Shopify vs Network Solutions: Comprehensive comparison guide for 2024

Final verdict

Shopify and Network Solutions cater to different needs, with Shopify excelling in ecommerce and Network Solutions providing a more general website building experience.

• 
  Shopify (Overall Grade: 8.1/10)
  
  is a robust ecommerce platform designed for businesses looking to scale. It offers comprehensive tools for online store management, including advanced inventory management, multi-channel selling, and detailed analytics. Shopify’s ease of use, extensive learning resources, and superior customer support make it an excellent choice for serious online retailers. When comparing Shopify vs Network Solutions, Shopify stands out for its specialized ecommerce features and strong security measures.
• 
  Network Solutions (Overall Grade: 5.4/10)
  
  is a versatile website builder suitable for small businesses and individuals. It provides a variety of templates and tools for creating professional websites without coding knowledge. While it offers essential ecommerce features, it may not be as scalable as Shopify for larger businesses. Network Solutions is known for its customer support and a wide range of services, but it falls short in areas like AI capabilities and user management. For users comparing Shopify vs Network Solutions, Network Solutions is a more budget-friendly option but lacks the advanced features and scalability of Shopify.

Best for ecommerce

Verdict

: Network Solutions is suitable for small to medium-sized businesses, while Shopify excels in providing comprehensive ecommerce solutions for businesses aiming for significant growth.

• 
  Shopify
  
  : With a score of 9.2, Shopify is a leading ecommerce platform offering a wide range of features for online businesses. It provides tools for creating and customizing online stores, managing products, processing payments, and handling order fulfillment. Shopify’s extensive ecommerce functionalities make it ideal for businesses looking to scale. However, when comparing Shopify vs Network Solutions, Shopify stands out for its advanced inventory management, multi-channel selling, and detailed analytics.
• 
  Network Solutions
  
  : Scoring 6.3, Network Solutions offers a range of ecommerce features suitable for small to medium-sized businesses. The platform includes customizable templates, an easy-to-use shopping cart, secure payment processing, and inventory management tools. While it provides essential ecommerce capabilities, it may be less scalable for larger businesses or those experiencing rapid growth. Network Solutions is known for its customer support and a variety of services that cater to the needs of its users.

Best for informational & business websites

Verdict

: When it comes to creating informational and business websites, Network Solutions has a slight edge over Shopify. While Shopify excels in ecommerce functionalities, Network Solutions offers a more balanced approach suitable for a broader range of business needs.

• 
  Shopify
  
  : Shopify, with a score of 6.8, is primarily designed for ecommerce but can also be used for informational websites. Its templates are sleek and professional, ideal for online stores. However, for purely informational sites, the platform might feel overly complex and feature-heavy. Shopify’s robust hosting and security features make it a reliable choice, but its true strengths lie in ecommerce.
• 
  Network Solutions
  
  : Scoring 7.4, Network Solutions is better suited for informational and business websites. It offers a variety of templates and tools that cater to small businesses and individuals looking to establish an online presence. The platform is user-friendly and provides comprehensive support, making it easier for users to create and manage their websites. Network Solutions’ balanced approach and wide range of services make it a strong contender for informational and business websites.

Detailed comparison

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Winner: Shopify.

Shopify’s design functionalities and templates score is higher than Network Solutions, indicating a better overall performance in this category.

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

On the other hand, Network Solutions offers a wide variety of templates and designs tailored to meet the diverse needs of its users. Whether you’re setting up a website for a small business, a personal blog, or a large e-commerce platform, you’ll find an extensive selection of options to choose from. However, Network Solutions does not provide a link to the themes page or screenshots of the template page and template example.

🏆 Winner: Shopify

. Scoring 7.5, Shopify is widely praised for its exceptional ease of use, offering a drag-and-drop interface, intuitive layout, pre-built templates, and extensive resources for beginners. Network Solutions, with a score of 6.8, offers a simple and accessible website builder, but some users may find the interface a bit outdated and the customization options limited.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Shopify

. Shopify provides an extensive library of articles, tutorials, webinars, and video courses, focusing primarily on setting up and managing online stores. Network Solutions offers a variety of learning resources, including tutorials and FAQs, but the availability of in-depth resources for highly advanced or specific customization options might be limited compared to Shopify.

Shopify, with a score of 9.2, 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, Network Solutions, scoring 6.3, offers a range of ecommerce features suitable for small to medium-sized businesses looking to establish an online store. Their platform includes customizable templates, an easy-to-use shopping cart, secure payment processing, and inventory management tools. However, it may be less scalable for larger businesses or those experiencing rapid growth.

Shopify ecommerce features:

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

Network Solutions ecommerce features:

• Marketing Tools
• Personalized Email
• Product Listings

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. Network Solutions offers a variety of ecommerce templates designed to cater to businesses of different sizes and industries. Their templates are crafted to be responsive, ensuring a seamless shopping experience across various devices, including smartphones, tablets, and desktops.

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. Network Solutions offers a range of ecommerce product page customization options to enhance the online shopping experience. Users can personalize product descriptions, images, and videos to showcase their items effectively. Additionally, the platform allows for the customization of product options such as size, color, and material, enabling a more interactive and tailored shopping experience for customers.

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. Network Solutions’ website builder is designed for online stores, small businesses, and personal websites, offering essential e-commerce features including a built-in shopping cart and support for a wide range of payment options such as PayPal, PayFlow, USA ePay, CyberSource, PlugNPay, making it convenient for businesses to process transactions. Network Solutions does not mention that they charge commissions on transactions, commissions are charged by the gateways themselves.

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Winner: Shopify

. Shopify’s editor, 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.

Network Solutions’ editor, scoring 6.3, offers a comprehensive suite of tools for website creation and management, catering to businesses and individuals alike. It provides an intuitive website editor that allows users to design, edit, and publish their websites without needing advanced technical skills. With a wide array of templates and customization options, users can create professional-looking websites that are responsive and optimized for search engines. Additionally, Network Solutions offers domain registration, web hosting, and security services to support and protect online presences.

Mobile editor/app

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Winner: Shopify

. Shopify offers a mobile app that includes a user-friendly mobile theme editor. This feature allows users to customize their online store website directly from their mobile device, enabling the addition, removal, editing, and rearrangement of content on the store’s website. This offers convenient on-the-go adjustments to the store’s appearance and layout.

On the other hand, Network Solutions does not have a dedicated mobile editor app, which means users cannot make changes to their website from a mobile device. This lack of mobile editing capability is a significant disadvantage, especially for users who need to make quick changes on the go.

Therefore, Shopify is the clear winner in this category.

Overall Result

:

Shopify Wins

. Shopify scores 8.1 in product testing options, significantly higher than Network Solutions’ 0.5. Shopify offers a 14-day free trial with access to all features, allowing users to fully test the platform before committing. Network Solutions, on the other hand, does not offer a free trial and only provides access to features after purchasing a plan. While Network Solutions offers a 30-day money back guarantee, it is noted that obtaining refunds may be difficult.

Shopify offers more value for money, with more features and discounts for annual subscriptions. Network Solutions is cheaper, but does not offer as many features or discounts.

Winner: Shopify

. Shopify’s proprietary cloud-based hosting, with a 99.99% uptime guarantee and 5 global data centers, is designed for high-traffic online stores. Network Solutions, while offering a variety of hosting options and a 99.99% uptime guarantee, does not publicly disclose information about its data centers, which may concern some users. Shopify’s transparency and specialized hosting services earn it a higher rating.

🏆 Winner: Shopify

Both Shopify and Network Solutions prioritize website performance and page speed, but Shopify’s focus on app efficiency and theme optimization gives it a slight edge over Network Solutions.

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.

Network Solutions, on the other hand, focuses on CDN, web caching, image optimization, and SEO optimization to enhance website speed. The load times and PageSpeed score ranges for Network Solutions vary widely, depending on the optimization hosting type and website complexity. Network Solutions also emphasizes improvements in LCP, FID, and CLS for Core Web Vitals. However, the lack of specific data on load times and PageSpeed scores makes it difficult to compare Network Solutions directly with Shopify.

🏆 Winner: Shopify.

With a score of 8.7, Shopify outperforms Network Solutions, which scores 4.8. Shopify offers over 8,000 apps in its App Store, covering a wide range of functionalities. These apps come with various pricing options, including free, paid, freemium, and one-time payment models. On the other hand, Network Solutions offers a variety of plugins/extensions, although the exact number can vary. Network Solutions focuses more on providing an all-in-one solution with built-in features rather than a wide range of third-party plugins or extensions. Both platforms allow for a wide range of functionalities to be extended, but Shopify’s breadth and depth give it the upper hand.

Shopify Applications

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Overall Winner: Shopify

. Shopify stands out for its more advanced ecommerce-focused marketing tools, especially in analytics and ad campaign management. Network Solutions, while offering a comprehensive suite of marketing tools, falls short in comparison to Shopify’s advanced features.

🏆 Winner: Shopify

. Comparing Shopify vs Network Solutions, Shopify takes the lead in this category with its comprehensive 24/7 support through chat, email, and phone. Shopify’s support is highly praised for its responsiveness and the availability of extensive resources such as tutorials, forums, and a marketing blog, which provide valuable information for business growth.

Network Solutions, while offering 24/7 live chat support, falls short in comparison due to its limited support channels. It does not provide phone or email support, which can be a drawback for users who prefer these methods of communication. Additionally, Network Solutions lacks enterprise-level support, making it less suitable for larger businesses with more complex needs. Overall, Shopify’s robust and versatile support system makes it the superior choice for customer support.

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Winner: Shopify

. Shopify’s security measures are comprehensive, including data encryption, two-factor authentication, and a dedicated incident response team. They also provide free SSL certificates and a built-in Web Application Firewall for additional security. Shopify’s security score is 9.0, reflecting its strong commitment to protecting user data and websites.

Network Solutions also takes security seriously, with measures such as data encryption, malware protection, and SSL/TLS certificates. They also have plans in place for data recovery in case of loss. However, with a security score of 7.5, Network Solutions falls short of Shopify’s robust security offerings.

🏆 Winner: Shopify

. Shopify’s AI capabilities are comprehensive and user-friendly, offering a wide range of features from personalized design suggestions to sales forecasting. Its AI is particularly strong in enhancing the ecommerce experience, with tools for customer behavior analysis, inventory management, and content generation.

Network Solutions, with a score of 1.1, lacks in AI capabilities. Its only AI feature is an AI copywriting tool available on higher plans. This lack of AI features limits the platform’s ability to provide a personalized and efficient user experience.

🏆 Winner: Shopify

. Shopify offers a more robust user management system compared to Network Solutions.

• Shopify enforces staff account limits based on plans, ranging from 2 to 15, with Shopify Plus offering unlimited
  accounts. Collaborators with limited access are also an option.
• Network Solutions’ website builder offers very limited multi-user functionality and access levels compared to other platforms.

Shopify 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.

User reviews of Network Solutions are mixed, with some praising its prompt customer support and variety of domain management options. However, there are widespread complaints about the platform’s outdated business practices, high costs, and poor customer service. Users often find the website’s layout confusing and report instances of misleading promises regarding refunds. Overall, while Network Solutions has some positive attributes, its drawbacks suggest that users may want to consider alternatives.

FAQ