Whatever site you are using, most of you are using WordPress. And if it is an eCommerce site, WordPress is even more popular. However, to use WordPress, you must need a plugin and WooCommerce is the most-used one for sure. But Easy Digital Download is now rising as the nearest competitor of WooCommerce. So, this discussion today is all about WooCommerce vs Easy Digital Download.
First, we will learn about WooCommerce and EDD means Easy Digital Download. And then, we will head towards their common factors. With comparison-based discussion, you will easily learn about all their facts. So, let’s go and dig deeper.
What is WooCommerce and Easy Digital Download?
WooCommerce is a massive name in the WordPress eCommerce platforms. It is built for selling physical products through websites. These business websites are now known as eCommerce sites. WooCommerce is the most popular among other plugins and related services.
Easy Digital Downloads, or EDD in short, is suitable for digital products just like its name. This is not as popular as WooCommerce, but it is far more appropriate for selling digital products and services than its competitors. Recently, EDD also included options for selling physical products.
WooCommerce has over 8 percent of the market share among all the eCommerce sites we see today. It offers numerous extensions and add-ons for extra facilities. On the other hand, EDD also offers lots of third-party extensions that are helpful for selling software keys, licenses, etc.
Many sellers of digital services are using EDD with pleasure. Easy Digital Downloads has had its own hosted marketplace since 2017. So, you will find their own official add-ons along with other third-party offerings. You can also use WooCommerce to sell digital products. Both are great; now it’s your call as always.
Facts of Comparison: WooCommerce vs Easy Digital Download
Briefly or broadly, if we want to discuss WooCommerce vs Easy Digital Download, we have to talk about different facts. Basically, the factors are about the features one can discuss to choose one over another. So, we found out the 8 basic and common features of these plugins, and below there is a brief description of each. Hopefully, you will get it by yourself.
Business and Sell
WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads can both be used to sell all types of products and services. Easy Digital Downloads is designed for doing business with digital products. It is totally up to the user, and of course, there will be some issues when you solely use Easy Digital Downloads to sell physical products.
You won’t have features like WooCommerce, which is suitable for physical products. So, it is better to use WooCommerce for general business and real-life products. On the other hand, you should not use WooCommerce for doing business with digital products and services.
WooCommerce is overkill for seller Digital products only. There are lots of features and options that are needed for real products. Again, both vendors are suitable for license keys for software. It is better to use Easy Digital Downloads to sell digital products for convenient and straightforward services.
WooCommerce is suitable for mix-type business purposes, mainly focused on physical products. On the contrary, most digital product sellers and developers use Easy Digital Downloads. The overall ecosystem is excellent for digital subscriptions and software license keys. Additionally, It gets regular updates and new add-ons.
Payment Gateway
Almost all the popular payment gateways support WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads. EDD might have fewer gateways if you compare it with WooCommerce. If you require any local payment gateway, you have to ask them for solutions. Don’t worry, as most financial institutions use digital services for online-based payments.
You can add payment gateway like PayPal and Stripe for free on both Easy Digital Downloads and WooCommerce. Most importantly, both are suitable for payment giants like Stripe, 2Checkout, PayPal, Authorize.net, and so on. Earlier, Stripe needed some initial charge to add with the plugin services.
If you need versatility and freedom in adding payment services, we would suggest WooCommerce. As it offers a wide range of extensions for its huge user base. Easy Digital Downloads also has a large third-party payment gateway support facility. You just have to choose according to your requirements.
Some payment services are country-based, especially for local area access. Of course, they are not on the list, and you have to ask the vendor to guild you for alternatives. You will find both plugins very convenient and hassle-free. One gross popularity ratio WooCommerce is a bit ahead of EDD.
Performance
You should always look for the performance details while selecting a plugin for your site. You will get the interface and its aftermath. However, when it is about the performance, we must go for EDD for sure. This plugin is initially built just perfectly. That’s why it is quite practical and lightweight.
On the other hand, WooCommerce is just perfect for virtual performance. Here, it works simple and works straightforwardly when you will use it for your virtual store. Indeed, it’s perfectly streamlined as well. So, when it is the comparison between WooCommerce and EDD, we cannot simply go for one in particular. Both are equally compatible in terms of their performance.
User Interface for eCommerce Store
In general, both WooCommerce and Easy Digital Download are easy to use with super-friendly interfaces. We cannot say that both are equal for the eCommerce section. Undoubtedly, WooCommerce is more popular than Easy Digital Download in the e-commerce field. So, most people use WooCommerce for that.
Generally, Easy Digital Download is simple and provides a lot of functions for eCommerce stores. So, new store owners are interested in it. And the old WooCommerce users often shifted to this plugin for being affordable and easy to use. WooCommerce is older, so it has more options. That’s why new people can find it difficult to use WooCommerce.
Add-ons
Website add-ons play a big role in business: the more support, the better. As WooCommerce is very popular among users, it is obvious to have a large number of add-ons over the competition. In WordPress, there are over 5600 WooCommerce plugins, whereas EDD has around 600.
Of course, the number of add-ons doesn’t mean anything good or bad as long as whatever you need is available. You will find almost all the best add-ons and plugins available in Easy Digital Downloads. So, the number of extra features and add-ons should not be a key decision-making factor.
Similarly, If you check on CodeCanyon.com, you will find around 300 add-ons for EDD, whereas approximately 2700 for WooCommerce. It depends mostly on marketing and popularity. Always try to use reliable and best-rated add-ons. The quality of service and security features are essential as well.
Themes
Themes play a vital role in gathering website traffic. In quantity, WooCommerce has a greater number of themes compared to Easy Digital Downloads. Obviously, customers and general visitors like simple, colorful, and tidy overall presentations.
Having a more significant number of themes does not put much stress on real-life applications. As both have the necessary workable themes for running any operation smoothly. If you need any niche-related features, you should use WooCommerce, as it comes with a broader theme collection.
Easy Digital Downloads also has lots of themes and extensions for add-ons. It is highly suitable for selling digital products; the graphic works and overall presentation are top-notch. The choice is up to the use case scenario, and users’ preference as both have all the features needed for business.
Community
Undoubtedly, WooCommerce has a bigger community for sure. It has almost 90,143,169 downloads and it is working for almost 2.9 million websites. So, it is indeed the most popular plugin for e-commerce sites. EDD is quite new in comparison to WooCommerce. That’s why it has built that much community already.
Affordability
Don’t worry about the affordability. Indeed, both of these plugins are free to download and use for sure. But you have to pay for the extension in both cases. Still, if you ask about the price of those extensions, we cannot tell you the particular answers. Indeed, the price varies and most of the time, you will get offers and discounts.
So, these are the factors you need to know when choosing one plugin between WooCommerce and EDD. We suggest checking out the particular factors we are concerned more about. Once you are satisfied with the performance of one plugin, just go for it.
To Wrap Up
In the end, we would like to remind you one thing once again. Both these plugins are free without the cost of the extensions. And both are quite compatible as well. But WooCommerce is more popular and extensive than EDD.
Hopefully, all your confusion about WooCommerce vs Easy Digital Download is now clear. Still, if you have any confusion left, just inform us about it. Thank you for your time
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