Shopify vs Carbonmade: Comprehensive comparison guide for 2024

Final verdict

Shopify and Carbonmade cater to different audiences, each excelling in their respective domains.

• 
  Shopify (Overall Grade: 8.1/10)
  
  is a robust ecommerce platform designed for businesses looking to create and manage online stores. It offers a comprehensive set of tools for product listing, payments, and order fulfillment, making it ideal for serious online businesses. Shopify’s advanced customization options, extensive app store, and strong security features make it a top choice for ecommerce. When comparing Shopify vs Carbonmade, Shopify stands out for its scalability and depth in ecommerce functionalities.
• 
  Carbonmade (Overall Grade: 4.4/10)
  
  is tailored for creatives who want to showcase their work online without the need for coding skills. It provides fully customizable layouts and an easy-to-use interface, making it perfect for photographers, illustrators, and designers. While Carbonmade excels in simplicity and design flexibility, it lacks the advanced ecommerce features that Shopify offers. In the Shopify vs Carbonmade comparison, Carbonmade is best suited for users focused on creating professional portfolios rather than running an online store.

Best for ecommerce

Verdict

: Shopify is the clear winner for ecommerce, offering a comprehensive suite of tools and features, while Carbonmade is not designed for ecommerce purposes.

• 
  Shopify
  
  : Known for its extensive ecommerce capabilities, Shopify is ideal for businesses looking to scale. It offers a wide range of features, including advanced inventory management, multi-channel selling, and detailed analytics. Shopify’s robust platform supports various payment gateways and provides additional functionalities through its extensive app library. When comparing Shopify vs Carbonmade, Shopify stands out as the superior choice for ecommerce.
• 
  Carbonmade
  
  : Designed specifically for creatives, Carbonmade excels in providing customizable layouts for online portfolios. However, it lacks any ecommerce features, making it unsuitable for businesses looking to sell products online. While Carbonmade is excellent for showcasing creative work, it does not compete with Shopify in the ecommerce domain.

Best for informational & business websites

Verdict

: Shopify is the better choice for informational and business websites due to its robust features and professional templates, despite being primarily an ecommerce platform. Carbonmade, while excellent for creative portfolios, lacks the advanced functionalities needed for broader business applications.

• 
  Shopify
  
  : Shopify, with a score of 6.8, offers a range of professional templates and advanced customization options, making it suitable for informational and business websites. Its robust platform, though primarily designed for ecommerce, provides a sophisticated look and a variety of industry-specific options. However, it may feel a bit complex for users who do not need ecommerce functionalities.
• 
  Carbonmade
  
  : Carbonmade, scoring 5.9, is tailored for creatives looking to showcase their work online. It offers customizable layouts and an easy-to-use interface, making it ideal for portfolios. However, it lacks the advanced design functionalities and broader business features that Shopify provides. When comparing Shopify vs Carbonmade, Carbonmade is more suited for creative professionals rather than traditional business websites.

Detailed comparison

🏆

Winner: Shopify.

If you’re looking for a platform with a wide range of professional templates and advanced customization options, Shopify is the preferred choice.

Shopify’s templates are sleek and professional, ideal for ecommerce sites. They offer a sophisticated look with a focus on online stores. While the free template selection is not large, Shopify’s premium theme store provides a variety of industry-specific options, offering advanced features for a strong brand presence.

Shopify Themes

Carbonmade, on the other hand, does not use traditional templates. Instead, it offers a flexible website building platform tailored for creatives, with customizable layouts and blocks to enable unique portfolio presentations. This approach simplifies the website creation process but may lack the advanced design functionalities that Shopify provides.

Wix Themes

🏆 Winner: Carbonmade

. With a score of 8.3, Carbonmade excels in ease of use, particularly for creatives looking to showcase their work without needing coding skills. Its straightforward drag-and-drop interface and customizable layouts make it highly accessible. Shopify, scoring 7.5, offers a robust platform with a user-friendly design but has a steeper learning curve, especially for advanced features.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Shopify

. Shopify provides an extensive library of articles, tutorials, webinars, and video courses, making it easier for users to learn and adapt. Carbonmade also offers comprehensive video tutorials and a help center, but Shopify’s resources are more extensive and detailed.

Shopify is a leading ecommerce platform that provides a comprehensive set of features for online businesses. It offers tools for creating and customizing online stores, managing products, processing payments, and handling order fulfillment. In contrast, Carbonmade is designed specifically for creatives who want to showcase their work online and does not offer any ecommerce features.

Shopify ecommerce features:

• Comprehensive store builder
• Shopify Payments and other gateways
• Advanced inventory management
• Multi-channel selling
• Abandoned cart recovery
• Detailed analytics and reporting

Carbonmade ecommerce features:

Carbonmade does not have ecommerce features.

Ecommerce themes & templates

Shopify offers about 150 modern and responsive themes for creating a virtual storefront, ensuring a good look on both desktop and mobile devices. While some themes are free, others cost between $170 to $380. Carbonmade does not provide any templates for ecommerce.

Product page customization

Shopify has a limit of three options per product, totaling 100 unique variations. This limit may not pose a significant constraint, and it is suggested that for products with numerous options, creating separate listings on Shopify can be a more manageable approach. While Shopify offers titles, descriptions, and image galleries with zoom effects, customization options like adding ribbons, size charts, and wishlists are not as straightforward. However, Shopify distinguishes itself with additional features through its extensive library of extra apps, offering functionalities like reviews, Facebook stores, eBay item importers, and a unique Augmented Reality feature for an enhanced customer experience. Carbonmade does not have ecommerce capabilities, thus it’s not possible to have product pages.

Payment processing

Shopify offers payments with typical charges of

2.9% + 30¢

per online transaction on basic plans, and lower fees for higher-tier plans. However, it adds extra fees for using other payment gateways. Shopify Payments is Shopify’s own payment processing gateway. It allows merchants to accept credit card payments directly on their store without having to integrate third-party payment providers. This simplifies the payment process, reduces transaction fees, and streamlines the handling of finances. Carbonmade does not have payment processing capabilities.

In summary, Shopify is the clear choice for ecommerce due to its extensive features and capabilities, while Carbonmade is not suitable for ecommerce purposes.

🏆

Winner: Shopify

. Shopify, with a score of 7.9, excels in providing a streamlined, ecommerce-focused editing experience. It’s particularly beneficial for users who prioritize efficient management of online stores. The editor is straightforward, making it easy to add products, manage inventory, and set up payment methods. Shopify’s editor is optimized for sales and business growth, with built-in tools specifically designed for ecommerce businesses.

Carbonmade’s editor, scoring 7.6, is designed for creatives to build personalized, professional online portfolios without requiring coding knowledge. Its editor provides responsive design across devices, 4K video support, unlimited image and video uploads, and premade blocks for customization. While it offers a variety of features tailored for showcasing creative work, it has limitations including a limited selection of templates and a focus on portfolio websites, which restricts its functionality for broader website needs like ecommerce.

Mobile editor/app

🏆

Winner: Shopify

. When it comes to mobile editing capabilities, Shopify stands out with its dedicated mobile app that includes a user-friendly mobile theme editor. This feature allows users to customize their online store directly from their mobile device, making it convenient to add, remove, edit, and rearrange content on the go. This is particularly beneficial for ecommerce businesses that require constant updates and management.

On the other hand, Carbonmade does not offer a dedicated mobile editor app, which limits its functionality for users who need to make quick adjustments or manage their portfolios from a mobile device. While Carbonmade excels in providing tools for creating and managing online portfolios, its lack of a mobile editor app is a significant drawback for users who prioritize mobile accessibility.

In summary, Shopify’s robust mobile editing capabilities make it the clear winner in this category, offering greater flexibility and convenience for users who need to manage their websites on the go.

Overall Result

:

Shopify wins

. Shopify scores 8.1, offering a 14-day free trial with access to all features, making it an excellent choice for thoroughly testing the platform. Carbonmade, with a score of 7.2, also allows users to test all features during its trial period but does not offer a money-back guarantee, which may be a drawback for some users.

Carbonmade offers more budget-friendly plans, while Shopify provides more comprehensive features for ecommerce businesses, especially at the enterprise level.

Winner: Shopify

. Shopify outperforms Carbonmade in hosting quality with its proprietary cloud-based hosting, 99.99% uptime guarantee, and globally distributed data centers. Carbonmade, while offering managed hosting with unlimited storage, lacks transparency in uptime statistics and data center locations, making Shopify the more reliable choice for hosting.

🏆 Winner: Shopify

Shopify outperforms Carbonmade in website speed optimization due to its comprehensive strategies and focus on Core Web Vital improvements.

Shopify, an ecommerce website builder and hosting platform, places a strong emphasis on website performance and page speed. Shopify’s approach to enhancing site speed includes app optimization by removing unneeded app code, conditionally loading apps, avoiding immediate pop-up displays, and incorporating app functionality directly into themes. This approach leverages Shopify’s fast servers and CDN network to boost load speed. Shopify also suggests utilizing Google AMP for faster mobile page loads, although with some design compromises. Analysis of Shopify sites shows a range of speed scores and load times, which vary widely depending on the level of optimization applied.

On the other hand, Carbonmade, a website builder designed for creatives, does not provide detailed information on its speed optimization features. While it offers customizable layouts and tools for creating online portfolios, it lacks specific strategies or tools for enhancing website speed. The load times and PageSpeed scores for Carbonmade sites vary depending on the level of optimization, but without clear strategies or performance tools, it falls short compared to Shopify’s robust optimization efforts.

🏆 Winner: Shopify.

Shopify scores 8.7, offering a comprehensive range of over 8,000 apps in its App Store. These apps cover functionalities such as advanced sales, marketing, payment options, shipping, inventory management, customer service, analytics, accounting, store design, mobile app support, security, multi-channel selling, product reviews, dropshipping, print-on-demand, language localization, and accessibility improvements. Key integrations include Oberlo, Klaviyo, Yotpo, Printful, Shopify POS, Google Analytics, Facebook Channel, ShipStation, QuickBooks, Privy, Smile.io, SEO Manager, AfterShip, Spocket, and Gorgias.

Carbonmade, with a score of 0, does not support any plugins or integrations, focusing instead on providing a simple and fast way for creatives to build and manage online portfolios without the need for additional functionalities.

Shopify Applications

Overall Winner: Shopify

. Shopify excels with its extensive marketing tools tailored for ecommerce, including advanced SEO, email marketing, and ad campaign management. Carbonmade, while excellent for showcasing creative portfolios, lacks many essential marketing features.

🏆 Winner: Shopify

. Comparing Shopify vs Carbonmade, Shopify stands out with its comprehensive 24/7 customer support through chat, email, and phone. Shopify’s extensive community forums, clear tutorials, and valuable marketing blog further enhance the support experience, making it easier for users to find solutions quickly. For enterprise-level businesses, Shopify offers dedicated account managers, priority support, and additional resources, ensuring top-notch assistance.

On the other hand, Carbonmade provides support primarily through a ticket-based system, where users can submit inquiries via email. While response times are generally quick, the lack of live customer support means users may not receive immediate answers. Additionally, Carbonmade does not offer specialized support for enterprise-level businesses, which may be a limitation for larger organizations.

🏆

Winner: Shopify

. Shopify excels in security, offering comprehensive measures such as SSL certificates, PCI compliance, and regular updates to protect against threats. This is crucial for ecommerce sites handling sensitive customer data. Shopify’s infrastructure is designed to provide high-level security, ensuring both store owners and customers feel secure.

Carbonmade, while focusing on the simplicity of creating portfolio websites, does not emphasize security measures to the same extent. Although it implements basic safeguards for personal information, it lacks the advanced security features necessary for handling sensitive data, making it less suitable for users with high-security needs.

🏆 Winner: Shopify

. Shopify, with a score of 7.9, offers a comprehensive suite of AI tools designed to enhance the ecommerce experience. These include personalized recommendations, dynamic search, automated marketing, and advanced data analysis for sales forecasting and customer segmentation. Shopify’s AI capabilities are robust and cater to various aspects of online store management.

Carbonmade, on the other hand, does not offer any AI capabilities. It focuses on providing a simple and effective platform for creatives to showcase their work without the need for coding skills. While it excels in ease of use and design flexibility, it lacks the advanced AI features that Shopify provides.

🏆 Winner: Shopify

. When it comes to managing users and assigning roles, Shopify offers a more robust and flexible system compared to Carbonmade.

• Shopify provides multiple user roles with configurable access levels, making it suitable for businesses that require collaboration among different team members.
• Carbonmade, on the other hand, allows only one user to manage and edit a website, which can be limiting for larger teams or businesses.

Shopify User Roles and Access Levels:

Carbonmade User Management:

The platform allows only one user to manage and edit a website.

Additional Features

User Feedback

Shopify’s slightly higher rating on G2 Crowd can be largely attributed to its specialization in ecommerce. Its comprehensive features, ease of use, and robust customer support cater specifically to online businesses, leading to high user satisfaction among those seeking a dedicated ecommerce solution.

Users appreciate Carbonmade for its ease of use, modern design templates, and no-code platform, which simplifies creating professional portfolios. However, some express a desire for a freemium plan and note limitations in customization and mobile site loading times. The platform is highly recommended for creatives, particularly illustrators and graphic designers, for its variety of design options and efficient customer service. Despite concerns over pricing, the overall sentiment is positive, with users finding value in Carbonmade’s ability to showcase their work effectively and streamline portfolio management.

FAQ