Shopify vs PrestaShop: Ease of Use or Advanced Customization?

PrestaShop, known for its customization and flexibility, appeals to businesses that want complete control over their website. Shopify, on the other hand, is celebrated for its ease of use and comprehensive support, making it ideal for those who prefer a simpler, more streamlined approach.  In thisk Shopify vs. PrestaShop article, we will find out which platform suits your needs best, let's compare their features, pricing, and usability.

Shopify vs. PrestaShop: At a glance

Shopify is a hosted e-commerce platform known for its ease of use and comprehensive support, ideal for businesses seeking a hassle-free setup. It includes hosting, security, and customizable templates, perfect for those with minimal technical skills. 

PrestaShop, on the other hand, is an open-source, self-hosted platform offering extensive customization and flexibility, suited for businesses with technical expertise. Shopify is user-friendly and subscription-based, while PrestaShop requires more technical management but offers greater control.

Understanding these differences will help you choose the right platform for your online store.

1. Pricing

Shopify

Pricing plans

Shopify offers flexible plans suitable for everyone, from beginners to large enterprises:

• Starter ($5/month): Designed for those who want to sell via social media or quickly test ideas without a full-featured online store.
• Basic ($29 or $39/month): Allows creating a complete online store, unlimited products, 24/7 support, and manual order management.
• Grow ($105/month, or $79/month when billed annually): Includes 5 staff accounts, advanced reports, workflow automation, and multi-warehouse management.
• Advanced ($299/month): Professional reporting, up to 88% shipping discount, 15 staff accounts, and advanced store management features.
• Shopify Plus (starting at $2,300/month): For high-volume enterprises with massive traffic, this plan includes advanced tools to optimize user experience and manage full-scale operations.

Additional & transaction fees

• Credit card rates: 2.4%–2.9% + $0.30 per online transaction; 2.4% + $0.10 for in-person (POS).
• Using third-party payment gateways incurs transaction fees ranging from 0.6% to 2%.
• Apps, add-ons, premium themes, and domain names incur extra costs depending on needs.
• If you use Shopify Payments, you only pay the credit card fee — no additional transaction fees.

PrestaShop

Pricing plans

• Classic (Open-Source, free): Download and self-host. Main costs are hosting, domain, and SSL certificate.
• Hosted (~€24/month): Includes 50 GB hosting, pre-installed store, integrated payments, basic marketing tools, and 6-day/week support. You can still add modules or themes as needed.
• Enterprise (€2,115/month): For large businesses — high-performance hosting, top-tier security, deep customization, multi-warehouse and multi-staff management, dedicated support.

Additional & transaction fees

• Transaction fees depend on the payment gateway (examples): – PayPal: 2.9% + €0.35 – Credit/debit cards: 1.2% + €0.35 – American Express: 3.5% + €0.35 – Cross-border transactions: +0.5%–2%
• Reliable hosting (e.g., Cloudways): ~$10–$12/month, depending on performance and data center location.
• Premium themes: $91–$303.
• Add-ons/modules: $35 to $6,000+, depending on required features (payments, marketing, shipping integrations, etc.).

Read more: Shopify Pricing: Find the Right Plan for Your Business

2. Ease of Use

Shopify

Shopify excels with an intuitive interface and speedy setup — choose a plan, create an account, and customize your store in just a few minutes. Clear guidance and shortcuts (Add products, Customize theme, quick access to Orders, Analytics, Marketing) make it very beginner-friendly. No technical knowledge required to start and run a store.

PrestaShop

You can set up a basic store without coding, but deep customization still requires technical skills. The dashboard centralizes key sections (Orders, Catalogue, Customer Service) and includes useful reports (Activity Overview, Sales) as well as Quick Access buttons. However, overall setup and daily management are noticeably more complex than Shopify.

Read more: Shopify vs Magento: Which Platform Is Right for You?

3. Themes & customizability

Shopify

You get access to more than 985 professional themes (free and paid, ranging from $100–$500). The drag-and-drop editor allows anyone to modify layout, colours, fonts, and images without coding. Shopify’s Liquid templating language ensures the design is responsive and consistent across all devices.

PrestaShop

Over 1,600 themes ($91–$303) and a fully open-source platform allow nearly unlimited customization. Sellers can directly edit HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to personalize every detail and create a truly unique shopping experience.

Verdict: PrestaShop wins in sheer theme quantity and depth of customization, while Shopify stands out for its intuitive interface, professional themes, and ease of use for non-technical users.

4. Summary of E-commerce Features

Inventory management

• Shopify: Adding and managing products is very simple — you can use manual entry or bulk CSV import. Built-in inventory tracking tools enable you to easily adjust stock levels and view your stock history.
• PrestaShop: Strong focus on inventory with supplier synchronization, third-party system integration, best-seller tracking, stock-level control, and inventory analytics for quick decision-making.

Order and shipping

• Shopify: Built-in integration with major carriers (USPS, UPS, DHL, FedEx) and discounted shipping labels. Flexible shipping rates and real-time carrier-calculated rates (available in Advanced plans) improve checkout experience.
• PrestaShop: Supports the same carriers; if a module is missing, it can be added manually. Setting shipping rates, default carriers, or per-order rules is a quick and straightforward process.

CMS / Blogging

• Shopify: Easy creation and management of static pages (blog, Terms, About, etc.) and intuitive product organization. Advanced CMS/blogging features require third-party apps.
• PrestaShop: Full control over all pages, static blocks, images, and banners. An intuitive interface, combined with SEO-friendly meta titles and clean URLs, makes content optimization fast.

Dropshipping

• Shopify: No native dropshipping, but apps like Oberlo (and many others) make it seamless to start selling without holding inventory.
• PrestaShop: Additionally, it requires a dropshipping module, allowing you to import products from suppliers and start selling immediately.

Payment gateways

• Shopify: Shopify Payments is built in (no extra transaction fees), supports multiple currencies, and 11 countries out of the box. Over 100 third-party gateways (Stripe, PayPal, etc.) are also available.
• PrestaShop: More than 250 payment methods or use PrestaShop Checkout. Customers stay on your site (no redirects), GDPR-compliant, and supports cards, bank transfers, and local methods.

Verdict: Overall, Shopify continuously updates and improves, delivering a smooth and convenient store management experience. In contrast, PrestaShop excels in inventory management and detailed customization, making it suitable for users who want deep control over business operations.

5. Apps and integrations

Shopify

Shopify offers more than 16,000 free and paid apps on the Shopify App Store. These apps are developed by Shopify itself and third-party developers, ensuring high integration quality and stability. Thanks to many built-in features, you often don’t need to install additional apps, which saves both cost and time.

PrestaShop

The PrestaShop Marketplace has around 4,000 modules, but only about 2,000 are compatible with the current hosted version. Since modules are developed by various independent developers, they don’t always work smoothly. To achieve functionality similar to Shopify’s out-of-the-box features, you may need to install multiple modules, which can increase costs.

Verdict: In terms of apps and scalability, Shopify clearly outperforms PrestaShop thanks to its rich ecosystem, seamless built-in integrations, and lower risk of compatibility issues.

Read more: Shopify vs Volusion: Which E-commerce Solution Wins?

6. Best Point-of-Sale (POS) features

Shopify

Shopify includes built-in POS functionality in every plan, allowing you to accept payments in physical stores, at events, or pop-up shops, while automatically syncing inventory with your online store. The system is compatible with a wide range of hardware. Upgrading to POS Pro adds advanced features such as staff management, custom receipt creation, sales attribution, and inventory alerts.

PrestaShop

PrestaShop currently does not offer a native, built-in POS solution. However, you can extend POS capabilities through third-party modules available on the Marketplace (e.g., Zettle, Stripe, or Square). These modules are often free for customers of those payment services, but they require separate installation and may have limitations in features and synchronization.

Verdict: If in-person selling is an important part of your business, Shopify is significantly superior to PrestaShop thanks to its native POS system, seamless inventory synchronization, and numerous advanced management features that make running a physical store much easier.

Read more: Lightspeed vs Shopify: Which POS System Is Best?

7. Marketing features

Email marketing

• Shopify: Comes with the built-in “Shopify Email” app, allowing you to send up to 10,000 free emails per month and manage campaigns directly from the platform — convenient and time-saving.
• PrestaShop: No built-in solution; you must use external tools like Mailchimp or GetResponse, which incur additional fees and require separate setup.

Blogging

• Shopify: Built-in blog functionality that’s easy to create, categorize content, connect with email marketing, and optimized for SEO.
• PrestaShop: Requires installing paid modules from the Marketplace; management is more complex and adds extra costs.

SEO

• Shopify: Fully supports essential SEO elements, easy management of 301 redirects and robots.txt, plus numerous apps to optimize Core Web Vitals.
• PrestaShop: Offers basic SEO support, but 301 redirects and robots.txt require manual intervention or additional modules; optimizing Core Web Vitals is more difficult.

Verdict: Shopify is much more user-friendly for non-technical users thanks to its ready-to-use email, blogging, and SEO tools. PrestaShop, on the other hand, relies heavily on external modules and manual configuration.

8. Customer support

Shopify

Provides 24/7 support via live chat, with phone support available for Shopify Plus plans. Additionally, a rich knowledge base and an intelligent AI assistant can instantly answer most questions, reducing the need for direct contact.

PrestaShop

Offers support through email, live chat, and phone, but only from Monday to Saturday, 9 AM to 10 PM (GMT+1). Contextual help within the admin interface links to the knowledge base, but some issues must be escalated to the development team, with responses sent via email, which slows down resolution.

Verdict: Shopify clearly outperforms PrestaShop in customer support, thanks to 24/7 availability, a smart AI assistant, and a comprehensive knowledge base, which delivers a faster and more seamless experience.

Read more: Shopify vs Weebly: Which Platform Should You Choose?

9. Reports and Analytics

Shopify

Most Shopify plans include detailed, visually appealing reports with easy-to-understand charts that meet the needs of the majority of merchants. You can also create custom reports using the built-in data explorer, but advanced features (deep filtering, detailed editing) require upgrading to the Advanced plan at $399 per month.

PrestaShop

Provides a wide range of comprehensive reports, but they are displayed only as data tables without visual charts. Custom reports can be created using third-party modules, often at a lower cost than Shopify’s advanced plans.

Verdict: Both platforms offer extensive reporting options; however, advanced features require additional payment on both, so there is no clear winner in this category.

10. Security and Support

Shopify

Offers 24/7 support via live chat and email for all plans. Users can also join the Shopify Community to get advice from experts and experienced merchants. The platform includes Level 1 PCI DSS compliance and free SSL certificates by default, protecting store data without additional cost.

PrestaShop

Main support options include paid Presta Technical Assistance ($300–$900) and free Presta Online Assistance. PrestaShop complies with PCI standards for data security, but in-depth security support or advanced configurations usually come at an additional cost.

Verdict: Both platforms provide solid security and support policies, but Shopify is more convenient for non-technical users thanks to its comprehensive 24/7 support and built-in security features. PrestaShop is better suited for technically skilled users who want to self-manage and customize security settings in-depth.

Shopify vs. PrestaShop: Which is right for your business?

Choose Shopify if you:

• Are a beginner or a business that wants to start selling online quickly without much technical knowledge.
• Run a small or medium-sized business looking to expand online.
• Need 24/7 customer support and a wide variety of payment methods.
• Want a highly scalable, flexible, and easy-to-customize platform.

Choose PrestaShop if you:

• Are a technically proficient user or a developer.
• Want to keep costs low while being willing to invest in modules and themes.
• Need advanced control over security, customization, and full ownership of your store’s data and infrastructure.

Shopify vs. PrestaShop: Which is the right choice?

Choose Shopify If:

• You prefer ease of use and want a platform that manages hosting, security, and updates for you.
• You value comprehensive customer support and a wide range of integrated features out of the box.
• Your focus is on quickly setting up and scaling your online store without deep technical involvement.

Choose PrestaShop If:

• You need extensive customization capabilities and have technical skills or resources to manage your hosting environment.
• Cost-effectiveness is a priority, as PrestaShop itself is free and offers flexibility in choosing hosting and additional modules.
• You prefer a community-driven approach to support and are comfortable seeking solutions independently or through third-party developers.

In summary, Shopify is best for users seeking ease of use, comprehensive support, and integrated features, while PrestaShop suits those requiring flexibility, and customization, and technical proficiency or access to technical resources.