Our verdict
Ecwid is the light option for adding a shop to an existing site; BigCommerce is a full platform for stores that expect volume, wholesale or several storefronts. Choose by ambition: side channel or core business.
At a glance
A practical, high-level comparison based on the projects we deliver. Every business is different — use it as a starting point.
| Criterion | BigCommerce | Ecwid |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Fully hosted SaaS | Fully hosted SaaS, embedded in any website |
| Best for | Growing, wholesale and multi-storefront brands | Adding a shop to an existing website |
| Cost model | Monthly subscription tiered by sales volume; no platform transaction fees | Monthly plans tiered by catalogue size and features |
| Customisation | Stencil themes, open APIs, headless | Design settings, CSS, apps and APIs |
| Apps & extensions | Solid app marketplace; smaller than Shopify's | Ecwid App Market; modest |
| B2B | B2B Edition | Limited |
| International selling | Multi-storefront and multi-currency | Multilingual storefront; multi-currency via apps |
| Maintenance effort | Low | Low |
How to decide
Both platforms can run a successful store. The right choice depends on your catalogue, your team, your budget and where you plan to sell.
BigCommerce is a hosted SaaS platform with an open, API-first architecture. Much of what needs apps elsewhere — B2B tools, multi-storefront, generous APIs — is built in.
Ecwid by Lightspeed is a hosted store that you embed into an existing website — WordPress, Wix, Squarespace or a custom site. Social channels and marketplaces are managed from the same dashboard.
Switching
Already on one of these platforms and considering the other? We migrate stores between BigCommerce and Ecwid in either direction, without losing data, revenue or search rankings.
Ecwid is the light option for adding a shop to an existing site; BigCommerce is a full platform for stores that expect volume, wholesale or several storefronts. Choose by ambition: side channel or core business.
It depends on what you count. BigCommerce: Monthly subscription tiered by sales volume; no platform transaction fees. Ecwid: Monthly plans tiered by catalogue size and features. Compare the total cost over two or three years — platform fees, apps or extensions, hosting, development and maintenance — rather than the monthly price alone.
Maintenance effort on BigCommerce: Low. On Ecwid: Low. Hosted platforms take care of servers, security patches and updates for you; self-hosted platforms leave that work to you or your agency.
Yes, in either direction. We move products, customers, order history and content, map every old URL to its new address with 301 redirects, and rehearse the go-live so that sales and search rankings carry over.
More comparisons
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