BigCommerce vs. PrestaShop

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BigCommerce
Score 7.9 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
BigCommerce is a SaaS platform that allows SMBs to develop eCommerce sites. Features include the capabilities to design the storefront, configure products, manage payments, generate traffic, and optimize conversion.
$39
per month
PrestaShop
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
PrestaShop is a free, open source e-commerce solution available under the Open Software License and officially launched in August 2007. The software is written in PHP and based on the Smarty template engine and is currently used by 165,000 shops worldwide. The PrestaShop group was founded in Paris, with a second Headquarters opened in Miami in 2011. PrestaShop is translated into 63 languages, with English, French, Portuguese, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish and Russian having full…
$24
per month
Pricing
BigCommercePrestaShop
Editions & Modules
Standard
$39
per month
Plus
$105
per month
Pro
$399
per month
Enterprise
Custom
per month
PrestaShop Hosted
$24
per month
PrestaShop
Free
Enterprise
Custom Pricing
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BigCommercePrestaShop
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsA discount is offered for annual billing.Prices are in Euros.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BigCommercePrestaShop
Considered Both Products
BigCommerce
Chose BigCommerce
Each platform has its pros and cons. However, overall, BigCommerce is the most challenging to work with from a developer's perspective. Simply finding files and locating the code in the theme editor takes too much time.
Chose BigCommerce
- Ease of Use: With guided onboarding, BigCommerce enables us to manage stores independently within days, reducing the need for extensive technical support. ​

-Comprehensive Built-In Features: BigCommerce provides a wide array of native features, minimizing reliance on …
Chose BigCommerce
easy for customization , no lengthy coding required.
Chose BigCommerce
I believe other platforms offer more robust CMS and experience managing tools making content and product updates easier to perform.
Chose BigCommerce
Although k-eCommerce may be a good fit for businesses who's ERP is Microsoft NAV Dynamics, we found the application to be cumbersome and lacking user friendly functionality as compared with BigCommerce. The k-eCommerce support was poor, impersonal and lacked situational …
Chose BigCommerce
I personally prefer BigCommerce over Shopify. Shopify is more confusing to use and takes longer to get a site up and running. Shopify also seemed to heavily lack some needed bulk editing tools that bigcommerce has. The only thing I preferred about Shopify was that it had more …
Chose BigCommerce
BigCommerce has more built in options than Shopify. While shopify has lots more apps that are available and a lower initial price. The use of third party apps is good to have lots of options but each option needs to be vetted and dealt with independently. They greater number of …
Chose BigCommerce
Big Commerce is definitely king in comparison to EvoX. Not only is Big commerce easier to use, it's also just a more powerful platform with many more capabilities (for example, EVOX has analytic capabilities but, nothing to the extent of Big Commerce's google analytics …
Chose BigCommerce
BigCommerce had a much strong B2B integration and platform in general than shopify. Netsuite was too expensive at the time to considering it.
Chose BigCommerce
I find BigCommerce easy to use from a non computer person stand point. It was easy to quickly get adjusted to and what they charge for building and running a website far surpassed there competitors.
Chose BigCommerce
We are moving away from BigCommerce. It has not met our needs.
Chose BigCommerce
Their B2B features are incomparable. Shopify was another contender but didn’t have the B2B capabilities that BigCommerce has
Chose BigCommerce
We deal in firearms. I tried Shopify first back in 2016 and that was a miserable mistake, very firearm NOT friendly there. Then we went to Volusion the next month and we were quite happy there for 7-1/2 years and several million $ in sales. The issue is Volusion was losing …
Chose BigCommerce
I chose BigCommerce over Shopify because I felt there were more built-in apps in BigCommerce. Other than that, I felt that both solutions are very similar.
Chose BigCommerce
BigCommerce combines the ease-of-use that you get form Shopify, with the ability to handle large numbers of Sku's like a custom Magento site might have.

But unlike a custom site like Magento, you don't need a coder or developer for every little change you want to make to the …
Chose BigCommerce
I find the UI to be more appealing and the storefront to be a little less recognizable as a typical Shopify storefront (more generic, etc.)
Chose BigCommerce
We chose BigCommerce over competitors due to customization and cost. We're able to have the site we're looking for, easily managed within our marketing team without hours of tedious revisions.
Chose BigCommerce
BigCommerce even with add-ons such as a PIM and B2B functionality wins for small businesses on affordability and ease of use. No servers or updates to worry about and no expensive agencies to pay. This being said, if the budget were no issue, for larger organisations Magento is …
Chose BigCommerce
We switched from Shopify due to the restrictions they implemented on our industry. While we spent tens of thousands of dollars investing in our Shopify store, we can't have them cutting us off anytime they want. We reviewed WooCommerce, but didn't like the storefront or …
Chose BigCommerce
BigCommerce is quick, easy to setup with tons of features, easy to integrate with other applications. All of these great features are available for very less as compared to other application. We have tried multiple application but BigCommerce is one of those who never …
Chose BigCommerce
Bigcommerce provide better security than wordpress , and live support is also avilable.
Chose BigCommerce
We have stuck with Big Commerce due to the amount of work and build outs we have created with the system. The issues we have come across do not raise too many red flags that we would need to switch programs at this time. If we do it is due to the promotion/ sales restrictions, …
Chose BigCommerce
BigCommerce has more modern tools than Yahoo Small Business, is managed unlike WordPress/WooCommerce, and is cheaper than Shopify with better product options management.
PrestaShop
Chose PrestaShop
As compared to other open-source systems, PrestaShop has the most elegant backend interface. Most of your standard eCommerce features come default: 1. Invoice and Delivery documents in PDF, 2. Promotion and discount mechanism, 3. SEO functionalities, 4. Quick access, 5. …
Chose PrestaShop
I've tried other open-source software like PrestaShop, but the others were either more complex, didn't have the right plugins for me to use in my country, or didn't have my preferred look in terms of how I wanted my business to be represented as an e-commerce site. PrestaShop …
Chose PrestaShop
It's a no-brainer for e-commerce stores. BigCommerce and Magento both far out-distanced PrestaShop in every major category. If you're just getting into e-commerce, I would highly recommend either BigCommerce or Magento. Their online documentation and support far outweigh any …
Chose PrestaShop
Magento (open source): very technical and complicated to install and configure
OpenCart: Easy to install, very fast, lacks in functionality--needs extra modules
WooCommerce: OK, but runs on top of WordPress, product configurations very simple - missing out on complex product …
Chose PrestaShop
I often built websites for businesses and friends and I am experienced with different platforms out there. Some of my customers sometimes prefer one e-commerce solution over the other because it have some functionalities that they may be interested in, like shipping or payment …
Chose PrestaShop
From a developer point of view Prestashop offers more than other similar platforms.
Chose PrestaShop
We did not select it, the team before us selected it because it was free. All development was outsourced to a prestashop team.
Chose PrestaShop
In the past I have used Magento, which is a very popular platform, but personally it didn't sit well with me because of the complexity of the back-end and how inconvenient it was for developers. Shopify is more for a quick setup and hands-off approach. It's good for those who …
Features
BigCommercePrestaShop
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
BigCommerce
7.8
Ratings
0% below category average
PrestaShop
7.3
Ratings
7% below category average
Product catalog & listings8.10 Ratings9.70 Ratings
Product management8.00 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Bulk product upload7.40 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Branding7.80 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Mobile storefront7.90 Ratings9.70 Ratings
Product variations8.40 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Website integration8.20 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Visual customization7.60 Ratings6.00 Ratings
CMS6.60 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Online Shopping Cart
Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Product A and Product B
BigCommerce
7.9
Ratings
3% above category average
PrestaShop
6.9
Ratings
11% below category average
Abandoned cart recovery7.60 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Checkout user experience8.20 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Online Payment System
Comparison of Online Payment System features of Product A and Product B
BigCommerce
8.2
Ratings
1% below category average
PrestaShop
7.8
Ratings
6% below category average
eCommerce security8.20 Ratings7.80 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
BigCommerce
7.8
Ratings
1% above category average
PrestaShop
6.6
Ratings
15% below category average
Promotions & discounts7.70 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Personalized recommendations7.30 Ratings5.10 Ratings
SEO8.40 Ratings6.90 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
BigCommerce
7.8
Ratings
3% below category average
PrestaShop
9.0
Ratings
12% above category average
Multi-site management8.30 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Order processing7.70 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Inventory management7.80 Ratings9.60 Ratings
Shipping7.70 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Custom functionality7.70 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BigCommercePrestaShop
Small Businesses
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Score 10.0 out of 10
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus
Score 9.0 out of 10
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BigCommercePrestaShop
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(0 ratings)
7.6
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(0 ratings)
3.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(0 ratings)
2.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.6
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BigCommercePrestaShop
Likelihood to Recommend
The ONLY reason we left Volusion was fear that Volusion was going to go out of business and our website/data would all be lost. I feel BigCommerce is lightyears behind Volusion in website/inventory control. In our experience, BigCommerce customer service severely lacks knowledge, at least compared to what we had in our 7-1/2 years with Volusion. There were times Volusion even helped us with stuff BigCommerce could not understand. I just feel sick about moving and that should not be the case. In my opinion, I downgraded heavily for the feeling BigCommerce would not be going out of business. I just feel sick.
Read full review
I really wouldn't recommend PrestaShop to every person or business. This service has very good features to be able to create an online store and allow customers to add products to their cart instantly, it allows to make electronic payments quickly and the money reaches the company's wallet instantly, without However, it has many disadvantages, PrestaShop does not have a technical service to help implement the software on the website, so if you are thinking of using PrestaShop, you must first have a good team of web developers who are capable of integrating PrestaShop with the Wordpress site without any problem, in addition, PrestaShop takes up a lot of space in the Hosting service, each product that you add to the PrestaShop catalog occupies much more Hosting space and this causes the catalog to take longer to load when the client comes to visualize it. To use PrestaShop I recommend a very powerful Hosting that is able to withstand the high consumption it has.
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Pros
  • SEO - fast loading speeds, helps us rank on Google
  • Product customization - allows us to customize templates to our needs to fit all viable information
  • Integration with other platforms - seamless connection to other properties like Google Ads and Analytics
Read full review
  • Quite easy to use compared to other open-source e-commerce software.
  • Has lots of free plugins to help you set up a great basic shop.
  • You can easily create your own unique site.
  • Lots of payment option plugins and you can use them to sell globally.
Read full review
Cons
  • Better and easier localisation for stores outside the US
  • Speed - it is not the fastest
  • Make sure that third-party theme developers update regularly and use best practice
  • Consider EU and country-specific rules and legal obligations and make customers aware of whether BC is actually fully compliant
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  • Since it starts as ready to go platform it's difficult to protect your store from being copied by someone else
  • Without a developer, you depend on Prestashop's modules marketplace that lacks free extensions
  • Since it isn't an enterprise level platform the use of Prestashop is strictly related to the size of your business
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
BigCommerce is a great platform! It does the job and has a very good API set. I would definitely recommend it to others, but I would warn them about the cost associated with BigCommerce. There are lower cost solutions, but definitely not as feature rich as BigCommerce. It's definitely not perfect, and has a few wrinkles to iron, but nothing is ever perfect. It does the job for us and I do enjoy using the platform!!
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Considering the problems we had and still have, 0.
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Usability
I think that overall it has a great front end for the customer. On the back end, it takes a little spin-up time, but in just a couple of hours you can really have your head wrapped around everything you're going to need 99% of the time. It takes me about 5 minutes to train a new user on how to interact with customer orders.
Read full review
The lack of performance and the unstable system make it very hard to use it for a serious e-commerce application.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
So far in my time with BigCommerce I have not had any down time when it comes to my webstore or accessing it at any time I need to. Knowing that they have such a good uptime, it makes me feel comfortable that my customers can access things anytime, but also keep sales going 24/7
Read full review
100s of implementation and so far no major security breaches.
Read full review
Performance
I have not had any issues with pages loading slow or any real other issues, not that I have encountered so far. Speed of the site and images loading are fantastic and everything just seems to work nicely, which may seem like a simple thing to say about things, but when something just WORKS! Its rather nice vs fighting with things to work right.
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Some caching and optimization is definitely needed. However, it is not as bloated as other CMSs with lots of plugins needed.
Read full review
Support Rating
Because they are always there no matter how simple or complex the question is, if they don't know the answer they don't fake it and just make you go away feeling frustrated.. they get you to someone that does know the answer. I always appreciate their help and their honesty!
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Since we use PrestaShop OpenSource there is only community support. What we found is that many other users fight with the same problems and there seems no solution or input from the PrestaShop developers' side.
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Online Training
They have a comprehensive online help file system that makes it easy to do almost anything. They cover just about everything you'd want to do with your online store with images, clear descriptions and in some cases video. I will, however, say the videos should be a little more professorially done and not sound like the employees are doing it in their cubical.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
A certified BigCommerce design and solution partner will usually comprise a team of highly experienced designers, developers and marketers. It is our view that in the vast majority of cases, this will pay dividends in the long-term - especially for those teams that could use the extra support.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Big Commerce is definitely king in comparison to EvoX. Not only is Big commerce easier to use, it's also just a more powerful platform with many more capabilities (for example, EVOX has analytic capabilities but, nothing to the extent of Big Commerce's google analytics integration. EVOX's data is very base level and does not provide much customer insight besides visits/pages viewed.
Read full review
As compared to other open-source systems, PrestaShop has the most elegant backend interface. Most of your standard eCommerce features come default: 1. Invoice and Delivery documents in PDF, 2. Promotion and discount mechanism, 3. SEO functionalities, 4. Quick access, 5. Statistics, 6. Categorization, Brands, Attributes, Features/Filters, sorting, pagination, list or grid view. The next best thing is the stability of versions. Currently, at only ver1.7, this is the only open-source CMS that doesn't require the constant nightmare of updating and breaking the site. The open-source community is still offering modules for ver1.5, 1.6 and 1.7. If you need modules to enhance the features, it is also a one-time cost since the versions are so stable. The experiences with 3rd party module developers are very good so far. Most modules are from EUR49-100.
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Scalability
I believe after seeing all of the parts of this platform, one is able to develop the business and keep adding on select features for the business. There are multiple options for purchase with the various platforms once the business grows more. The different features being offered by the platform can lead us to scalability.
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This is the best example of "If it's not broken, don't fix it!".
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Return on Investment
  • Provides a robust platform to sell a high-risk product.
  • Page Builder saves you time and money by negating the need to buy a template.
  • Includes robust promotion settings that allow for codes and automatic discounts, bulk discounts, and customer groups (i.e. military discount), all native options.
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  • If you don't have open source developers on staff it will be costly.
  • The out-of-the box solution is not really a solution. Be prepared to hunt down modules to do standard things you'll want to do.
  • The interface is unlike the e-commerce usual. There will be a learning curve and don't count on online documentation.
Read full review
ScreenShots

BigCommerce Screenshots

Screenshot of enterprise ecommerce for high-volume brands like Skullcandy.Screenshot of the integration that lets you list products on Amazon directly from the BigCommerce control panel, with centralized inventory and order processing and fulfillment.Screenshot of where to customize the look and feel of a storefront.

PrestaShop Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of