Crate vs WooCommerce
WooCommerce is open source, it runs on your own server, and you can change any part of it. Everything good and everything hard about it follows from that one sentence.
What WooCommerce is: A free, open source commerce plugin for WordPress, self-hosted, with the largest extension ecosystem outside the hosted platforms and full access to its own source and database.
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How does Crate compare to WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is a free open source commerce plugin for WordPress that you install on hosting you rent and maintain yourself. Crate is hosted: no server, no plugin to update and no backup schedule, and also no source code you can change. That is the whole trade. WooCommerce gives you unlimited extensibility, a very large plugin ecosystem and complete ownership of your database, and charges you for it in maintenance, hosting and the security patching that is now yours. Crate gives you a store that is already configured, already correct on a phone, and already selling in chat and on social, and charges you in flexibility you will not have. A team with a developer usually gets more out of WooCommerce.
Side by side
Qualitative and stable. No prices and no fee percentages for either side, because both change without notice and a comparison table carrying a stale number is worse than no table.
| What | Crate | WooCommerce |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A hosted commerce platform. Nothing to install or run. | An open source plugin for WordPress that you install on hosting you provide. |
| Who runs the server | We do. Hosting, updates, security patches and backups are included and are not your job. | You do, or somebody you pay. Hosting, PHP and WordPress versions, plugin updates and backups are yours. |
| License cost | A plan fee. There is no free tier. | The plugin itself is free. Hosting, a theme, paid extensions and any developer time are not. |
| Extensibility | Themes, sections and a documented set of integrations. You cannot change the platform itself. | Complete. It is open source, so any behavior can be changed by anybody who can write PHP. |
| Owning your data | You can export products, customers and orders at any time. The database itself is ours. | The database is yours, on your server, and you can query it directly. This is a real advantage and it is permanent. |
| Selling in chat and on social | Built in. The same catalog and the same order list. | Available through extensions, which you choose, pay for and keep working. |
| Security patching | Ours. Patched centrally, for every store, without you doing anything. | Yours. An unpatched WordPress or plugin is the most common way a self-hosted store is compromised. |
| Point of sale | Included, on the same phone, sharing one stock count with the online store. | Available through extensions, with their own hardware requirements. |
| Getting help | One vendor. If it is broken it is ours to fix. | The community, your host, your theme author and each extension author, depending on which one broke. |
Which one you actually want
Both columns are real. If the right-hand one describes you, take it: a product that does not fit you is a refund with extra steps.
Choose Crate if
- Nobody on your team wants to be responsible for a server, a plugin update or a backup.
- You want the storefront, social selling and the till counting one stock number with nothing to wire together.
- You run the business from a phone and want the admin to work there properly.
- You would rather pay a predictable plan fee than an unpredictable maintenance bill.
Choose WooCommerce if
- You have a developer, or you are one. This is the strongest reason and it is a good one.
- You want your store's database on infrastructure you control and can query directly.
- You need behavior no hosted platform offers, and you are willing to build it.
- WordPress is already the center of your site and the content, not the shop, is the main event.
- You object on principle to running a business on software you cannot read. That is a legitimate position and Crate does not meet it.
Where Crate is behind
Every comparison on this site carries this section. A page that only lists what we do better is an advert, and you already know how much to trust one of those.
Where Crate is behind: control. You cannot read or change Crate's source code, self-host it, or keep a copy of the database on your own server. WooCommerce lets you do all three. If any of that is a requirement rather than a preference, this comparison ends there and WooCommerce is your answer. We took hosting, patching and backups off the merchant's desk, and the price of that is a boundary you cannot reach past.
Already on WooCommerce?
Stop maintaining a stack. Your products, customers and URLs come across, and the plugin updates, the backups and the security patches stop being your problem.
About switching to Crate from WooCommerce
Short answers, and none of them hedge. If yours is not here, ask us on the contact page.
Can I import my WooCommerce products into Crate?
Yes. Products, variations, stock, images and customers import from a WooCommerce CSV export, and the migration guide covers the fields a Woo export most often loses.
What happens to my plugins?
They do not come with you, and this is the part to plan first. List every active plugin and what it actually does before you export, because a self-hosted store keeps more of its behavior in plugins than in its store data.
Is Crate open source?
No. Crate is a hosted product and you cannot read or change its source. If that is a requirement for you, WooCommerce is the better answer and this page is not going to argue otherwise.
Do I keep my URLs?
Yes. Your existing product and category permalinks are imported as permanent redirects, which matters more on a long-lived self-hosted store than anywhere else because it usually has the most inbound links.
How this comparison is kept honest
Last checked
Everything said about WooCommerce here is a qualitative property of the product taken from what WooCommerce publishes about itself: what kind of product it is, which channels it sells through natively, and which capabilities it ships rather than leaves to an add-on. We publish no prices, fees, percentages or counts for any competitor, including ourselves, on these pages, because those change without notice and a table carrying a stale number does more damage than no table.
Claims about Crate on this page do not go beyond what our own feature, pricing and security pages already state. Where they would, they are not made.
Product capabilities change. This page states what was accurate on the date above and nothing beyond it. If a row is out of date, we would rather hear it than rank on it.
Other comparisons
Same structure, same honesty rules, different competitor.
- Crate vs Ecwid Commerce widget for an existing site
- Crate vs Etsy Marketplace
- Crate vs Gumroad Creator checkout for digital products
- Crate vs Payhip Digital product and membership storefront
- Crate vs Sellfy Creator storefront with print on demand
- Crate vs Big Cartel Small storefront for artists and makers
- Crate vs Bumpa Mobile business app
- Crate vs Selar Digital product storefront
Try it before you decide.
Every plan starts with the same trial and the same full feature set. Import your catalog, take one real order, and judge it on that.
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