Easy Digital Downloads vs WooCommerce

Easy Digital Downloads and WooCommerce are two of the most popular eCommerce platforms for WordPress. Although they provide the means to build an online shop into your WordPress website, they have different features that appeal to different needs. Knowing which to use isn’t as simple as choosing one. In this post, we’ll explore Easy Digital Downloads vs WooCommerce to help you decide which is best for your online shop.

Both Easy Digital Downloads and WooCommerce are plugins that add expansive eCommerce features to your WordPress website to build an online shop of any size. They work with any WP theme, so you can add a shop to any existing WordPress website. Use them to add a shop to your website or build a complete online store with features you’d see in large eCommerce websites. They can be used to build an online marketplace, sell digital or physical products, memberships, subscriptions, and lots more.

For more information about eCommerce platforms, see the articles What is an Ecommerce Platform? Definitions and Types and How to Create an eCommerce Website with WordPress.

If you’re interested in learning more about hosting for your online shop, see the article What Is Ecommerce Hosting? A Complete Guide.

Before we start our comparison of these two popular eCommerce platforms, let’s take a closer look at each platform.

Easy Digital Downloads is a free WordPress plugin that adds eCommerce features to WordPress. Rather than focusing on selling anything and everything, Easy Digital Downloads focuses on selling digital products. There are lots of free and premium add-ons that make it easy to sell music, courses, etc. And, if you do decide to sell physical products, there is a premium plan that adds the option. Other add-ons add new features such as sliders, tabs for the account page, and lots more. Easy Digital Downloads is owned by Awesome Motive.

Easy Digital Downloads is available from the EDD website and it’s available in the WordPress repository. It’s not as popular as WooCommerce, but it does have over 50,000 active installs through the WordPress repository alone. It continuously gets high ratings and receives regular updates.

WooCommerce is the most popular eCommerce platform for WordPress. It’s a free WordPress plugin that provides everything you need to build and manage an online shop. You can sell physical products, digital products, memberships, and more. If you need more features, there are hundreds of extensions to customize your shop even further. There are lots of courses for WooCommerce and it has a large community. It’s owned by Automattic, the maker of WordPress, and is considered the standard eCommerce plugin for WordPress.

WooCommerce is available as a download from the WC website and in the WordPress repository. It has over 5 million active installs through the WordPress repository. It also gets high ratings and receives regular updates.

Both eCommerce platforms are easy to use. They include the basics such as a product post type, shopping cart, payment gateways, and more. Both have a robust knowledge base and lots of help available. Here’s a look at the main features of each eCommerce platform.

Easy Digital Downloads Features and Menu

Easy Digital Downloads adds 11 blocks to WordPress to create your own pages and templates for your store including shop pages, account pages, a checkout page, and more. EDD adds one tab to the WordPress dashboard menu. Here’s a look at what’s included.

Downloads

EDD includes a downloads post type and an editor to create the product description. Add a title, and description, select the product type (choose between single, bundle, or service), add pricing or variable pricing, and include download instructions. You can also add categories and tags to each product.

Orders

The Orders menu provides a list of all your orders and refunds. Sort by mode, date, or gateway. You can also add orders to the list.

Customers

Customers lists all your customers and lets you see them by name, email address, or physical address. Sort them by name, email, orders, the amount they’ve spent, and date.

Discounts

The Discounts menu shows all your discounts and lets you create them with an editor. Create the code, the amount, the requirements, exclusions, categories, dates, minimum amount, max uses, and if a customer can use it more than once.

Reports

The Reports menu shows all your shop’s stats with charts and data that you can use, sort, and export. See an overview, downloads, refunds, payment gateways, taxes, file downloads, discounts, customers, and export the stats. The reports are interactive, providing popups with information.

Settings

Settings let you control your store, payments, emails, marketing, taxes, policies, and more. Each tab includes more settings with lots of detail to fine-tune your store to your needs.

Tools

Tools include stat reset options, API keys, logs, system info, the debug log, and import and export options.

Extensions

The Extensions menu lists all of the extensions that are available on the EDD website with links so you can purchase them. You can search the extensions to find what you need. Using any of these extensions requires you to upgrade to a pro account, but there are lots of free extensions available in the WordPress repository.

WooCommerce Features and Menu

WooCommerce adds 27 blocks to WordPress, making it easy to build shop pages or add shopping features to any page, post, and sidebar. Easily create your shop’s pages, such as the account and checkout pages. There’s also a product search block available for navigation. WooCommerce adds four menus to the WordPress dashboard. Some of the features are in the process of being replaced by WooCommerce 4.0. We’ll skip those menus and show their new versions.

Home

Home provides you with some quick information with links including what to do next, seeing your inbox, a stats overview, and store management.

Orders

The Orders menu shows a list of your orders. Sort them, view by date, and view by customer. It shows the status and total of each order. You can also add new orders with the editor.

Customers

The Customers menu is a list of all your customers. You can search them, sort them, see the number of orders, amount paid, location, etc.

Settings

The Settings menu provides 8 tabs, plus new tabs for any extensions you add, for an extensive array of settings. The settings include general, products, shipping, payments, accounts and privacy, emails, integration, and advanced. Most tabs include multiple subtabs, giving you lots of options to control your store.

Status

Status shows the current status of your WordPress environment including your system, server, database, tools, logs, and scheduled actions. This is great for troubleshooting website issues.

Extensions

The Extensions menu provides a way to search through hundreds of free and premium extensions on the WooCommerce website. Search by keyword, browse by category, view their details, see your subscriptions, etc. For more information about WooCommerce extensions, see the article Best WooCommerce Plugins & Extensions.

Products

The Products menu lets you view all your products, edit them, create new products, etc. You can also see the categories, tags, attributes, and reviews. The editor lets you create a new product and specify every aspect of the product including physical, digital, amount of inventory, images, descriptions, shipping, attributes, linked products, and lots more.

Analytics

Analytics replaces Reports. It provides interactive charts and graphs. View analytics for everything, products, revenue, orders, variations, categories, coupons, taxes, downloads, and stock. You can also view the settings. You have complete control over all the analytics, so you can see anything you want and disable anything you don’t need.

Marketing

Marketing includes an overview and coupons. The overview provides lots of links. It lets you add channels to your store and includes lots of marketing tool extensions. It also includes links to the latest WooCommerce marketing blog posts. The Coupons menu shows your list of coupons and includes an editor where you can create and edit them. It also provides links to coupon extensions and the WC knowledge base.

Both eCommerce platforms include both a free and a premium version. Here’s a look at the premium versions to see what’s added.

Easy Digital Downloads Price

The Pro version of EDD has four packages to choose from. Prices range from $100-$500 per year on sale and $200-$1000 per year when they’re not on sale. Each package adds new features that aren’t available in the free version.

Features include pro payment gateways, email marketing integrations, a customizable checkout, subscriptions, lead magnets, a marketplace, advanced bundle features, automation, and the ability to sell licensed software. Some of the packages are usable on multiple websites and remove the transaction fees. Some even let you ship physical products and manage inventory.

WooCommerce Price

The pro version of WooCommerce includes hosting, so it’s not a one-to-one comparison. However, you can expand WC with extensions. Prices range from $0-$300. They include payment gateways, shipping providers, new store features, social media tools, marketing tools, and lots more.

The WC store also includes themes to build your store and collections that include everything you need for a specific type of business or goal. For more information about choosing a theme for your WC store, see the article WooCommerce Themes.

Both platforms provide everything you need to build and run your online store, but they do have features that are specific to certain types of stores. Here’s a look at when to use each platform.

Why Use Easy Digital Downloads

Use Easy Digital Downloads if you only want to sell digital products and don’t want the extra features of WooCommerce getting in the way. Easy Digital Downloads is a simpler platform that isn’t bogged down with features that aren’t needed for many shops with digital products. It has over 100 integrations, so you can expand your store’s features and reach.

Even though EDD has fewer features than WC, it does have the features that most users who want to sell digital products need, and you can add new features if they’re not already available in your current version. EDD is easier to learn because there are fewer features to deal with. The help center and blog provide lots of training to get you started and solve any issues you may have.

Why Use WooCommerce

Use WooCommerce if you want to include physical products in your online shop. You can sell digital products as easily as physical products, so WooCommerce has you covered for every type of eCommerce you want for your online shop. Use WooCommerce if you want the most features and scalability. It includes more blocks, allowing you to add more features to pages and navigation. WooCommerce is often considered the gold standard for eCommerce on WordPress.

WooCommerce includes everything you need to manage your online shop and sell physical and digital products. It includes inventory management, payment gateways, customer management, shipping options, etc. WooCommerce also has hundreds of extensions to add bookings, subscriptions, memberships, and lots more. There are also lots of themes available.

WooCommerce also has a large community. There are lots of training courses, blogs, and a large community to learn from.

That’s our look at Easy Digital Downloads vs WooCommerce. Both eCommerce platforms have the necessary features to build an online store. Easy Digital Downloads is a great choice if you only need to sell digital products and want a simpler platform. WooCommerce is a great choice if you want to sell physical and digital products, or you want the most scalable option. Both eCommerce platforms can be expanded to create any type of online shop you want.

We want to hear from you. Do you have a preference between Easy Digital Downloads vs WooCommerce? Let us know in the comments.