Craft Commerce vs Shopify

Shopify is our overall recommendation when selling products is the business's central website job. Craft Commerce is compelling when content, custom relationships, and a distinctive buying process need to work as one system. The difference is how much retail infrastructure you want to own, customize, and maintain over the coming years.

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Choose Craft Commerce when:

The buying experience depends on a deeply customized content model.
Your website combines substantial editorial content with specialized commerce requirements.
A development partner will maintain the store and its integrations.

Choose Shopify when:

Retail operations and dependable checkout are the primary purpose of the site.
Established integrations cover payments, fulfillment, subscriptions, and merchandising.
You want a managed platform with integrated merchant and AI tools.

Where each one wins

Priority points

Craft Commerce

Shopify

Shopify leads for this brief.

100 points allocated by business priority. Ties split the points.

We score websites built and supported by an agency, with editors working inside an approved design system. These are our recommendations for that brief, not product quality ratings.

How we score

Publishing and brand controlWinner: Craft Commerce20-point priorityCraft Commerce gives us more direct control over a unified editorial experience for content-rich websites and stores.

Craft Commerce shares Craft's content system, so product storytelling, buying guides, related services, and campaign pages can use a deliberately designed set of components. Editors can assemble pages without improvising outside the brand's rules. Shopify also supports reusable theme sections and blocks, and a well-built theme can preserve those guardrails. We prefer Craft when editorial publishing spans more than the shop. Shopify's merchant interface is often the better daily workspace when the team primarily manages products, promotions, inventory, and orders.

Content architectureWinner: Craft Commerce15-point priorityCraft is our preference when relationships across products, people, services, and editorial content shape the customer journey.

A manufacturer might connect products to industries, technical resources, locations, and sales specialists, with the same information appearing in several contexts. Craft's relational content model gives us direct control over that system alongside Commerce. Shopify's metaobjects also support structured custom content, so this is not a claim that Shopify only stores products. The distinction is where the project starts: Craft organizes the broader content experience; Shopify organizes a capable retail platform that can be extended with content.

Is Shopify B2B available only on Plus?

No. Current Shopify pricing includes capped catalogs below Plus. Assess catalog limits, company requirements, and checkout capabilities against the selected plan.

Custom implementationWinner: Shopify15-point priorityShopify wins for typical retail integrations because established commerce tools often avoid unnecessary custom application work.

A custom storefront does not mean every retail capability should be custom-built. Shopify's application platform and commerce integrations can cover familiar payment, fulfillment, marketing, and merchandising needs while developers concentrate on the brand experience. That is valuable for businesses that need reliable commerce operations. Craft Commerce offers more direct application control when the buying logic genuinely requires it. We give Shopify this category for the retail brief, while treating unusual configuration, account, or transaction requirements as reasons to test the limits before choosing it.

Can Craft and Shopify work together?

Yes, a mixed architecture can use Craft for content and Shopify for commerce. Evaluate preview, product synchronization, checkout handoff, analytics, and who maintains the integration.

Security and supportWinner: Shopify15-point priorityShopify's managed commerce platform reduces infrastructure responsibility, while the business still needs application and access oversight.

Shopify manages the commerce platform and publishes its security and compliance information. That removes a substantial part of the hosting and platform-maintenance work from the store's operating plan. Apps, permissions, integrations, tracking, and custom themes still need care. Mostly Serious can provide hosting, updates, maintenance, and support for Craft, but that is a separately managed application arrangement. For a retail store, Shopify's integrated operating model earns the edge. The team should still agree who responds when an app or fulfillment connection fails.

Lifetime valueWinner: Shopify10-point priorityShopify is usually the stronger lifetime value for retail requirements that its platform and existing integrations cover.

Evaluate transaction and payment terms, required plans, apps, custom development, and support together using Shopify's current pricing. Craft Commerce adds its own license, hosting, integrations, and application maintenance. The comparison is not a cheap subscription against an expensive build: both can involve substantial professional work. Shopify gets our retail recommendation because reproducing standard commerce operations can consume a budget better spent on merchandising and conversion. Where a unique workflow is central to the business, the cost of working around Shopify's limits can change that calculation.

Ecosystem confidenceWinner: Shopify10-point priorityShopify offers the stronger commerce ecosystem and adoption trajectory for businesses whose main requirement is running a store.

The W3Techs market-share series shows Shopify's share of detected CMS sites rising from 6.7% in January 2025 to 7.7% in September 2026. This is adoption evidence, not proof that every merchant is satisfied. Its large app marketplace also gives businesses many established integration options. Craft has a committed specialist community, but a smaller commerce ecosystem. Assess app quality and switching costs carefully; a marketplace advantage is useful only when the tools you need remain well supported.

AI enablementWinner: Shopify15-point priorityShopify leads with an integrated merchant assistant, developer resources, and an expanding system of compatible app actions.

Sidekick assists merchants with content and operations, with review of changes. The AI Toolkit gives developers current API schemas and validation, while Sidekick app extensions connect additional actions. Craft’s MCP plugin can expose Commerce data and support custom workflows. Shopify earns the edge across native merchant use, developer tooling, and operational integration. Review AI changes that affect prices, inventory, orders, or customer communication.

Planning a migration

Map products, variants, collections, customers, content, discounts, redirects, subscriptions, and fulfillment dependencies. Decide what historical order data must remain accessible. Craft can preserve many existing product URLs; changing the CMS does not inherently require abandoning the current route structure. Saved payment methods and subscriptions need gateway-specific planning.

Preserve useful URLs where possible. For changed paths, build and test a redirect map, transfer metadata, and monitor indexing and traffic after launch. Google's site-move guidance explains the process; search traffic can still fluctuate. Talk with us about planning a Craft project before committing.

Know what your Craft website needs next.

A Craft CMS Health Check reviews your site’s performance, accessibility, technical SEO, code, and maintenance risks. You get findings and a prioritized plan before committing to fixes.