BigCommerce vs Hostpapa: Comprehensive comparison guide for 2024

Final verdict

BigCommerce and Hostpapa cater to different needs, with BigCommerce excelling in ecommerce capabilities and Hostpapa offering a more budget-friendly option for small businesses.

• 
  BigCommerce (Overall Grade: 7.9/10)
  
  is a comprehensive ecommerce platform designed for businesses looking to scale their online presence. It offers robust built-in features, advanced SEO tools, and multi-channel selling capabilities. BigCommerce is ideal for merchants who need extensive ecommerce functionalities and are willing to invest in a more complex platform to achieve their business goals. When comparing BigCommerce vs Hostpapa, BigCommerce stands out for its scalability and advanced ecommerce features.
• 
  Hostpapa (Overall Grade: 5.4/10)
  
  is a web hosting and website builder platform tailored for small businesses and individuals. It provides an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, a variety of templates, and basic SEO tools. Hostpapa is suitable for users seeking an affordable and straightforward solution to create a professional online presence. In the BigCommerce vs Hostpapa comparison, Hostpapa is the better choice for those prioritizing ease of use and budget-friendly plans over advanced ecommerce capabilities.

Best for ecommerce

Verdict

: Hostpapa is suitable for small businesses and individuals, while BigCommerce is ideal for scaling businesses with its robust ecommerce features.

• 
  BigCommerce
  
  : BigCommerce is a comprehensive ecommerce platform designed for businesses looking to scale. It offers extensive built-in features, advanced SEO tools, and multi-channel selling capabilities. With support for unlimited products, streamlined checkout, and a wide range of payment gateways, BigCommerce stands out in the ecommerce sector. When comparing BigCommerce vs Hostpapa, BigCommerce’s advanced functionalities make it a superior choice for serious ecommerce ventures.
• 
  Hostpapa
  
  : Hostpapa provides a user-friendly website builder with ecommerce capabilities primarily in its Enterprise plan. It offers basic SEO tools, inventory management, and support for various payment gateways. However, it lacks the advanced marketing tools and customization options found in BigCommerce, making it more suitable for small-scale operations.

Best for informational & business websites

Verdict

: When comparing BigCommerce vs Hostpapa for informational business websites, both platforms score equally at 7.5, but they cater to different needs. Hostpapa is more user-friendly and offers a wider variety of templates, making it ideal for small businesses and individuals. BigCommerce, while more complex, provides robust features that can support larger businesses looking to scale.

• 
  BigCommerce
  
  : BigCommerce is a powerful platform with a focus on ecommerce, but it can also be used for informational websites. It offers a wide range of customizable templates and advanced SEO tools, making it suitable for businesses that plan to expand their online presence. However, its complexity might be overwhelming for beginners.
• 
  Hostpapa
  
  : Hostpapa excels in ease of use with its intuitive drag-and-drop interface and extensive template library. It is designed for small businesses and individuals who need a professional online presence without the need for extensive technical knowledge. Hostpapa’s user-friendly approach makes it a great choice for those prioritizing simplicity and design flexibility.

Detailed comparison

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Winner: Hostpapa.

Hostpapa offers a more extensive variety of templates and higher customization flexibility, making it a better choice for users seeking creative control and diverse design options.

BigCommerce offers a variety of design templates for creating ecommerce websites, with a total of 240 themes available. Most of these themes come with up to four styling options, providing users with flexibility in design choices to match their brand’s aesthetic. There are 12 free themes, while the rest range in price from $150 to $300 each.

BigCommerce Themes

Hostpapa offers a wide variety of templates and designs to cater to the diverse needs of its users, ensuring that there is something for everyone, regardless of their niche or industry. With hundreds of professionally designed templates available, users can easily find a style that perfectly matches their vision and brand identity. These templates are not only abundant in number but also highly customizable, allowing for a high degree of personalization. From sleek and modern designs to more traditional and classic looks, HostPapa’s extensive template library ensures that users can create a unique and appealing website with ease.

Wix Themes

🏆 Winner: Hostpapa

. With a score of 7.8, Hostpapa edges out BigCommerce, which scores 7.3, in terms of ease of use. Hostpapa’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface and pre-designed templates make it particularly accessible for beginners and small businesses. BigCommerce, while user-friendly, offers a more complex set of features that may be overwhelming for new users.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: BigCommerce

. BigCommerce provides a comprehensive range of learning resources, including articles, guides, webinars, and specific training through BigCommerce University. These resources are designed to support e-commerce businesses at various stages of growth, making it a robust platform for learning and development.

BigCommerce excels in the ecommerce domain with its extensive built-in features, advanced SEO tools, and multi-channel selling capabilities. It is designed for businesses looking to scale their online presence with robust support and a user-friendly interface. Hostpapa, on the other hand, offers ecommerce capabilities primarily in its Enterprise plan, making it suitable for small businesses and individuals seeking a straightforward platform.

BigCommerce ecommerce features:

• Unlimited Products
• Streamlined Single-Page Checkout
• Order Management
• Abandoned Cart Recovery
• Marketing and Sales Tools

Hostpapa ecommerce features:

• Payment Gateways integration
• Inventory management
• Ecommerce specific templates

Ecommerce themes & templates

BigCommerce provides a wide variety of eCommerce templates designed to enhance online shopping experiences and cater to different industries. These templates feature advanced functionalities like quick view, product suggestions, and complex search filters but may require performance optimization for maintaining speed. The selection ranges from free to premium options, ensuring businesses can find a suitable design that aligns with their brand and product offerings.

HostPapa offers a user-friendly website builder with over 230 templates, catering to individuals and small businesses seeking to establish an online presence. The platform’s drag-and-drop editor simplifies website creation, although it limits layout flexibility due to preconfigured template designs. E-commerce capabilities are available only with the Enterprise plan, which includes features like unlimited product listings and support for over 45 payment gateways. While the builder is easy to use and quick to set up, it offers limited customization and lacks advanced marketing tools.

Product page customization

BigCommerce allows extensive customization of product pages to enhance customer experience and improve sales. This includes the ability to create detailed product variants, customize options like custom fields, and upload multiple images or videos for each product.

The HostPapa Website Builder provides a suite of product page customization features for online stores. Users can tailor product offerings by adding various options such as size and color, set product availability, and manage inventory with detailed controls. The platform supports a wide range of currencies and languages, adapting to the customer’s preferences automatically. Advanced functionalities include customizable “Buy now” buttons, product combinations for different variants, and suggestions for related products to enhance the shopping experience.

Payment processing

BigCommerce supports over 65 pre-integrated online payment solutions, serving customers across 230 countries with more than 140 currencies, without charging additional transaction fees for using third-party payment gateways. This approach provides merchants with the flexibility to choose the best payment solution for their business needs, including the option for custom integration to cater to specific regional payment preferences. Furthermore, BigCommerce’s integration with various POS systems allows for seamless online and in-store sales management, offering a comprehensive solution for businesses looking to maximize their sales channels.

The HostPapa Website Builder supports a variety of payment gateways, including popular services like PayPal, Square, and Stripe, catering to both online and offline payment methods for businesses. The platform does not charge transaction fees itself, the fees primarily depend on the chosen payment gateway. Although the platform is equipped with eCommerce capabilities, enabling the addition of products and customization of payment and shipping methods, there are no integrated Point of Sale (POS) functionalities.

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Winner: BigCommerce

. BigCommerce, with a score of 7.9, offers a comprehensive suite of tools designed for creating professional and engaging online stores without requiring coding knowledge. It provides a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, robust eCommerce capabilities including product management and secure payment processing, and customizable templates to match brand aesthetics. The platform also features powerful SEO and marketing tools, app integrations for extended functionality, and comprehensive analytics to track website performance. These features make it an ideal solution for businesses of all sizes looking to establish or expand their online presence.

Hostpapa’s editor, scoring 6.8, is designed for ease of use, catering primarily to beginners and small businesses looking to establish a basic online presence quickly. It offers a range of templates and a drag-and-drop editor but lacks in-depth marketing tools and advanced SEO capabilities. While generally affordable and including customer support options like 24/7 access and one-on-one training, some users have noted limitations in customer service effectiveness and challenges in the platform’s usability, particularly regarding the checkout process.

Mobile editor/app

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Winner: BigCommerce

. BigCommerce offers a mobile app that allows users to manage various aspects of their online store, including accessing the dashboard, viewing analytics, processing orders, and adding or editing products. While it does not support direct website editing, it provides essential tools for ecommerce management on the go.

Hostpapa, in contrast, does not offer a dedicated mobile editor app, which limits users’ ability to manage their website from mobile devices. This lack of mobile functionality can be a significant drawback for users who need to make quick updates or manage their site while away from a computer.

In summary, BigCommerce takes the lead in this category due to its mobile app’s capabilities, even though it lacks direct website editing features. Hostpapa’s absence of a mobile editor app places it at a disadvantage for users seeking mobile management options.

Overall Result

:

BigCommerce wins

. BigCommerce scores 7.3, significantly higher than Hostpapa’s 0.5, due to its 14-day free trial that allows users to test all premium features. Hostpapa, on the other hand, does not offer a trial version and does not allow testing of premium features before purchase, although it does provide a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Hostpapa offers more budget-friendly plans, while BigCommerce provides more advanced features suitable for larger businesses.

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Winner: BigCommerce

BigCommerce offers scalable cloud hosting with unlimited storage and bandwidth, making it suitable for growing businesses. It also provides a higher uptime guarantee of 99.99%. Hostpapa, while offering shared hosting with a 99.9% uptime guarantee, is more suited for smaller websites and businesses. BigCommerce’s robust hosting capabilities give it an edge in this comparison.

🏆 Winner: BigCommerce

Both BigCommerce and Hostpapa offer various strategies for optimizing website speed, but BigCommerce has a slight edge due to its more comprehensive set of tools and higher optimization score.

BigCommerce is a comprehensive e-commerce platform that allows businesses to create and manage their online stores with a focus on speed optimization. It employs various strategies such as image optimization, code minification, optimized templates, AMP, and caching to ensure fast load times. BigCommerce provides users with many tools for Core Web Vitals (CWV) improvements, making it a robust choice for merchants looking to scale their online presence efficiently.

Hostpapa, on the other hand, is designed for small businesses and individuals looking to create a professional online presence. It offers an intuitive drag-and-drop website builder with features like image optimization, caching, and HTTP requests minimization. While Hostpapa also implements various performance optimization techniques, its overall speed optimization score is slightly lower than BigCommerce, making it a good but not the best option for those prioritizing speed.

In summary, while both platforms offer solid speed optimization features, BigCommerce’s more comprehensive set of tools and higher optimization score make it the better choice for those looking to maximize their website’s performance.

🏆 Winner: BigCommerce.

BigCommerce scores 7.7, offering a wide array of apps and integrations that enhance various aspects of ecommerce, from marketing and SEO to inventory management and customer relationship management. Hostpapa, with a score of 5.0, provides basic integrations like Google Maps and social media icons but lacks the advanced third-party integrations that BigCommerce supports.

BigCommerce’s extensive integration options make it a more versatile choice for businesses looking to scale and customize their online stores. Hostpapa, while user-friendly, is more suited for basic websites and may not meet the needs of more complex ecommerce operations.

BigCommerce Applications

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Overall Winner: BigCommerce

. BigCommerce excels with its robust marketing tools, including advanced SEO, email marketing integrations, and comprehensive analytics. Hostpapa, while suitable for basic needs, falls short in several key marketing areas.

🏆 Winner: BigCommerce

. In the BigCommerce vs Hostpapa comparison, BigCommerce takes the lead with its robust 24/7 customer support available through phone, email, and live chat. BigCommerce also offers dedicated phone lines for various regions and requires a support pin for personalized assistance, ensuring a high level of service. The extensive knowledge base and active community forums further enhance the support experience, making it easier for users to find solutions and share insights.

Hostpapa also provides 24/7/365 customer support through phone, email, and live chat, with the unique addition of 30-minute one-on-one video training sessions with their experts. However, it lacks the dedicated and priority support for enterprise customers that BigCommerce offers. Despite this, Hostpapa’s PapaSquad Support Team is highly regarded for its availability and helpfulness, ensuring users receive the assistance they need to manage their websites effectively.

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Winner: BigCommerce

. BigCommerce stands out with its comprehensive security measures, including compliance with international standards like GDPR, PCI DSS, and ISO certifications. The platform employs robust data encryption, regular security audits, and continuous monitoring to ensure data integrity and protection. Additionally, its partnership with Cloudflare enhances security, making it a reliable choice for businesses looking to safeguard their online stores.

HostPapa also offers a solid range of security features, such as automatic SSL certification, server firewalls, and DDoS attack prevention. The inclusion of Protection Power Security Software adds an extra layer of protection with web application firewall (WAF) and malware detection. However, BigCommerce’s adherence to international standards and advanced security practices give it an edge in this comparison.

🏆 Winner: BigCommerce

. BigCommerce, with a score of 7.3, offers a range of AI capabilities that enhance ecommerce operations, including personalized product recommendations, AI-powered search, and chatbots. These features help improve customer engagement and operational efficiency. Additionally, BigCommerce’s AI content generation tools streamline the creation of product descriptions and SEO metadata, making it a robust choice for merchants looking to leverage AI in their online stores.

Hostpapa, with a score of 0, does not offer any AI capabilities. This makes it less suitable for users seeking advanced AI-driven features to enhance their website’s functionality and user experience.

🏆 Winner: BigCommerce

. When it comes to managing users and roles, BigCommerce stands out with its robust and flexible system, while Hostpapa falls short due to limited information on user management capabilities.

• BigCommerce allows an unlimited number of staff accounts with various roles and permissions, making it ideal for businesses with large teams.
• Hostpapa does not provide detailed information on supporting multiple users, which may indicate limited user management features.

BigCommerce User Roles and Access Levels:

Additional Features

User Feedback

User feedback on BigCommerce highlights a mix of experiences, with positive remarks on its ease of use, SEO configuration, and strong support team. However, significant criticisms include its lack of suitability for businesses with brick-and-mortar locations, due to issues with POS integration and sales tracking, as well as its inflexibility with customization and additional costs for necessary features. Additionally, concerns were raised about the platform’s steep learning curve for beginners, limitations in product variation and design options, and difficulties with order management. Despite these challenges, some users appreciate the platform’s ability to quickly launch and reliably host stores, alongside its potential for scalability and e-commerce growth.

Hostpapa website builder does not have any reviews on G2 platform, making it difficult to gauge user satisfaction and feedback. This absence of user reviews could be a consideration for potential users when comparing BigCommerce vs Hostpapa, as user experiences and feedback are crucial in making an informed decision.

FAQ