Which eCommerce plugin is the better alternative for my blog? With more and more competing premium WordPress plugins it gets harder and harder to answer that question. This article takes a look at two popular eCommerce plugins: It compares WooCommerce with Easy Digital Downloads in order to help you with your decision in choosing one.
There are several other alternatives to WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads on the market which I have compared in separate articles. Go to my main WordPress eCommerce Plugins comparison to start your search.
Please note that this comparison only looks at the features on paper as reported by either plugin’s developers. It does not and can not tell you if or how well a certain feature will work for you. Because such a verdict would depend on too many variables, including your server setup and personal preference, I have decided to stick to the hard facts for this feature comparison between WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
WooCommerce And Easy Digital Downloads Feature Comparison
In my comparison I track 50 different features for all the WordPress e-commerce plugins. In WooCommerce you can find 49 out of 50 of those features. Easy Digital Downloads on the other hand offers 39 out of the 50 features in total.
| WooCommerce | Easy Digital Downloads | |
| Listing Data Verified? | ||
| User Rating | [crfp id=”3993″ enabled=”2″ displaystyle=”grey” displayaverage=”1″ averageratingtext=”” displaytotalratings=”0″ displaybreakdown=”0″] (8 reviews, add your own) |
[crfp id=”4020″ enabled=”2″ displaystyle=”grey” displayaverage=”1″ averageratingtext=”” displaytotalratings=”0″ displaybreakdown=”0″] (4 reviews, add your own) |
| Shopping Features | ||
| Coupons and Discounts |
(free) |
(free) |
| Product Reviews |
(free) |
(addon) |
| Subscriptions / Recurring Payments |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Simple Shipping |
(free) |
(addon) |
| Advanced / Table Rate Shipping |
(addon) |
|
| Shipment Tracking |
(addon) |
|
| License Keys / Software Sale |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Manual Purchases |
(free) |
(addon) |
| Cross-sell and Upsell |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| PDF Invoices |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Suggestions / Related Products |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Product Comparisons |
(addon) |
|
| WooCommerce | Easy Digital Downloads | |
| Payment Processors | ||
| Paypal Standard |
(free) |
(free) |
| Paypal Express / Pro |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Stripe |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Authorize.net |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| 2Checkout |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| WorldPay |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Braintree |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| FirstData |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Amazon Payments |
(addon) |
|
| Skrill / Moneybookers |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Google Checkout |
(addon) |
|
| SagePay |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Mijireh |
(free) |
(free) |
| WooCommerce | Easy Digital Downloads | |
| Email Integrations | ||
| MailChimp |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Constant Contact |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Mad Mimi |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Aweber |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Campaign Monitor |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| GetResponse |
(free) |
(addon) |
| WooCommerce | Easy Digital Downloads | |
| Invoicing, Shipping and Misc Integrations | ||
| FedEx Shipping Costs |
(addon) |
|
| UPS Shipping Costs |
(addon) |
|
| USPS |
(addon) |
|
| Freshdesk |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| FreshBooks |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| FastBill |
(addon) |
|
| QuickBooks |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Zapier |
(addon) |
|
| Amazon S3 |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| WooCommerce | Easy Digital Downloads | |
| Niche And Other Features | ||
| Bookings / Time and Date Based Orders |
(addon) |
|
| 3rd Party Vendors / Product Submission |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Wishlists |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Address Validation |
(addon) |
|
| Product CSV Import |
(addon) |
(free) |
| EU Vat ID Collection |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Social Discounts (for Sharing or Reviewing) |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Image Watermarks |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Points / Rewards System |
(addon) |
(addon) |
| Support Forums / bbPress Integration |
(addon) |
(addon) |
Even if many of the features compared above overlap between the two competing products there is one very important difference: WooCommerce as well as Easy Digital Downloads both provide a unique interface from which you will build an awesome online store. Since it is hard to rate the quality of such an interface objectively I recommend that you try both products yourself before deciding for one.
WooCommerce vs Easy Digital Downloads Price Comparison
WPscoop indexes the exact prixing plans of all compared plugins. Please refer to the table below for a quick overview of the prices of WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
To find the cheaper eCommerce plugin for your individual needs please go to my main comparison article. There you can search for the features you need and then see the exact price you would need to pay for WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads (as well as other alternatives).
| Price | WooCommerce | Easy Digital Downloads |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum (1 Site) | 0.00 USD | 0.00 USD |
| Maximum (1 Site) | 3410.00 USD | 1463.00 USD |
| Minimum (10 Sites) | 0.00 USD | 0.00 USD |
| Maximum (10 Sites) | 8368.00 USD | 3291.00 USD |
Explanations: The minimum price compared above is the lowest price a product is available for, e.g. the version with the least features. The maximum price listed is for a version of the product that includes all features. For plugins that charge per addon it factors in the cost of all available addons. For some products the price increases if you want to use it on more than 1 WordPress site – the listed price for 10 sites shows if that is the case.
Disclaimer: While we update this comparison regularly we can not guarantee the prices displayed above are still correct and take no responsibility if they changed.
Product Videos
You can have a look at the Youtube videos below to see WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads in action. That will give you a better idea of how the interface looks and which of the two eCommerce plugins is easier to use.
WooCommerce Video
Easy Digital Downloads Video
More Information
Visit the developers website to learn more about each of the WordPress e-commerce plugins and order or download the software.
Most WordPress plugins have an option to test their service for free, either thrhough a basic free version, a trial period or online demo. Check if such an offer exists for WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads and if so: Make use of it! By doing so you can compare both plugins directly and find out which one is the better alternative in you situation.
Visit WooCommerce NowVisit Easy Digital Downloads Now
Other Alternative eCommerce Plugins
But wait, there is more! Besides WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads I have compared several other eCommerce plugins on WPscoop. I recommend you start your search for WooCommerce alternatives or Easy Digital Downloads alternatives in the main comparison article. There you can filter all different products and search for the features you need.
WooCommerce vs. other WordPress e-commerce plugins
- WooCommerce vs WP eCommerce Comparison
- WooCommerce vs iThemes Exchange Comparison
- WooCommerce vs Jigoshop Comparison
- WooCommerce vs MarketPress Comparison
- WooCommerce vs Shopp Comparison
- WooCommerce vs Cart66 Cloud Comparison
Easy Digital Downloads vs. other WP e-commerce plugins
- WP eCommerce vs Easy Digital Downloads Comparison
- iThemes Exchange vs Easy Digital Downloads Comparison
- Jigoshop vs Easy Digital Downloads Comparison
- MarketPress vs Easy Digital Downloads Comparison
- Easy Digital Downloads vs Shopp Comparison
- Easy Digital Downloads vs Cart66 Cloud Comparison
Did you spot a mistake in here? Is some feature in my comparison out of date? Please leave a comment below so I can update the article!
Which one is the better WP eCommerce plugin: WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads? Please share your opinion or experience in the comments!
Last update on: 13.1.2015
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What an excellent and detailed comparison Simon. Thanks a lot. Saved me a ton of time figuring out the pros and cons faceoff between WC and EDD.
Cheers.
Jonathan
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Hi,
According to me, WooCommerce becomes a lot heavier just after adding 200+ products and the website becomes a lot slower. Instead, EDD works better for me for over 250+ products. Same hosting used for both.
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Easy digital downloads is to expensive, and its one thing to just purchase the plugin and be done with it. Expect to pay over 500 annually which is a recurring billing. You will also need to have your own ssl certificate add another 89 annually lol and the hassle of setting everything up. In my personal opinion, the cost and the effort don’t really add up to the of the value the product is not anything extraordinary. Especially with other plugins that do more and cost 80% less. Not to mention there are free services like gumroad, or cheap paid ones shopify lite $9/ mo or selz 14.99 a month which give you face book stores and whole aresenal of better additions this the ones your charging insane amounts for. Anyone who uses this dreaded plugin at that rate is just plain dumb given the options.
Woo commerce why? its complicated why not just get gumroad or selz or my personal favorite shopify lite only 9 a month both these have reccuring billing so its not wowth it or the hassle.
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I agree, EDD sucks. It has all of the glitches mentioned and then some. Woo is much better and is pretty much bug free. There is always a headache with EDD it seems!
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Easy digital downloads blows, not because of their features (which are awesome btw) but because they cannot keep up with the wordpress updates and constant bugs within their system.
So far, (out of 50 downloads) i have had 5 people report issues (unrelated to each other, often sporadic). Here are a few:
1)Fatal error on checkout, then click through it and it fixes itself, – i go in and test and its fine.
2)Download unauthorized (after receiving their automatically generated link to the download, they click it and cannot download.
3) and the final blow which I just found out about today is that now my downloads are not generated with the receipt (after zero changes on my part), but my sales receipt shows they are available…. hmmm so the concept of EASY digital downloads is there, but man, they are making it difficult. Im switching over to woo commerce as easy digital downloads just sucks
(oh and btw when you click “remove all data from EDD after uninstalling plugin” STILL leaves their shit on your wordpress site.
So let me ask you something. Do you want to lose at least 10% of your sales to glitches in a shitty plugin? Do you enjoy headaches?
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Hi Thomas, we’ve just released the EDD Bookings add-on, so you might want to update the comparison table. Cheers!
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I’ve used both EDD and Woo (woo extensively…) – both are great.
My main concern with a new project that I’m working on is that woo can be a bit intensive. So I’m thinking if EDD is a bit slimmer I would rather use that.
Do you have a sense of the difference in terms of load time compassion or anything along those lines (how much gets loaded with woo compared to EDD)…Would Woo bog down the site resources more than EDD?
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Thanks Thomas for this article. I intensively look for a solution to my downloadable products handling solution, but it looks like this is a very niche-related topic. What I exactly want to do is just sent an email with a download link to updated files to all the customers who bought the chosen product. AFAIK, Easy Digital Downloads makes this one easy, but I use WooCommerce and that seems like a huge problem to solve here. You can also cover this aspect in your comparison.