# WooCommerce

19 Hacker News commenters recommended WooCommerce and 7 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free open source WordPress store plugin with a large ecosystem and low running costs, cheaper than many hosted options. Caveat: hard to administer, and key features sit behind paid add-ons.

## Why people recommend it

- Cheap to run yourself (3 comments): "I have not yet seen an alternative for Wordpress + woocommerce for a simple e-commerce site that is not more expensive" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48977417)) "Woocommerce on WP is STILL one of the few ways to self-run a ecomm shop for next to $0" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49852161)) "there's woocomerce, shopify, FB marketplace. All dirt cheap and fast." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46059870))
- Self-hosted on your own host (3 comments): "WooCommerce is what you need to host an online store on hosting of your own choosing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49858380)) "There are self-hosted options for almost everything (e.g. WooCommerce)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48387694)) "Ecommerce went from self hosted (Magento, Woocommerce, Prestashop)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47312511))
- Free open source with large ecosystem (2 comments): "Not that fun to administer but it's a complete open source store with a huge ecosystem" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49695181)) "plugins trusted by the community (ACF, WooCommerce, Yoast...)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47635489))
- Feature-rich and widely regarded as strong (2 comments): "WC is quite feature rich and has many payment gateways. It's also owned by Automattic and locks things like the richest subscription features behind paid plugins." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49860358)) "Woocommerce is nearly unrivaled." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710631))

## What people warn about

- Tedious to administer and maintain (4 comments): "It's definitely not the most fun thing to configure and administer, but it's not Magento at least." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49691755)) "the bane of my existence that has inexplicably paid my rent for a gigantic chunk of my adult life" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49663061)) "Not that fun to administer but it's a complete open source store with a huge ecosystem" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49695181))
- Key features locked behind paid plugins (2 comments): "WC is quite feature rich and has many payment gateways. It's also owned by Automattic and locks things like the richest subscription features behind paid plugins." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49860358)) "Run something like WooCommerce and install a bunch of plugins to get the functionality that WordPress and WooCommerce should have built-in" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48355543))
- Weaker than Shopify and other platforms (2 comments): "It isn't, in the context of business, it doesn't belong in the same conversation as Shopify or any other serious commerce business." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49695332)) "isn't WooCommerce an absolute also-ran compared to Amazon, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49691275))
- Concerns over Automattic ownership (2 comments): "WC is quite feature rich and has many payment gateways. It's also owned by Automattic and locks things like the richest subscription features behind paid plugins." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49860358)) "Kept WooCommerce after consolidating it into his empire - woo hoo?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49666222))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Shopify](https://hackerapproved.com/p/shopify.md): 48 recommend
- [Gumroad](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gumroad.md): 6 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "WooCommerce", https://hackerapproved.com/p/woocommerce/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).