Shopify vs Mobirise: Comprehensive comparison guide for 2024

Final verdict

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

• 
  Shopify (Overall Grade: 8.1/10)
  
  is a robust ecommerce platform designed for businesses looking to scale their online presence. It offers comprehensive tools for product management, payment processing, and order fulfillment. Shopify’s advanced marketing features, extensive app integrations, and superior security make it the ideal choice for serious online stores. When comparing Shopify vs Mobirise, Shopify stands out for its professional ecommerce capabilities and scalability.
• 
  Mobirise (Overall Grade: 5.9/10)
  
  is an offline website builder that excels in ease of use and quick website creation. It is perfect for non-tech savvy users and small to medium-sized projects like portfolios, landing pages, and small business sites. Mobirise’s drag-and-drop interface and customizable templates make it easy to design visually appealing websites without coding. However, in the Shopify vs Mobirise comparison, Mobirise falls short in advanced ecommerce features and scalability, making it less suitable for larger, more complex online stores.

Best for ecommerce

Verdict

: Shopify is the superior choice for ecommerce, offering a robust set of features for growing businesses, while Mobirise is more suited for small-scale operations with basic ecommerce needs.

• 
  Shopify
  
  : Known for its comprehensive ecommerce features, Shopify is ideal for businesses with
  growth in mind. It supports a wide range of ecommerce functions, making it the go-to platform for those looking to scale. Shopify offers advanced inventory management, multi-channel selling, and detailed analytics, making it a powerful tool for serious ecommerce ventures. Its score for ecommerce is 9.2.
• 
  Mobirise
  
  : Mobirise provides a straightforward, user-friendly platform for small-scale ecommerce websites. It emphasizes ease of use with its drag-and-drop functionality and responsive design templates. However, it lacks the advanced features necessary for scaling online stores, such as extensive product sorting and comprehensive SEO options. Its score for ecommerce is 5.4.

Best for informational & business websites

Verdict

: When it comes to creating informational and business websites, Mobirise has a slight edge over Shopify due to its user-friendly interface and offline capabilities, making it ideal for non-tech savvy users.

• 
  Shopify
  
  : Shopify, with a score of 6.8, is primarily an ecommerce platform. While it offers professional and sleek templates, its focus on ecommerce functionalities can make it feel overly complex for simple informational sites. The platform is robust but may present a steeper learning curve for those not focused on online retail.
• 
  Mobirise
  
  : Mobirise scores 7.4 and is designed for ease of use, making it a great choice for creating small to medium-sized informational websites. Its drag-and-drop interface and offline capabilities allow users to build visually appealing, mobile-responsive sites without any coding knowledge. For those comparing Shopify vs Mobirise, Mobirise stands out for its simplicity and user-friendly design, especially for non-tech savvy users.

Detailed comparison

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Winner: Shopify.

If you’re looking for a platform that offers more professional and ecommerce-focused templates, 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

Compared to Shopify, Mobirise offers a wide variety of templates and designs for users looking to create websites. With over 9,500 free HTML website templates available, Mobirise provides a range of visually stunning layouts that are mobile-responsive, ensuring websites look great on all devices. These templates are designed with clean code structures for easy customization and feature fast load times, beneficial for both user experience and search engine optimization (SEO).

Mobirise Themes

🏆 Winner: Mobirise

. Scoring an impressive 8.8, Mobirise is renowned for its user-friendly interface and drag-and-drop design, making it exceptionally easy for beginners to create websites without needing to code. Shopify, with a score of 7.5, offers a robust platform but with a steeper learning curve, especially for those new to ecommerce. If ease of use is a priority, Mobirise is the clear winner in this category.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Tie

. Both Shopify and Mobirise offer extensive learning resources and active community forums, making it easier for users to learn and adapt to the platforms.

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. On the other hand, Mobirise offers a straightforward, user-friendly platform for small-scale ecommerce websites, emphasizing ease of use with its drag-and-drop functionality and responsive design templates. However, it falls short for more complex ecommerce needs, lacking advanced features like extensive product sorting and comprehensive SEO options necessary for scaling online stores.

Shopify ecommerce features:

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

Mobirise ecommerce features:

• Stripe and PayPal integration
• Marketing Tools

Ecommerce themes & templates

Shopify offers about 150 modern 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. In contrast, Mobirise provides templates equipped with essential features like product catalogs and payment processing, emphasizing a mobile-first design approach.

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.

On the other hand, Mobirise offers customizable HTML eCommerce templates that allow for easy modification of product pages to suit various online store needs. These templates are designed to be highly adaptable, enabling changes in colors, fonts, and layouts, thereby helping users align the design with their brand identity. However, Mobirise’s ecommerce solutions are best suited for small to medium-sized enterprises, given its simplicity and the scale of features offered.

Payment processing

When it comes to 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.

In contrast, Mobirise allows for the integration of external payment gateways into websites without directly charging commissions for transactions. Users have shown interest in a variety of payment options, including SquareUp, Stripe, and PayPal, but adding these requires manual integration or the use of paid extensions. While there’s no direct mention of built-in POS capabilities, Mobirise offers flexibility to integrate various third-party payment services, relying on the user’s ability to embed these into their site.

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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.

Mobirise’s editor, scoring 7.8, offers a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface that allows users to create responsive websites without needing to code. With its editor, users can easily add and customize various pre-designed blocks, such as headers, galleries, sliders, and contact forms, to their web pages. It also provides a wide range of themes and extensions that can be used to enhance the functionality and appearance of websites. However, its limitations include a lack of advanced features for professional web developers, such as in-depth customization through coding, and limited e-commerce capabilities, making it less suitable for complex, large-scale online stores or highly customized web projects.

Mobile editor/app

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Winner: Shopify

. Both Shopify and Mobirise offer mobile editors, but they cater to different needs. Shopify’s mobile editor is designed for ecommerce, allowing users to manage their online stores directly from their mobile devices. This feature enables the addition, removal, editing, and rearrangement of content on the store’s website, offering convenient on-the-go adjustments to the store’s appearance and layout.

Mobirise, on the other hand, does have a mobile editor app, however it is not compatible with all mobile devices. This can limit its usability, especially for users who rely heavily on mobile devices for website management.

In summary, Shopify wins in this category due to its comprehensive mobile editor that caters to the needs of ecommerce businesses and its compatibility with all mobile devices.

Overall Result

:

Shopify Wins

. Shopify scores 8.1 in product testing options, significantly higher than Mobirise’s 5.0. Shopify offers a 14-day free trial with access to all features, allowing users to fully test the platform before committing. On the other hand, Mobirise offers a free version but lacks a trial version and does not provide any options for testing premium features.

While Shopify offers more comprehensive plans and features, Mobirise provides a more affordable and straightforward pricing structure, making it a good choice for users with basic website needs.

🏆

Winner: Shopify

Shopify’s proprietary cloud-based hosting, with a 99.99% uptime guarantee and 5 global data centers, is designed to support high-traffic online stores. On the other hand, Mobirise, an offline website builder, provides limited information about its hosting features, uptime, and data centers. This lack of transparency results in a lower hosting quality score for Mobirise.

🏆 Winner: Shopify

Shopify and Mobirise have different approaches to website speed optimization due to their different platform types. Shopify, being an ecommerce website builder and hosting platform, has a more structured approach, while Mobirise, being an offline website builder, relies on the users for speed optimization.

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 three Shopify sites showed a range of Shopify speed scores from 14 to 75, Google PSI scores from 8 to 80, and load times varying from 10.6 seconds to 2.3 seconds. Continuous maintenance and optimization are essential for keeping Shopify stores fast.

On the other hand, Mobirise, being an offline website builder, relies on the users for speed optimization and Core Web Vital improvements. Both load times and Page speed scores vary widely, depending on the optimization and website complexity. As Mobirise is primarily an offline website builder, strategies for speed optimization are expected to be done by users. This gives users more control over their website’s performance, but also requires more technical knowledge and effort on their part.

🏆 Winner: Shopify.

With a score of 8.7, Shopify outperforms Mobirise, which scores 6.6. Shopify offers over 8,000 apps in its App Store, covering a wide range of functionalities, and is particularly strong in ecommerce. Mobirise, while offering a broad array of plugins and integrations, falls short in comparison to Shopify’s extensive offerings.

However, Mobirise’s offline capabilities and focus on user-friendly design may make it a suitable choice for non-tech savvy users looking to create small to medium-sized websites.

Shopify Applications

Mobirise Applications

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Overall Winner: Shopify

. Shopify stands out for its comprehensive and advanced marketing tools, especially in analytics and ad campaign management. Mobirise, while offering basic marketing features, lacks in email marketing and ad campaign management.

🏆 Winner: Shopify

. Comparing Shopify vs Mobirise, 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 a reliable choice for businesses of all sizes. Additionally, Shopify offers dedicated enterprise support with a range of specialized resources.

Mobirise, on the other hand, provides customer support primarily through email, with responses typically within 24 hours. While Mobirise offers real-time support from within its software, it lacks the extensive support infrastructure and enterprise-level resources that Shopify provides. This makes Shopify the superior option for users seeking robust and readily available customer support.

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Winner: Shopify

. Shopify’s security measures are more comprehensive and robust, offering secure infrastructure, encryption, and limited access. They comply with data privacy regulations, practice data minimization, and ensure user control and transparency. Additional security measures include two-factor authentication, regular audits, and a dedicated incident response team.

Although it may not offer the same level of specialized ecommerce security features as Shopify, Mobirise relies heavily on the user’s practices and the security measures of the chosen web hosting service. While it does offer some security measures, such as modifications to the .htaccess file for HTTPS enforcement and XSS protection, the responsibility for data protection largely falls on the user and the hosting service. This makes Shopify a more secure option for users who want a more hands-off approach to website security.

🏆 Winner: Shopify

. Shopify, with a score of 7.9, utilizes AI to enhance the ecommerce experience. Its AI features focus on customer behavior analysis, personalized shopping experiences, inventory management, and sales predictions. Shopify’s AI also assists in content generation and SEO optimization.

Mobirise, scoring 3.8, has limited AI capabilities. Its only notable feature is an experimental AI builder that generates website designs based on user prompts. However, it lacks the comprehensive AI features that Shopify offers.

🏆 Winner: Shopify

. Shopify’s user management system is more robust and flexible compared to Mobirise.

• Shopify allows for different roles with varying levels of access, including Store Owner, Staff, and Collaborator. This makes it easy to manage a team and control who has access to what.
• Mobirise, on the other hand, does not natively support multi-user collaboration in the same way that content management systems do. This can be a significant disadvantage for teams.

Shopify User Roles and Access Levels:

Mobirise does not provide user roles and access levels.

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 praise Mobirise for its user-friendly interface, ease of use, and quick website creation without coding. They appreciate its drag-and-drop feature, customizable templates, and built-in code editor. However, some mention concerns about pricing, limited free templates, and occasional compatibility issues. Overall, Mobirise is valued for its ability to swiftly prototype websites, particularly for those lacking coding skills, making it a go-to tool for small to medium-sized projects.

FAQ