expiring presigned URLs, so your application can decide exactly which customer can download which object and for how long. developers.cloudflare.com developers.cloudflare.com R2's Data Access Logs can capture per-request object operations, including GetObject, HeadObject, uploads and deletes. developers.cloudflare.com

cloudflare.com

One architectural distinction I'd make

If you're selling 10–500 GB+ datasets repeatedly, I'd lean toward:

Your application → customer entitlement/identity → signed download URL → object storage/CDN → centralized audit/analytics

If your frontend is a custom iOS/Android app, I’d narrow the field to Shopify, Medusa, Saleor, and commercetools. The right choice depends mostly on how much commerce infrastructure you want to build yourself.

Quick comparison

My practical recommendation: Shopify

For a custom mobile app, Shopify is probably the strongest default choice unless you have unusual commerce requirements.

Shopify's Storefront API is explicitly designed for apps, including native iOS, Android, and React Native applications. It handles products, collections, search, carts, pricing, etc., while Shopify's Checkout Kit can present checkout inside the mobile app. Shopify Shopify

The architecture can look like:

┌─────────────────────────────┐
│     Custom Mobile App       │
│                             │
│  iOS / Android / React Native│
└──────────────┬──────────────┘
               │
        Storefront API
               │
               ▼
┌─────────────────────────────┐
│          Shopify            │
│                             │
│ Products                    │
│ Customers                   │
│ Cart                        │
│ Pricing                     │
│ Inventory                   │
│ Orders                      │
│ Checkout / Payments         │
└─────────────────────────────┘

Shopify also provides official mobile libraries and documentation for iOS, Android, and React Native. Shopify Shopify

shopify.dev

When I'd choose Medusa instead

I'd seriously consider Medusa if your app has commerce logic that doesn't fit naturally into Shopify—for example, highly customized checkout, marketplace/multi-vendor behavior, or unusual product/order workflows.

Medusa's Store API is explicitly intended for storefronts including commerce mobile apps, and its APIs are REST-based. Medusa Docs

The tradeoff is that you take on more responsibility for your commerce infrastructure.

When Saleor makes sense

Saleor is particularly interesting if your engineering team prefers GraphQL and a highly API-driven architecture. Saleor describes itself as GraphQL-native and technology-agnostic, with headless storefront and admin APIs. Saleor Commerce Saleor Commerce

I'd investigate it if your app is more of a custom commerce product than a conventional ecommerce storefront.

The key distinction

I'd use this rule:

• "I want to build a great mobile shopping experience without reinventing ecommerce." → Shopify
• "I want to own and heavily customize the commerce engine." → Medusa
• "I want a GraphQL-native, composable commerce backend." → Saleor
• "We're a large enterprise with complex composable commerce requirements." → commercetools

One particularly important point: don't choose based merely on whether a platform has an API. For a mobile app, evaluate the APIs for authentication, customer accounts, cart persistence, checkout, payments, inventory, webhooks, order management, discounts, and offline/poor-connectivity behavior. Checkout is often the part that determines whether an otherwise-good headless platform is actually pleasant to integrate.

If you tell me (1) iOS/Android/React Native, (2) B2C or B2B, (3) approximate catalog size, and (4) whether you need subscriptions/marketplace/multi-vendor, I can give you a much more specific architecture and platform comparison.

Shopify's Storefront API is explicitly designed for apps, including native iOS, Android, and React Native applications. It handles products, collections, search, carts, pricing, etc., while Shopify's Checkout Kit can present checkout inside the mobile app. Shopify Shopify

The architecture can look like:

┌─────────────────────────────┐
│     Custom Mobile App       │
│                             │
│  iOS / Android / React Native│
└──────────────┬──────────────┘
               │
        Storefront API
               │
               ▼
┌─────────────────────────────┐
│          Shopify            │
│                             │
│ Products                    │
│ Customers                   │
│ Cart                        │
│ Pricing                     │
│ Inventory                   │
│ Orders                      │
│ Checkout / Payments         │
└─────────────────────────────┘

Shopify also provides official mobile libraries and documentation for iOS, Android, and React Native. Shopify Shopify

shopify.dev

When I'd choose Medusa instead

I'd seriously consider Medusa if your app has commerce logic that doesn't fit naturally into Shopify—for example, highly customized checkout, marketplace/multi-vendor behavior, or unusual product/order workflows.

Medusa's Store API is explicitly intended for storefronts including commerce mobile apps, and its APIs are REST-based.

The tradeoff is that you take on more responsibility for your commerce infrastructure.

When Saleor makes sense

If your main criterion is developer experience for modern frontend frameworks, the shortlist I’d focus on is Shopify Hydrogen, Medusa, Saleor, and commercetools. There isn't a single objective "best," because they optimize for different kinds of frontend/backend flexibility.

Developer-tooling comparison

Shopify/Hydrogen

For a React/modern-JavaScript frontend, Shopify currently has one of the most mature developer experiences.

Its Storefront API is GraphQL, and Shopify provides official libraries for working with it. Hydrogen React provides components, hooks, utilities, and a Storefront API client that can also be used outside Hydrogen in other React applications. Shopify Shopify

The TypeScript experience is particularly good: Shopify publishes generated Storefront API types and a GraphQL schema that can be plugged into IDE tooling for autocomplete and validation. Shopify Shopify

Hydrogen itself also provides CLI tooling, commerce primitives, caching/SEO infrastructure, and deployment integration with Oxygen. Shopify Shopify

An interesting 2026 development is Shopify's Hydrogen developer preview, which decouples Hydrogen's commerce SDK/primitives from React Router so they can be used with other JavaScript frameworks and runtimes, including Next.js. Shopify

Best fit: React/TypeScript teams that want a highly polished SDK ecosystem and don't mind Shopify being the commerce backend.

Medusa

Medusa is particularly compelling if you want Next.js + TypeScript + control over the commerce backend.

Its current JS SDK is explicitly designed for custom storefronts and admin customizations, with a separate @medusajs/types package for TypeScript. Medusa Documentation Its Store API is REST-based and has an OpenAPI specification, which makes it straightforward to integrate with other tooling. Medusa Documentation

Medusa also explicitly separates the storefront from the commerce server, allowing you to choose the frontend technology you're comfortable with. Medusa Documentation

Best fit: developers who want a JavaScript/TypeScript-native, open-source commerce engine that they can heavily customize.

Saleor

Saleor is especially attractive if your team prefers GraphQL-first development.

You can build the storefront independently of the commerce backend, which makes Next.js/React/Astro/etc. viable frontend choices. Its architecture is particularly well suited to teams that want strongly typed GraphQL workflows and a clean API boundary.

The tradeoff is that backend customization moves you into Saleor's Python/Django ecosystem rather than staying entirely in JavaScript/TypeScript. That's an important consideration for a JS-heavy team.

Best fit: GraphQL-oriented teams, especially where multi-channel/B2B requirements and backend API design matter heavily.

commercetools

commercetools is worth considering if you're building a large enterprise composable-commerce architecture. Its API-first approach gives frontend teams considerable freedom, but the overall platform is more enterprise-oriented than developer-friendly in the "spin up a Next.js project this afternoon" sense.

It's generally more appropriate when you're deliberately assembling commerce from multiple services rather than looking for an integrated developer experience.

My practical take

If I were evaluating them specifically on frontend developer tooling, I'd think about them this way:

• React/TypeScript + fastest polished developer experience: Shopify Hydrogen
• Next.js + maximum backend customization: Medusa
• Next.js/React + GraphQL-centric architecture: Saleor
• Enterprise composable architecture: commercetools

One important distinction: "best SDK" and "best headless commerce backend" aren't necessarily the same thing. Shopify's frontend tooling is exceptionally mature, but you're accepting Shopify's underlying commerce model. Medusa gives you substantially more ownership of the commerce domain, while Saleor gives you a very clean GraphQL-centric boundary.

If you're specifically building with Next.js + React + TypeScript, I'd narrow the decision to Shopify vs. Medusa vs. Saleor and compare them on SDK ergonomics, generated types, cart/checkout APIs, caching, webhooks, local development, testing, and how painful custom business logic is.

Its Storefront API is GraphQL, and Shopify provides official libraries for working with it. Hydrogen React provides components, hooks, utilities, and a Storefront API client that can also be used outside Hydrogen in other React applications. Shopify Shopify

The TypeScript experience is particularly good: Shopify publishes generated Storefront API types and a GraphQL schema that can be plugged into IDE tooling for autocomplete and validation. Shopify Shopify

Hydrogen itself also provides CLI tooling, commerce primitives, caching/SEO infrastructure, and deployment integration with Oxygen. Shopify Shopify

An interesting 2026 development is Shopify's Hydrogen developer preview, which decouples Hydrogen's commerce SDK/primitives from React Router so they can be used with other JavaScript frameworks and runtimes, including Next.js. Shopify

Best fit: React/TypeScript teams that want a highly polished SDK ecosystem and don't mind Shopify being the commerce backend.

Medusa

Medusa is particularly compelling if you want Next.js + TypeScript + control over the commerce backend.

Its current JS SDK is explicitly designed for custom storefronts and admin customizations, with a separate @medusajs/types package for TypeScript. Medusa Documentation Its Store API is REST-based and has an OpenAPI specification, which makes it straightforward to integrate with other tooling. Medusa Documentation

Medusa also explicitly separates the storefront from the commerce server, allowing you to choose the frontend technology you're comfortable with. Medusa Documentation

Best fit: developers who want a JavaScript/TypeScript-native, open-source commerce engine that they can heavily customize.

Saleor

Saleor is especially attractive if your team prefers GraphQL-first development.

You can build the storefront independently of the commerce backend, which makes Next.js/React/Astro/etc. viable frontend choices. Its architecture is particularly well suited to teams that want strongly typed GraphQL workflows and a clean API boundary.

The tradeoff is that backend customization moves you into Saleor's Python/Django ecosystem rather than staying entirely in JavaScript/TypeScript. That's an important consideration for a JS-heavy team.

Best fit: GraphQL-oriented teams, especially where multi-channel/B2B requirements and backend API design matter heavily.

commercetools

commercetools is worth considering if you're building a large enterprise composable-commerce architecture. Its API-first approach gives frontend teams considerable freedom, but the overall platform is more enterprise-oriented than developer-friendly in the "spin up a Next.js project this afternoon" sense.

It's generally more appropriate when you're deliberately assembling commerce from multiple services rather than looking for an integrated developer experience.

My practical take

If I were evaluating them specifically on frontend developer tooling, I'd think about them this way:

• React/TypeScript + fastest polished developer experience: Shopify Hydrogen
• Next.js + maximum backend customization: Medusa
• Next.js/React + GraphQL-centric architecture: Saleor
• Enterprise composable architecture: commercetools

One important distinction: "best SDK" and "best headless commerce backend" aren't necessarily the same thing. Shopify's frontend tooling is exceptionally mature, but you're accepting Shopify's underlying commerce model. Medusa gives you substantially more ownership of the commerce domain, while Saleor gives you a very clean GraphQL-centric boundary.

If you're specifically building with Next.js + React + TypeScript, I'd narrow the decision to Shopify vs. Medusa vs. Saleor and compare them on SDK ergonomics, generated types, cart/checkout APIs, caching, webhooks, local development, testing, and how painful custom business logic is.

Yes. For a headless, API-first marketplace with multiple independent sellers, the strongest options I’d investigate are:

How I'd distinguish them

Vendure is interesting if your marketplace is central to the product rather than an ecommerce store that happens to have sellers. Vendure explicitly added marketplace APIs for things such as order splitting, shipping, payments and platform fees, and provides a reference multi-vendor implementation. Vendure GitHub

Medusa is attractive if you have a strong TypeScript team and want maximum control over the marketplace domain. Its architecture lets you create a custom vendor module, associate vendors with products/orders, expose vendor-specific APIs, and implement order-splitting workflows. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

Saleor is particularly compelling if you prefer GraphQL and want to model the marketplace using its flexible data model, warehouses, permissions and app framework. Saleor's own marketplace solution specifically describes vendor portals, commission tracking and payment splitting as extensible components. Saleor Commerce

One important architectural distinction

For a marketplace, I'd make sure the platform can represent this flow natively or cleanly:

Customer → Cart → Seller A + Seller B → split orders → seller-specific fulfillment → seller payouts/commission

That's substantially different from ordinary multi-store commerce. You also need to decide whether the platform handles seller onboarding, KYC, commissions, split payments, refunds, shipping, taxes and payouts, or whether you'll layer something like Stripe Connect around the commerce engine.

If you tell me your stack (e.g. Next.js/TypeScript), physical vs digital goods, expected number of sellers, and whether sellers need their own dashboards, I can narrow these down and compare the APIs/data models for your exact marketplace architecture.

For minimal ops, choose a managed backend-as-a-service (BaaS) rather than self-hosting.

• Supabase — Best default: hosted Postgres, auth, storage, realtime, APIs, and a good escape hatch because it’s Postgres-based. encore.dev
• Firebase — Best if you want Google’s ecosystem, realtime-first apps, and minimal backend code.
• Convex — Good for TypeScript apps needing reactive data and less database plumbing. CranL
• Appwrite — Good if you want a more packaged backend platform with auth, databases, storage, and functions. Zaira Labs

If you mean headless CMS (content editing + APIs), look at:

• Contentful — enterprise-friendly hosted CMS.
• Sanity — developer-focused content platform.

My usual low-ops picks:

• SaaS/app backend → Supabase
• Real-time collaborative app → Convex
• Marketing/content site → Sanity or Contentful
• Avoid unless needed: Kubernetes, self-hosted Strapi/Directus, or raw cloud VMs. They add operational ownership.

For your use case—one commerce backend powering both web experiences and in-store screens/kiosks—there are a few credible headless options, but they differ in how much omnichannel functionality they provide out of the box.

commercetools is particularly aligned

Its current platform explicitly targets online + physical touchpoints from one commerce foundation, including in-store experiences. It supports stores/channels with shared product, pricing and inventory data, and its APIs expose commerce capabilities to different frontends. Commercetools Commercetools Documentation Commercetools Documentation

That means you could architect something like:

                  Commerce Backend
                 ┌─────────────────┐
                 │ Product/catalog │
                 │ Pricing         │
                 │ Inventory       │
                 │ Cart/checkout   │
                 │ Customer        │
                 │ Orders          │
                 └────────┬────────┘
                          │ APIs
             ┌────────────┼────────────┐
             ▼            ▼            ▼
        Web storefront  Store screen   Mobile app
        Next.js/etc.    React/etc.     Native/etc.

The important distinction is that “headless” doesn't automatically mean “unified commerce.” You want the same underlying catalog, pricing, inventory, customer and order state to be addressable by every channel. commercetools explicitly supports this model, including physical and online stores. Commercetools Commercetools Documentation

Saleor is worth serious consideration if your priority is API purity and developer flexibility. It is GraphQL-native, exposes both storefront and admin functionality through APIs, and supports multiple channels from a single backend. Saleor Commerce Saleor Commerce

Medusa is another good fit when you're building a heavily customized experience. Its Store APIs are REST-based and its commerce modules cover products, inventory, pricing, carts, orders, fulfillment, sales channels, etc. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

What I'd evaluate specifically

For your architecture, I wouldn't choose based simply on “has a headless API.” I'd test these flows end-to-end:

• Shared inventory: customer sees an item online, then the in-store screen immediately reflects availability.
• Shared cart/order: customer starts online and completes in-store.
• Store-specific pricing/assortment: APIs can resolve the correct price and catalog based on physical location.
• Customer identity: web and in-store sessions can access the same customer context.
• Real-time events: inventory/order changes propagate to screens without polling.
• API consistency: web and store clients aren't forced onto fundamentally different commerce models.
• POS integration: determine whether the platform actually provides the store/POS layer or whether you'll build/integrate it separately.

If you're targeting a large retailer/enterprise, I'd put commercetools high on the evaluation list because its current offering explicitly combines headless APIs with unified online/in-store commerce. If you're building a more developer-centric, custom stack, Saleor or Medusa deserve a closer look. Commercetools Saleor Commerce

Its current platform explicitly targets online + physical touchpoints from one commerce foundation, including in-store experiences. It supports stores/channels with shared product, pricing and inventory data, and its APIs expose commerce capabilities to different frontends. Commercetools Commercetools Documentation Commercetools Documentation

That means you could architect something like:

                  Commerce Backend
                 ┌─────────────────┐
                 │ Product/catalog │
                 │ Pricing         │
                 │ Inventory       │
                 │ Cart/checkout   │
                 │ Customer        │
                 │ Orders          │
                 └────────┬────────┘
                          │ APIs
             ┌────────────┼────────────┐
             ▼            ▼            ▼
        Web storefront  Store screen   Mobile app
        Next.js/etc.    React/etc.     Native/etc.

The important distinction is that “headless” doesn't automatically mean “unified commerce.” You want the same underlying catalog, pricing, inventory, customer and order state to be addressable by every channel. commercetools explicitly supports this model, including physical and online stores. Commercetools Commercetools Documentation

Saleor is worth serious consideration if your priority is API purity and developer flexibility. It is GraphQL-native, exposes both storefront and admin functionality through APIs, and supports multiple channels from a single backend. saleor.io saleor.io

Medusa is another good fit when you're building a heavily customized experience. Its Store APIs are REST-based and its commerce modules cover products, inventory, pricing, carts, orders, fulfillment, sales channels, etc.

What I'd evaluate specifically

For your architecture, I wouldn't choose based simply on “has a headless API.” I'd test these flows end-to-end:

For maximum long-term portability, I’d choose an open-source, self-hostable platform—with Saleor as a particularly strong fit. It is API-only, open source, self-hostable, and designed around external apps/extensions rather than proprietary plugins. Saleor Commerce Saleor Commerce

If your team is primarily TypeScript/Node.js, Medusa is another strong option; its core modules are open source and its framework is designed for custom commerce applications. github.com

The bigger portability rules are: own your data, keep the storefront separate, avoid proprietary extensions, use standard payment/search/PIM/ERP integrations, and make your business logic independently deployable.

If you’re solo, cash-constrained, and want to get a dropshipping store live quickly, I’d narrow it to two choices:

1. Shopify — fastest path to a conventional store

Shopify is probably the simplest option if you want a proper storefront, checkout, product catalog, order management, and integrations without dealing with hosting or technical setup.

• Shopify’s Basic plan is currently $29/month when billed annually ($39 month-to-month). Shopify
• Shopify currently advertises 3 days free, then $1/month for 3 months. Shopify
• Basic supports a full online store, unlimited products, themes, payments, and selling through social channels. Shopify Help Center
• There are also lots of third-party dropshipping integrations, which can reduce manual order processing.

Best fit if: you can afford roughly $30/month and value speed and simplicity.

shopify.com

2. Big Cartel — cheapest way to test the idea

Big Cartel has a genuinely free plan, making it interesting if your budget is extremely tight.

• Its Gold plan costs $0 and supports up to 5 product listings. Big Cartel
• Big Cartel says you can launch in about 30 minutes or less. Big Cartel
• Its paid Platinum plan starts at $15/month and adds features such as more products, custom domains, shipping labels, and integrations. Big Cartel

Catch: the free plan's 5-product limit and smaller ecosystem can become restrictive for a typical dropshipping operation.

bigcartel.com

What about WooCommerce?

WooCommerce itself is free, but you need WordPress hosting and potentially paid extensions. WooCommerce estimates hosting at roughly $25–$350/month for most stores, depending on requirements. WooCommerce

So although the software is free, I wouldn't choose it for your specific "start fast with little money" requirement unless you're already comfortable with WordPress.

woocommerce.com

My practical setup for you

I'd do Shopify Basic + one product (or a very small catalog) + free/cheap theme + organic TikTok/Instagram/Reels traffic initially. Don't spend your limited cash on a fancy theme, logo package, or a pile of apps before you've demonstrated that someone actually wants the product.

If your budget is literally $0–$20 to start, test with Big Cartel first. If you have ~$30–$50 available, Shopify gives you a much more complete starting environment.

If you tell me your starting budget (e.g. $50, $100, $250) and whether you plan to sell through TikTok, Instagram, paid ads, or a standalone website, I can map out the cheapest launch stack for you.

For a small POD dropshipping team where custom previews and personalization are core to the product, I’d lean toward Shopify.

The important distinction is that the store builder itself isn’t what gives you the best personalization experience—you’ll generally pair Shopify with a dedicated product-personalizer app.

My recommendation: Shopify + a personalization app

Why it fits a small team:

• Strong POD ecosystem. Shopify currently has hundreds of POD apps with personalization capabilities, including Printful, Printify, Customily, Teeinblue, and others. Shopify App Store Shopify App Store
• Excellent live previews. Apps such as Customily, Teeinblue, and Zepto can provide real-time previews while customers add names, text, images, colors, etc. Shopify
• Good automation potential. You can have the personalization data/design flow through to your POD supplier rather than having your team manually recreate every order.
• Large ecosystem. If your requirements become more sophisticated—conditional options, multiple print areas, dynamic pricing, customer-uploaded images, etc.—there are specialized apps rather than needing to rebuild the store.
• Relatively easy for a small team to operate. You can keep the storefront, checkout, products, payments, analytics, and apps in one ecosystem.

One caveat: Printful's native personalization isn't a complete customer-facing designer. For example, Printful says its native Shopify personalization currently focuses on text and requires the customer-input portion to be handled separately; Printful specifically documents using Zepto for this. Printful Help Center Printful Help Center

How I'd structure the stack

If your products are things like "upload your photo → position it → add text → see exactly what the mug/shirt/poster will look like," I'd investigate Customily or Teeinblue first. Shopify's own 2026 guide specifically highlights Customily, Teeinblue, and Zepto for different types of customization. Shopify

What about WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is the main alternative I'd consider.

It can produce very sophisticated customization experiences, including live previews and print-ready customer designs. Its 2026 documentation describes product designers that generate print-ready designs directly with orders. WooCommerce

I'd choose WooCommerce if your team is comfortable managing WordPress, plugins, hosting, and technical maintenance. For a small team that primarily wants to sell rather than maintain infrastructure, Shopify is generally a simpler operating model.

What I'd avoid

I wouldn't make Wix my first choice if advanced personalization is central to the business. Wix gives you considerable control over product-page design, but the POD/personalization ecosystem is less compelling for this particular use case. Wix's own documentation focuses heavily on customizing the product-page presentation rather than providing the specialized POD personalization ecosystem Shopify has. Wix Help Center

Bottom line:
Shopify + a serious personalization app + Printful/Printify is the stack I'd start with for a small team. If personalization is the main selling point, I'd spend more time choosing the personalization engine than choosing between Shopify and other store builders.

If you tell me what products you're selling (shirts, mugs, jewelry, wall art, etc.) and exactly what customers need to customize, I can narrow this down to a specific Shopify + personalization + POD stack and compare the likely monthly costs.

For a solo founder selling low-margin dropship products, the fee structure matters a lot more than it does for a high-margin brand. Based on current U.S. pricing, I’d look at these first:

Big Cartel explicitly charges 0% transaction fees, with payment processing charged separately by Stripe/PayPal. Big Cartel Big Cartel WooCommerce likewise has no platform/revenue share, although you have to pay for hosting and potentially extensions. WooCommerce Shopify Basic is currently $29/month when billed annually, with card rates starting at 2.9% + $0.30. Shopify Square's free online plan currently charges 3.3% + $0.30 for online payments. Square

For your particular business

If minimizing fixed + transaction costs is the priority:

1. WooCommerce — potentially the lowest total cost once you're doing meaningful volume, particularly if you can get inexpensive hosting and use WooPayments/Stripe. There is no platform transaction fee. WooCommerce
2. Big Cartel — very attractive if your catalog is relatively small and you want simplicity. 0% platform transaction fees is especially useful for low-margin products. Big Cartel
3. Shopify — considerably more expensive on fixed costs, but you get a much more mature dropshipping ecosystem and easier operations. Its Basic plan is $29/mo annually and $39/mo month-to-month. Shopify
4. Square — inexpensive to start, but its 3.3% + $0.30 online processing on the Free plan makes it less attractive for a low-margin dropshipping store. Square

One important wrinkle: with low-priced dropship products, the $0.30 fixed payment fee can hurt more than the percentage. A $15 sale at 2.9% + $0.30 costs about $0.74, or 4.9% of revenue, before your product/shipping/advertising costs.

So if, for example, you're selling $15–$30 products at 10–20% gross margins, I'd optimize around total cost per order, not just monthly subscription price.

If you tell me your average selling price, product cost, monthly order volume, and whether you're using AliExpress/DSers, CJ, Zendrop, etc., I can calculate the actual monthly profit difference between WooCommerce, Big Cartel, Shopify, and the other realistic options.

If your main requirement is automatically deciding which dropship supplier gets each line item, splitting mixed-supplier orders, and sending each supplier the appropriate fulfillment request, I’d look at these three:

My take

Order Desk is probably the first platform I'd evaluate for your use case. Its rules engine can split orders, filter them, and automatically send the resulting orders to different fulfillment services. It also specifically supports splitting Shopify orders by vendor, which maps closely to a dropship-partner model. OrderDesk Help Order Desk Order Desk

Extensiv becomes particularly interesting if your routing logic is more sophisticated—for example:

Customer order → determine supplier based on SKU → check availability → split order → choose supplier/warehouse → send PO → receive tracking → update storefront.

Its orderbots can split line items based on availability or product rules and then route the resulting orders to particular warehouses/vendors. Extensiv also explicitly supports dropship vendors and inventory/order imports from them. Extensiv Extensiv Extensiv

ShipStation is a good choice if shipping operations are a major part of what you're trying to automate. Its current Order Routing can choose fulfillment locations based on inventory and destination and split an order when different items need different locations. Its Dropship Manager can also delegate orders to different vendor accounts. ShipStation Help ShipStation Help

If you're already on Shopify, its native routing can prioritize locations based on inventory, destination, minimizing splits, or custom location attributes. But for a network of independent dropship suppliers with different rules and integrations, I'd generally investigate a dedicated OMS such as Order Desk or Extensiv rather than relying solely on Shopify's native routing. Shopify Help Center

The key question

The best choice depends heavily on how your suppliers receive orders. For example, if you have:

• 20 suppliers
• each supplier carries different SKUs
• some suppliers have overlapping SKUs
• you want fallback supplier logic when Supplier A is out of stock
• orders can contain products from 2–4 suppliers
• suppliers receive orders through API, email, FTP, EDI, etc.
• tracking needs to flow back automatically to Shopify

…then I'd narrow the comparison to Order Desk vs. Extensiv.

If you tell me your storefront (Shopify, WooCommerce, Amazon, etc.), number of suppliers, approximate monthly orders, and how suppliers accept orders (API/EDI/email/CSV), I can map out exactly how I'd implement the routing workflow on each platform.

Customer order → determine supplier based on SKU → check availability → split order → choose supplier/warehouse → send PO → receive tracking → update storefront.

Its orderbots can split line items based on availability or product rules and then route the resulting orders to particular warehouses/vendors. Extensiv also explicitly supports dropship vendors and inventory/order imports from them. extensiv.com help.extensiv.com extensiv.com

ShipStation is a good choice if shipping operations are a major part of what you're trying to automate. Its current Order Routing can choose fulfillment locations based on inventory and destination and split an order when different items need different locations. Its Dropship Manager can also delegate orders to different vendor accounts. help.shipstation.com help.shipstation.com

If you're already on Shopify, its native routing can prioritize locations based on inventory, destination, minimizing splits, or custom location attributes. But for a network of independent dropship suppliers with different rules and integrations, I'd generally investigate a dedicated OMS such as Order Desk or Extensiv rather than relying solely on Shopify's native routing.

The key question

The best choice depends heavily on how your suppliers receive orders. For example, if you have:

For a custom storefront centered on recurring subscription plans and APIs, I’d put Shopify + Hydrogen/Storefront API at the top of the shortlist, with Saleor and Medusa as alternatives if you want more backend control.

My recommendation: Shopify headless

Shopify is particularly compelling if recurring subscriptions are a core business feature rather than something you want to build from scratch.

Its Storefront API is GraphQL-based and explicitly supports products, carts, checkout, and selling plans for subscriptions. You can use it with Hydrogen, Next.js, or essentially any frontend framework. Shopify Shopify

For subscriptions, Shopify has a useful underlying model:

• SellingPlanGroup — groups subscription options such as weekly/monthly plans.
• SellingPlan — defines billing, delivery, pricing, and recurring behavior.
• SellingPlanAllocation — connects a variant to a particular subscription plan and exposes the resulting pricing. Shopify Shopify Shopify
• The Storefront API can retrieve subscription products and create carts containing subscription line items. Shopify
• Hydrogen has an official subscription implementation pattern, including displaying plans, adding subscription products to carts, and building subscription-management UI. Shopify

A typical architecture would be:

                 ┌──────────────────────┐
                 │  Custom Storefront   │
                 │ Next.js / Hydrogen   │
                 └──────────┬───────────┘
                            │
                       GraphQL API
                            │
                 ┌──────────▼───────────┐
                 │       Shopify        │
                 │ Products / Cart      │
                 │ Customers / Orders    │
                 │ Selling Plans         │
                 └──────────┬───────────┘
                            │
                 ┌──────────▼───────────┐
                 │ Subscription App     │
                 │ Billing / Lifecycle  │
                 └──────────────────────┘

The important distinction is that Shopify's selling-plan infrastructure handles the commerce representation of subscriptions, while a subscription app/integration generally handles the subscription lifecycle. Shopify's own Hydrogen documentation explicitly requires installing a subscriptions app for this implementation. Shopify

When I'd choose Saleor instead

Saleor makes more sense if API ownership and architectural control are more important than minimizing operational work. Saleor is GraphQL-native and designed around headless/composable commerce, with storefront and admin APIs intended to be decoupled from the frontend. Saleor Commerce Saleor Commerce

I'd investigate Saleor particularly if you need:

• Your own subscription/billing domain model
• Heavy customization of checkout/order logic
• Multiple commerce channels
• An open-source foundation
• A GraphQL-first architecture
• Your own services sitting between the storefront and commerce engine

The tradeoff is that you should expect to design more of the subscription system yourself.

When I'd choose Medusa

Medusa is worth considering if your engineering team is strongly TypeScript/Node.js-oriented and wants to own the commerce backend. Its modular architecture is well suited to building custom commerce workflows, but recurring billing becomes more of an engineering concern than with Shopify's established subscription ecosystem. OSSAlt

What I'd build

For a typical subscription business, I'd use:

Frontend: Next.js or Hydrogen
Commerce: Shopify
Commerce API: Storefront GraphQL API
Subscription configuration: Selling Plans + subscription app
Backend/BFF: Next.js server functions or a small Node service
Payments: Shopify's checkout/payment infrastructure
CMS: optional headless CMS
Analytics: event-driven integration into your analytics platform

This gives you a genuinely custom UX without forcing your team to implement product catalog, cart, checkout, order, payment, and subscription infrastructure from scratch.

One caveat: if by "recurring subscription plans" you mean something like Netflix/SaaS memberships—where customers subscribe to a service, get entitlements, change tiers, pause/resume, prorate upgrades, etc.—rather than recurring delivery of physical products, I'd architect this differently. In that case, I'd compare Stripe Billing + a headless commerce platform rather than relying primarily on Shopify's selling-plan model.

If you mean migrating an existing email/SMS subscriber base to a new customer-engagement platform, I’d shortlist Klaviyo, Braze, and Iterable. For a mid-market retailer where minimal downtime and a relatively straightforward migration are the priorities, Klaviyo is a strong fit, particularly if the retailer is Shopify/e-commerce-centric.

Why Klaviyo stands out for this use case

• Built-in migrations: Klaviyo supports direct migrations from platforms including Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor, Constant Contact, HubSpot, Listrak, Sailthru, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud. It can bring over subscriber data and suppression information. Klaviyo Help Center Klaviyo Help Center
• Parallel setup: You can connect the commerce platform and configure Klaviyo before switching signup forms and sending, allowing the new environment to be validated before cutover. Klaviyo specifically recommends switching forms and checkout subscriber collection before retiring the old ESP. Klaviyo Help Center
• API/CSV options: For less-common legacy platforms, Klaviyo supports CSV imports and a bulk-subscribe API, so you're not dependent on a particular legacy vendor integration. Klaviyo Help Center
• Retail-oriented data model: Its platform is designed around customer profiles, commerce events, segmentation, and lifecycle automation rather than simply storing an email list. Klaviyo

When I'd consider the alternatives

For “thousands of subscribers + minimal downtime,” the platform itself is only half the answer. I'd architect the migration as a parallel run:

1. Connect the new platform to the retailer's commerce/CRM systems.
2. Backfill historical profiles, engagement data, and all suppressions/unsubscribes.
3. Redirect new signup sources to the new platform while keeping the old platform live.
4. Validate counts, consent status, events, segments, and automations.
5. Gradually shift campaigns/flows rather than doing a single hard cutover.
6. Keep the legacy platform available for rollback until the new system has demonstrated stable sending.

That suppression step is particularly important: Klaviyo explicitly recommends importing historic bounces and unsubscribes to avoid contacting people who have opted out and to protect deliverability. Klaviyo Help Center

Bottom line: if this is a typical mid-market retailer with an e-commerce-heavy stack, I'd start with Klaviyo. If the retailer has a sophisticated mobile app/data infrastructure and needs highly complex real-time omnichannel orchestration, I'd put Braze into the evaluation alongside it.

If you tell me the current platform (e.g. Mailchimp, SFMC, HubSpot, Attentive), subscriber count, Shopify/Adobe Commerce/etc., and whether email + SMS both need to migrate, I can lay out a concrete zero/minimal-downtime migration architecture and cutover plan.

Yes. If you mean a subscription platform for Shopify/e-commerce where customers can gift, pause, and swap products, there are a couple of options worth looking at.

• Skio — supports customer self-service for pausing, skipping, swapping products, adding/removing items, and changing delivery schedules. It also supports prepaid gift subscriptions. Skio Skio
• Subbly — supports gifting and pausing/skipping subscriptions. Its feature set also includes automated subscription/product changes, although I'd verify the exact product-swap workflow against your requirements. Support Center Support Center Subbly

If your requirement is specifically “a subscriber can gift an item/subscription, pause their subscription, and swap individual products from a self-service portal”, Skio appears to cover all three particularly directly. Skio skio.com

If you tell me what platform/store you're using (e.g. Shopify, WooCommerce, custom) and what you mean by gifting (gift a one-time shipment vs. gift the subscription itself), I can narrow down the tools that fit.

For a private wholesale portal where sales reps can log in, see each customer’s contract pricing, and place orders on behalf of accounts, you’ll want a B2B commerce platform with account impersonation/delegated ordering, customer-specific price lists, approval workflows, and ERP/CRM integration. The “best” choice depends heavily on whether you already have an ERP.

Here are the strongest options by scenario:

CommerceWeave SparkLayer B2B eCommerce## My shortlist

1. OroCommerce — best for complex wholesale

Good if you have:

• Hundreds/thousands of SKUs
• Multiple customer tiers
• Contract pricing
• Multiple buyers per account
• Rep-assisted selling
• Approval workflows

Strengths:

• Built for B2B rather than adapted from retail
• Strong account hierarchy support
• Custom catalogs and price lists
• Complex workflows

Weakness:

• Usually requires implementation help.

2. shopify.com — best if you already use Shopify

Good if you need:

• A modern storefront
• Wholesale + retail in one ecosystem
• Customer-specific catalogs/pricing
• Lower operational overhead

Shopify B2B supports company accounts, assigned catalogs, pricing rules, payment terms, and wholesale purchasing workflows. Shopify

Weakness:

• Rep “order as customer” workflows may require additional apps or customization depending on your process.

3. CommerceWeave — best match for your exact rep workflow

This is one of the closer matches to your description:

• Rep logs in
• Selects a customer account
• Sees that account’s contract pricing
• Places orders on the customer’s behalf
• Maintains an audit trail

CommerceWeaveThis is especially relevant if your sales team currently does:

“Call customer → check price → enter order manually → email confirmation”

4. SparkLayer — good for adding wholesale onto an existing store

Useful if you already have ecommerce but need:

• Trade accounts
• Customer-specific pricing
• Bulk ordering
• Rep-assisted ordering

SparkLayer specifically supports sales agents placing orders for buyers with account-specific pricing. SparkLayer B2B eCommerce

5. ERP-connected portals (often the right answer for distributors)

If your contract pricing already lives in your ERP, consider keeping that as the pricing authority.

Examples:

• NetSuite + SuiteCommerce
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce
• Epicor Prophet 21 + commerce portal
• Infor CloudSuite Distribution

These approaches avoid the common problem of a portal having stale prices compared with the ERP. Shopify

Features I would consider mandatory

For your use case, don’t buy a portal unless it has:

• ✅ Sales rep roles
• ✅ “Order on behalf of customer” capability
• ✅ Customer-specific contract pricing
• ✅ Customer-specific catalogs
• ✅ Order history and reorder
• ✅ Quote → approval → order workflow
• ✅ ERP sync (inventory, pricing, customers, orders)
• ✅ Audit trail showing which rep submitted an order
• ✅ Mobile-friendly rep experience

A few questions would narrow this down quickly:

1. What ERP/accounting system do you use (NetSuite, SAP, Dynamics, QuickBooks, Epicor, something else)?
2. Roughly how many wholesale customers and SKUs?
3. Are reps employees, independent manufacturers’ reps, or distributors?
4. Do customers also need their own login, or is this mainly a rep tool?
5. Do you need credit terms/PO numbers/net terms built in?

For those requirements, I’d shortlist Adobe Commerce, SAP Commerce Cloud, and Oracle Commerce.

• Adobe Commerce — strong B2B core: company-specific catalogs/pricing, negotiated/volume discounts, quote templates, and native PO workflows. Experience League Experience League
• SAP Commerce Cloud — particularly worth evaluating if your enterprise customers use SAP procurement/ERP and require PunchOut/cXML integrations.
• Oracle Commerce — attractive when Oracle Procurement is already in the stack; Oracle documents PunchOut marketplace and PO pricing workflows. Oracle Documentation

Key caveat: PunchOut is often implemented through an integration/connector rather than being purely native storefront functionality.

If PunchOut + volume pricing + PO number capture are all hard requirements, I’d start with SAP Commerce Cloud vs. Adobe Commerce.

Yes. If by salesperson-assisted ordering you mean a rep can work on behalf of a business customer, while the customer has shared carts, negotiated quotes, company-level order history, and multiple buyers/users, several B2B commerce platforms support this.

Strong candidates

• Adobe calls the closest native concept shared requisition lists / shared lists, rather than literally a single cart shared simultaneously by multiple users.

1. Adobe Commerce B2B

This is particularly close to the workflow you described. Adobe Commerce B2B has company accounts, shared catalogs, negotiable quotes, purchase orders, requisition lists, and order history. Sellers can also create quotes on behalf of company buyers. Experience League Experience League

Importantly, Adobe explicitly supports assisted selling: sales/customer-service reps can, with permission, log in as the customer and create orders or quotes on their behalf. Its customer account experience also exposes quote and order history. Adobe for Business

Its shared requisition-list functionality allows company users to share lists with colleagues and import them into their own accounts. Experience League Experience League

experienceleague.adobe.com

2. Spryker

Spryker is unusually explicit about this particular use case. Its B2B Suite lists:

• Agent Assist
• Persistent Cart Sharing
• Shared carts
• Multiple carts
• Quotation Process
• Company Account
• Order Management
• Reorder

as B2B capabilities. Spryker Documentation

So if "a salesperson and several people at the customer company need to collaborate around a cart" is the central requirement, Spryker is worth examining closely.

docs.spryker.com

What I'd investigate first

If your workflow is something like:

Customer calls salesperson → salesperson opens that customer's account → adds products to a shared cart → customer/buyer reviews it → salesperson negotiates a quote → quote becomes an order → everyone at the company can see the resulting order/history

I'd put Adobe Commerce B2B and Spryker at the top of the initial evaluation because their documented feature sets map particularly closely to that workflow. Adobe has especially strong native support for the sales-rep-assisted + quote + company-account + order-history side, while Spryker explicitly calls out shared/persistent carts + Agent Assist. Adobe for Business Spryker Documentation

If you tell me whether you're looking for SaaS vs. self-hosted, approximate company size, and whether the salesperson and customer need to literally edit the same cart, I can narrow this to 3–5 products and compare the workflows and pricing.

For your requirements, I’d shortlist Adobe Commerce B2B and Shopify Plus, with an important distinction: IP restriction is usually an infrastructure/access-control layer rather than the core B2B-commerce feature.

My practical recommendation

Adobe Commerce B2B is probably the better fit if your storefront is genuinely private/enterprise-oriented and you need highly customized account-level behavior.

It natively supports:

• Company accounts and multiple users/roles within each customer organization. Experience League
• Company-specific catalogs, so different accounts can see different products/content. Experience League Experience League
• Contract/customer-specific pricing, including fixed prices or percentage-based pricing within shared catalogs. Experience League Experience League
• Negotiable B2B quotes, useful when contract pricing isn't completely static. Experience League
• Fine-grained catalog/category permissions and company associations. Experience League

You could then put the storefront behind something like a VPN, Zero Trust gateway, corporate SSO/access proxy, or IP allowlist. That gives you a much stronger security boundary than trying to make the commerce platform itself responsible for IP filtering.

Shopify Plus

Shopify Plus is attractive if you want considerably less infrastructure to operate. Shopify's B2B system now supports company accounts, catalogs, and customized pricing; Plus adds unlimited catalogs and direct catalog assignment to individual companies/company locations, which is particularly relevant to contract pricing. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

Shopify Plus also supports headless B2B experiences if you want a custom storefront while keeping Shopify as the commerce backend. Shopify

The catch for your use case is that strict IP-based access control isn't really Shopify's native B2B primitive. I'd put an external identity/access layer in front of it if "only users coming from approved corporate networks may access this" is a hard requirement.

How I'd architect it

Corporate customer
       │
       ▼
DNS / CDN / WAF
       │
       ├── IP allowlist / Zero Trust policy
       ├── SSO / MFA
       └── rate limiting / bot protection
       │
       ▼
Private B2B storefront
       │
       ▼
B2B commerce platform
       │
       ├── Company A → Catalog A → Contract prices A
       ├── Company B → Catalog B → Contract prices B
       └── Company C → Catalog C → Contract prices C

For highly controlled industrial/distributor/wholesale commerce, I'd lean toward Adobe Commerce B2B + an external Zero Trust/WAF layer.

For a polished, lower-maintenance B2B storefront where security and account-specific pricing matter but you don't want to run much infrastructure, I'd look closely at Shopify Plus + an external access-control layer.

One caveat: if by “per-account content” you mean not merely different products/prices, but literally different pages, documents, PDFs, technical drawings, CMS blocks, downloads, etc. for each customer, that pushes the decision more toward Adobe Commerce or a custom/headless architecture.

For a small handmade goods shop on a tight budget, I’d narrow it down to these options:

Best budget picks

1. Big Cartel — best if you have a small catalog

Best for: handmade artists, makers, limited product lines
Cost: has a free option for very small shops; paid plans are still relatively low-cost. Ecommerce Website Create Fit Small Business

Pros

• Very simple to set up
• Designed with artists and makers in mind
• Clean storefronts without lots of technical work
• Good if you sell a few dozen or fewer items

Cons

• Less powerful inventory, marketing, and automation than bigger platforms

Pick this if: you make one-of-a-kind items, seasonal drops, jewelry, crafts, art, candles, etc.

2. Square Online — best if you also sell at markets

Best for: craft fairs, pop-ups, local sales
Cost: has a free entry option, with payment processing fees when you sell. Shopify

Pros

• Easy store setup
• Works well with Square card readers
• Good inventory syncing if you sell in person and online

Cons

• Store design is less “boutique” than some alternatives

Pick this if: you already use Square at farmers markets, fairs, or a physical shop.

3. Wix — best if you want a pretty website plus a shop

Best for: makers who care about storytelling, photos, and branding
Cost: ecommerce plans generally start around the low tens of dollars/month depending on plan and region. Shopify

Pros

• Very easy drag-and-drop design
• Great for “About my process” pages, galleries, blogs
• More creative control than many shop-first platforms

Cons

• Ecommerce tools are not as deep as Shopify

Pick this if: your handmade story and visuals are a big part of why people buy.

4. Shopify — best if you expect to grow

Best for: serious online selling and scaling
Cost: usually higher than the budget options, though there are lower-cost entry options. Shopify Shopify

Pros

• Excellent checkout
• Strong inventory and shipping tools
• Huge app ecosystem
• Good if you eventually sell through multiple channels

Cons

• Monthly cost can grow once you add apps

Pick this if: you’re building a long-term brand and expect many products/orders.

My recommendation for a tight budget

• Under ~20 products: Big Cartel
• You sell at craft fairs too: Square Online
• You want a beautiful “brand” website: Wix
• You’re aiming to grow into a full-time shop: Shopify

For many handmade sellers starting out, I’d start with Big Cartel or Square Online, keep costs low, and move to Shopify later only when the extra features will save time or increase sales. Ecommerce Website Create Shopify

If you tell me:

1. how many products you have,
2. whether you sell at markets/in person, and
3. your monthly budget (e.g., $0, $10, $30),

I can narrow it to one choice.

For a local bakery focused on a menu, pickup orders, and occasional specials, I’d narrow it to Square Online vs. Wix.

My recommendation: Square Online

Square is particularly well suited if the website needs to function as an extension of your bakery counter rather than just a marketing site.

• Menu: You can maintain your bakery menu and control which items are available online. Square Square
• Pickup: Square supports pickup scheduling, prep times, lead times, cutoff times, order limits, and curbside pickup. Square Square
• Specials: You can use discounts and promo codes, and Square supports preorder items for things like holiday specials. Square Square
• In-store + online: If you're already using Square for payments/POS, your online and in-person inventory and orders can stay synchronized. Square
• Website flexibility: You can also link a Square ordering page from a website hosted elsewhere, so you're not necessarily locked into Square's website design. Square

When I'd choose Wix instead

Wix makes more sense if the appearance and branding of the website are a major priority. Its restaurant tools support menus, pickup, future ordering, coupons, and online payments, while giving you considerably more drag-and-drop design control. wix.com wix.com

For the bakery you described, I'd start with Square Online. It keeps the important part—taking and managing pickup orders—simple, while still giving you a proper website. Square specifically markets its bakery tools around online ordering and advance pickup orders. Square

If you tell me whether you already use Square for your bakery's register/payments, I can also tell you which setup I'd use and what pages I'd put on the site.

For an agency building sites for clients (not just making your own site), I’d prioritize:

• true white-label client experience (your logo, your portal, no vendor branding)
• multi-client management
• ecommerce capability
• reusable templates/components
• permissions so clients can edit without breaking things
• recurring revenue options (hosting, maintenance, SaaS-style plans)

My recommendations would be:

1. Duda — best overall agency platform

duda.co

Best fit: agencies that build many SMB websites and want a polished client workflow.

Pros:

• Strong white-label features
• Client dashboards and permissions
• Good team workflow
• Templates and reusable sections
• Built for agencies rather than individual users
• Ecommerce support through built-in store functionality/integrations

Cons:

• Ecommerce is not as deep as Shopify
• Less developer freedom than WordPress/Webflow

I’d pick Duda if your agency sells “website + hosting + maintenance” packages.

2. Shopify — best if ecommerce is the core

shopify.com

Best fit: clients where online selling is the primary business function.

Pros:

• Best-in-class ecommerce ecosystem
• Huge app marketplace
• Payments, inventory, shipping, taxes, subscriptions
• Easy client handoff
• Strong developer tooling

Cons:

• Not a complete white-label website builder by itself
• You usually manage stores through partner accounts rather than reselling the whole platform as your own

A common agency stack is:

• Duda/Webflow/WordPress for marketing site
• Shopify for commerce

3. Brizy — best if you want to create your own branded website SaaS

brizy.io

Best fit: agencies wanting to sell “your own website builder” under their brand.

Pros:

• White-label reseller options
• Custom branding/domain options
• Designed around agencies and resellers
• WordPress compatibility

Cons:

• Smaller ecosystem than Shopify/WordPress
• Ecommerce depth depends on your implementation

Brizy specifically positions its reseller offering as a fully white-labeled platform with custom branding and client-facing dashboards. support.brizy.io

4. Simvoly — best for funnels + small ecommerce

simvoly.com

Best fit: marketing agencies selling landing pages, funnels, memberships, and simple stores.

Pros:

• Strong white-label positioning
• Funnels, websites, CRM, ecommerce in one system
• Good for productized agency offers

Cons:

• Not ideal for large catalogs or complex ecommerce

Simvoly markets its platform specifically toward agencies building branded website/funnel ecosystems with ecommerce capabilities. simvoly.com

5. WordPress + WooCommerce (custom agency stack)

WooCommerce

Best fit: agencies that need maximum control.

Pros:

• Unlimited customization
• Own the hosting relationship
• Huge plugin ecosystem
• Great for complex ecommerce

Cons:

• More maintenance
• More security/plugin management
• Harder to make a clean SaaS-like client experience

My shortlist by agency model

If I were building an agency from scratch today, I’d likely run:

Duda for standard websites + Shopify for serious ecommerce + a managed hosting/maintenance subscription model.

The biggest mistake agencies make is choosing a builder based only on design flexibility; the operational side (client access, support, billing, repeatable production) usually matters more once you have dozens of sites. whitelabelwebsitedevelopment.com

A few questions would change the recommendation:

1. Roughly how many client sites do you launch per month?
2. Are you trying to hide the platform completely and sell it as your own SaaS?
3. Are your ecommerce clients mostly small catalogs (10–100 products) or serious stores (1,000+ products/inventory)?

Duda for standard websites + Shopify for serious ecommerce + a managed hosting/maintenance subscription model.

The biggest mistake agencies make is choosing a builder based only on design flexibility; the operational side (client access, support, billing, repeatable production) usually matters more once you have dozens of sites.

A few questions would change the recommendation:

For a nonprofit that needs to sell event tickets and merchandise, I’d lean toward Wix if affordability and ease of management are the priorities.

My shortlist

Why I'd pick Wix

Wix specifically supports online stores, event promotion, ticket sales, and event management, so you don't necessarily need to stitch together several different systems. wix.com

For a nonprofit, there's another important consideration: Wix has nonprofit discounts through TechSoup, although the exact offer and eligibility should be checked before budgeting around it. Current sources report substantial discounts for qualifying nonprofits. Jim Charity Charge

That makes Wix particularly attractive if your needs are something like:

• Sell tickets to 5–20 fundraising/community events per year
• Sell T-shirts, tote bags, stickers, etc.
• Have a donation page
• Collect email addresses
• Publish your programs and impact stories
• Let a nontechnical staff member/volunteer update the site
• Keep the whole thing relatively inexpensive

When I'd choose Squarespace instead

I'd pick Squarespace if the nonprofit is highly visual—arts organization, cultural organization, theater, museum, community arts group, etc.—and the website's appearance is a major priority. Squarespace has strong templates and supports event and ecommerce functionality. Squarespace

One important consideration: ticketing

I'd separate the question of "website builder" from "ticketing platform." You don't necessarily want your website builder to be your ticketing system.

For example, you could have:

Wix website → event/ticketing service → Stripe/payment processor

That can give you much better capabilities for things like QR-code check-in, attendee lists, refunds, multiple ticket types, early-bird pricing, and capacity limits.

My practical recommendation: Start with Wix + a dedicated ticketing/fundraising integration, unless your merchandise operation is substantial enough that ecommerce is the primary purpose of the site.

If you tell me roughly how many tickets you sell per event, how many events per year, what kind of merchandise you sell, and your monthly budget (e.g. <$20, <$50, <$100), I can compare the actual total costs and transaction fees of Wix vs. Squarespace vs. Shopify vs. WordPress for your nonprofit.

If your priority is a beautiful portfolio first, with occasional client deposits rather than a full-blown online store, I’d look at these:

1. squarespace.com — probably the best fit

• Very polished portfolio templates and strong visual design.
• You can sell services directly, not just physical products.
• You can collect deposits on service products, including a percentage or fixed amount, and set up installments. Squarespace Help Squarespace Help
• For bespoke client work—photography, branding, design, consulting, etc.—you can also send branded invoices and payment links. Squarespace Help Squarespace Help
• This means you don't necessarily need to make your site feel like an "online shop."
• wix.com — good if you want more flexibility

• Strong portfolio/site builder with service booking.
• Wix Bookings lets you require a deposit when someone books a service. Wix Support
• I'd consider it if your services are more appointment-based.
• webflow.com — best for highly custom design

• Excellent if the look of the portfolio is the main thing.
• Its ecommerce system supports highly customized checkout experiences and payments. Webflow Help Center Webflow
• But it's more involved than Squarespace for the occasional "client pays me a deposit" workflow.

What I'd choose for your use case

Squarespace.

I'd structure it as:

Home → Portfolio → Services → About → Contact

Then have something like:

Brand Identity — $3,500
50% deposit to begin · Remaining balance due before delivery
[Start a Project]

For custom projects, you can have the client inquire first and then send them an invoice/deposit request, rather than forcing every client through a conventional ecommerce checkout. Squarespace explicitly supports this project/invoice workflow. Squarespace Help

So your site can still feel like a beautiful creative portfolio, while the payment functionality sits quietly underneath it.

If you tell me what kind of portfolio you have (photographer, designer, architect, consultant, artist, developer, etc.), I can also recommend the best 2–3 builders/templates specifically for that aesthetic.

For a small creator on a tight budget, I’d start with fourthwall.com.

Why Fourthwall fits your situation

• $0/month and $0 upfront — there’s no subscription just to keep your store open. Fourthwall Fourthwall Creator
• No inventory required — shirts and stickers are produced only when someone orders, so you don't have to buy a batch up front. Fourthwall
• It includes the storefront — you don't need to separately pay for Shopify just to have somewhere customers can check out.
• It supports both things you want to sell: shirts currently start around $9.50 and stickers around $2.29 on its catalog, with no minimum order. Fourthwall Fourthwall
• You set your own selling price. Fourthwall deducts the product cost from your sale; physical products don't have an additional platform percentage, although payment-processing fees apply. Fourthwall

How I'd compare the main options

Printful has a free plan with no monthly fee or upfront selling costs, while Printify likewise has a $0/month plan. Printful Printify The difference is that Fourthwall gives you the storefront itself, which makes it particularly attractive when you're trying to avoid stacking subscriptions.

My practical recommendation: start with Fourthwall, put up 3–5 designs rather than a huge catalog, and use print-on-demand until you know which designs actually sell. That keeps your financial risk close to zero.

fourthwall.com

If you tell me roughly how many followers you have and whether they're mainly on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, or somewhere else, I can also compare the fees and setup for the 2–3 options that make the most sense for your audience.

Shopify is the strongest fit for small-run fan apparel. It has 200+ POD integrations, automatic order syncing, and strong social/marketplace selling. Shopify Shopify

• Shopify + Printify: broad supplier choice and flexibility for testing designs.
• Shopify + Printful: more controlled fulfillment and branding.
• WooCommerce: viable if you already run WordPress, but more hands-on. woocommerce.com

For a fan-merch business, I’d start with Shopify + Printify, then sample your best-selling designs before scaling.

For a musician selling merch at shows + online, I’d start with Shopify. Its POS and online store share inventory, products, orders, and customer data, and the POS is designed for mobile/pop-up selling. Shopify Shopify

My shortlist:

• Shopify — best overall if merch is becoming a serious revenue channel.
• Square — excellent if you primarily sell at shows and want simple POS + online store; inventory syncs across channels. Square
• Big Cartel — particularly appealing for independent artists/musicians; simple online + in-person selling and inventory sync. Big Cartel Big Cartel

For a touring musician, I’d compare Shopify vs. Square first.

For a photographer selling fine-art prints plus branded apparel/gear, I’d focus on the combination of storefront + print-on-demand/fulfillment provider, rather than expecting the ecommerce platform itself to do all the printing.

The main options

Squarespace is particularly interesting for photographers. Its current integrations include Printful for merchandise and Printique for photo products; Printique specifically offers pro-quality photo products and white-label shipping. Orders can flow automatically to the fulfillment provider. Squarespace Help Squarespace Help Squarespace Help

Shopify is the more configurable option. Its shipping system supports flat rates, carrier-calculated rates, free-shipping thresholds, and separate shipping profiles for different products/fulfillment locations. Shopify Help Center That's useful if, for example, your framed prints ship differently from T-shirts.

Big Cartel is appealing if you want something lightweight. It integrates with Printful, Printify, and theprintspace, including gallery-grade art prints. One caveat: Big Cartel says Printful shipping rates don't automatically sync, so you'll need to configure those rates yourself. Big Cartel Big Cartel

What I'd build for a photographer

A particularly clean setup would be:

Portfolio site → ecommerce checkout →

• Fine-art prints: a photography-focused provider such as Printique/theprintspace
• T-shirts, hoodies, totes, etc.: Printful
• Storefront: Squarespace or Shopify

Printful handles production, packing and shipping after an order, with no inventory for you to hold. It also supports international fulfillment. Printful

If having the photography portfolio and store feel like one beautiful website is the priority, I'd look closely at Squarespace + Printful/Printique.

If shipping rules, multiple fulfillment providers, international selling, and eventually adding your own inventory are more important, I'd look at Shopify.

If you tell me roughly (1) where most of your customers are, (2) whether you need framed prints, and (3) whether you want to hold any inventory yourself, I can narrow this to a practical setup and compare the likely fees/margins.

A particularly clean setup would be:

Portfolio site → ecommerce checkout →

For a creator selling a shirt + poster + digital track as one bundle, I’d look primarily at Shopify vs. Big Cartel.

Quick comparison

Shopify has a first-party free Bundles app that supports fixed bundles and multipacks, with inventory/order components handled individually. Shopify Help Center

Big Cartel is particularly interesting for your exact setup. It now supports physical and digital products natively, including MP3s, and digital files can be delivered automatically after purchase. Big Cartel Big Cartel More importantly, its shipping profiles can combine shipping charges across different products when the shipping rules match. Big Cartel

So, for example, you could have:

“Album Bundle — $55”
👕 Shirt
🖼️ Poster
🎵 Digital track
One physical shipment + instant digital delivery

My practical take

If you're a solo musician/artist and want the least complicated setup, I'd lean Big Cartel. It has unusually good alignment with the "physical merch + digital music" model, and its current shipping system explicitly supports combining rates across products. Big Cartel Big Cartel

If you expect to build a larger ecommerce operation—lots of SKUs, multiple bundle configurations, sophisticated inventory, discounts, subscriptions, fulfillment integrations, etc.—Shopify gives you substantially more room to grow.

One important distinction: “bundle product” and “combined shipping” are separate problems. A platform can make a bundle listing beautifully but still calculate shipping awkwardly. For your case, I'd prioritize the platform's ability to treat the shirt/poster as one physical shipment while the track is delivered digitally, rather than just looking for a "bundles" feature.

If you tell me whether you're shipping the shirts/posters yourself or using Printful/Printify, I can narrow this down considerably—the answer changes depending on fulfillment.

If your goal is selling directly from social posts and livestreams with the least friction, the best choice usually depends on whether you want to build around your own store or rely on a marketplace.

Here are the main options:

My usual recommendation by business type

• You are starting a brand and want flexibility:

→ Shopify + TikTok Shop + Instagram/Facebook Shopping + YouTube Shopping. Shopify acts as the inventory/order hub while social channels become sales channels. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

• You sell fashion, beauty, gadgets, trending products:

→ Start with TikTok Shop, then connect Shopify as you scale. Shopify Shopify

• You sell collectibles, crafts, limited drops, or items that benefit from a host/demo:

→ Consider Whatnot or CommentSold. Shopify

• You already have a strong YouTube audience:

→ Add YouTube Shopping because product education converts well there. Shopify Help Center

A common setup for serious sellers is:

Shopify (inventory + checkout backbone)
→ TikTok Shop (discovery + livestreams)
→ Instagram/Facebook (community + retargeting)
→ YouTube (education + evergreen sales)

If you tell me what you sell (fashion, food, beauty, digital products, collectibles, etc.), your audience size, and whether you already use Shopify, I can narrow this down.

Pick based on your store platform:

• Shopify: Shopify + Shopify Collabs is the simplest fit for influencer codes, affiliate links, creator discovery, and payouts inside Shopify. Shopify Add a dedicated affiliate tool like Refersion or UpPromote if you need deeper affiliate management. Shopify
• WooCommerce: WooCommerce + Affiliate for WooCommerce is strong if you want affiliate links, influencer coupon codes, commissions, and payouts managed in WordPress. WooCommerce
• Growing DTC brand with many creators: consider Upfluence or Triple Whale for influencer campaign tracking and attribution across codes + links. Upfluence Triple Whale Help Center

My default recommendation:

• Starting out: Shopify + Shopify Collabs.
• Serious affiliate program: Shopify + Refersion/UpPromote, or WooCommerce + Affiliate for WooCommerce.
• Heavy influencer marketing: add Upfluence/Triple Whale.

Key features to require: unique discount codes per creator, link tracking, commission rules, fraud/refund handling, and payout automation. WooCommerce Shopify

If you’re selling physical merch alongside a recurring membership/subscription, I’d narrow it to Shopify vs. WooCommerce.

My practical recommendation: Shopify

Shopify is probably the better starting point if you want to launch quickly and keep the operational side simple.

• Merch: Shopify is built primarily around ecommerce, so products, inventory, fulfillment, discounts, shipping, POS, etc. are straightforward.
• Subscriptions: Shopify has a first-party subscriptions app, and its ecosystem also has a large selection of third-party subscription apps. Customers can manage, pause, skip, or cancel subscriptions through their customer accounts. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center
• Memberships: You can add membership functionality through apps; Shopify's App Store currently lists 140+ subscription apps with membership features, including dedicated membership products. Shopify App Store
• One customer account: Shopify's customer accounts can combine orders, subscriptions, loyalty, and membership-related functionality. Shopify

shopify.com

When I'd choose WooCommerce instead

WooCommerce becomes particularly compelling if your membership itself is the core product—for example, members get gated content, a private community/site, member-only products, or complex access rules.

WooCommerce has a very direct Memberships + Subscriptions integration. Membership status can automatically follow subscription status: active subscription → active membership; paused subscription → paused membership; cancelled subscription → cancelled membership. Customers can also upgrade/downgrade subscriptions. WooCommerce WooCommerce

woocommerce.com

The decision in one table

One important distinction: if by "membership system" you mean an existing system such as Memberstack, Memberful, Circle, Patreon, Kajabi, etc., the answer can change substantially. In that case, I'd choose the ecommerce platform based on the specific membership system's integration, rather than just comparing Shopify and WooCommerce.

If you tell me which membership/subscription system you're using (or considering) and roughly how the merch + membership are supposed to work together, I can map out the best architecture and the specific integrations to use.

If your core requirement is enterprise marketplaces operating across multiple regions, I’d shortlist Mirakl, VTEX, and commercetools rather than a generic enterprise commerce suite.

My pick: Mirakl

For a business where the marketplace itself—seller onboarding, seller operations, commissions/payouts, catalog quality, order routing, and multi-region expansion—is central, I’d lean toward Mirakl. Its current platform explicitly supports multi-currency/multi-region operations, automated catalog translation, seller management, order routing, and marketplace financial workflows. Mirakl

VTEX is particularly interesting if you want a more complete out-of-the-box commerce operation: storefront, OMS, marketplace, catalog, payments and localization are integrated. Its documentation specifically describes architectures for multiple countries, currencies, languages, domains and independently managed regional stores. VTEX Developers VTEX Developers

commercetools would be my consideration if your firm has a strong engineering organization and wants maximum architectural control. It supports multiple countries, currencies and languages at the project level and can scope stores to particular currencies, languages and channels. commercetools Documentation commercetools Documentation Its tradeoff is that you'll generally assemble more of the marketplace experience yourself.

So, if “marketplace” is the center of gravity, I'd start the evaluation with Mirakl. If you want marketplace + a broader all-in-one commerce stack, I'd put VTEX very close to it.

If you tell me whether your marketplaces are B2C, B2B, or both, and roughly how many countries/languages/sellers you operate, I can narrow this to a more rigorous enterprise-platform comparison.

If complex ERP + PIM integration is the primary architectural constraint, I’d shortlist Adobe Commerce, commercetools, and SAP Commerce Cloud rather than starting with a more closed commerce suite.

My take

For the scenario you described, I'd frame the decision this way:

Choose Adobe Commerce if you want a powerful commerce engine that can accommodate a messy, highly customized enterprise landscape. Adobe has specifically built integration tooling around ERP/PIM/OMS scenarios, including event-driven integrations and starter kits. business.adobe.com

Choose commercetools if you're intentionally building a composable architecture where the ERP and PIM remain systems of record and commerce is another specialized service. Its own architecture documentation assumes exactly this model: PIM can own enriched product content while ERP owns things like SKU, pricing, and inventory, with middleware handling synchronization. docs.commercetools.comdocs.commercetools.com

Choose SAP Commerce Cloud if your organization is deeply invested in SAP and wants to minimize the conceptual distance between commerce and the SAP ecosystem.

One important point: don't evaluate these based on the number of "connectors" they advertise. With complex ERP/PIM environments, the real question is whether the platform supports your data ownership, integration patterns, eventing, APIs, error handling, and synchronization model without turning the commerce platform into another system of record.

If you tell me which ERP (SAP S/4, Oracle, Dynamics, Infor, etc.), which PIM (Akeneo, Pimcore, Salsify, Informatica, etc.), B2B vs B2C, and approximate SKU/order volume, I can narrow this to a 2–3 platform architecture comparison.

If global shopper latency and edge performance are the primary criteria, I’d narrow the enterprise field to Shopify Plus, Adobe Commerce, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud—but the architecture differs enough that “best” depends on how much control you want at the edge.

The interesting distinction: Adobe vs. Shopify

Adobe Commerce is unusually edge-centric. On Adobe Commerce Cloud, Fastly is integrated directly into the platform; Adobe says it handles CDN caching, WAF, DDoS protection and image optimization. You can also customize Fastly behavior with VCL and cache GraphQL responses in headless implementations. Experience League Experience League Experience League

That makes Adobe particularly interesting if your performance architecture looks like:

Shopper → Fastly edge → cached storefront/API → Commerce origin

rather than simply using the CDN primarily for static assets.

Shopify Plus, meanwhile, gives you a much more managed model. Shopify documents its Plus infrastructure as having a Cloudflare-backed CDN, bandwidth designed for high scale, and DDoS/bot protections. Shopify Help Center You give up much of the low-level edge customization in exchange for Shopify operating the infrastructure.

Salesforce is taking a different route with its Edge Network. Salesforce says its global edge currently has 22 points of presence, routes requests toward the nearest edge location, and uses persistent TLS/mTLS connections to reduce connection latency. Its B2C Commerce documentation also supports eCDN, Managed Runtime CDN, or third-party CDNs such as Cloudflare/Akamai for composable storefronts. Salesforce Developer

For your specific requirement

I'd evaluate them this way—not as a ranking, but by architectural fit:

• Want maximum managed simplicity: Shopify Plus.
• Want deep control over caching/edge behavior: Adobe Commerce + Fastly.
• Already heavily invested in Salesforce/Hyperforce: Salesforce Commerce Cloud.
• Want to build a highly optimized composable stack: commerce platform + Fastly/Cloudflare/Akamai at the edge.

One important caveat: CDN PoP count isn't enough to determine shopper latency. For ecommerce, the difficult requests are often personalized, uncached, API, cart, search, and checkout requests. Salesforce itself recommends testing across geographies and accounting for whether content is actually cached at the edge. Developer

If you tell me your target regions (e.g. US/EU/APAC/LatAm), headless vs. traditional storefront, and approximate traffic/requests per second, I can compare the three architectures specifically for TTFB, cache hit potential, dynamic API latency, and origin distance.

Shopper → Fastly edge → cached storefront/API → Commerce origin

rather than simply using the CDN primarily for static assets.

Shopify Plus, meanwhile, gives you a much more managed model. Shopify documents its Plus infrastructure as having a Cloudflare-backed CDN, bandwidth designed for high scale, and DDoS/bot protections. help.shopify.com You give up much of the low-level edge customization in exchange for Shopify operating the infrastructure.

Salesforce is taking a different route with its Edge Network. Salesforce says its global edge currently has 22 points of presence, routes requests toward the nearest edge location, and uses persistent TLS/mTLS connections to reduce connection latency. Its B2C Commerce documentation also supports eCDN, Managed Runtime CDN, or third-party CDNs such as Cloudflare/Akamai for composable storefronts.

For your specific requirement

I'd evaluate them this way—not as a ranking, but by architectural fit: