The last W3Techs report indicates to Shopify as the most used web accommodation provider in the worlda definition that exposed so can be confusing, since Shopify is first and foremost an electronic commerce platform and not a traditional hosting service, but whose classification is explained because the accommodation is included within its SAAS model. In other words, each store created in Shopify is also counted as a site hosted.
The difference between accommodation provider and data centers provider is key in this analysis, and that is that Amazon, for example, remains the most used data centers infrastructure, with 10% of all websites running on AWS. And the same could be said about WordPress, which is still very difference the most used platform. But in the pure hosting layer, Shopify has advanced to all its competitors and is at the top.
W3Techs data also indicate that Shopify is not only present in small online businesses. Great names such as BBC or Merriam-Webster use their platform in subdomains dedicated to stores (Shop.bbc.com, Shop.merriam-webster.com) and although these cases can inflate the figures, the site clarifies that they are the exception: 97% of Shopify sites use the platform for their entire websitewhile only 3% limit it to subdomains.
It should also be underlined that Shopify’s popularity is especially prominent among the largest traffic sites: specifically, in the categories of 1,000, 10,000, 100,000 and up to the most visited websites, the platform of Canadian origin exceeds Woocommerce, its main competitor in the field of electronic commerce.
These data also remember that Shopify have been occupying the second position as CMS for some time (e-commerce systems also count on this category), very distance, but only behind WordPress. In fact, in relation to pure electronic commerce Woocommerce remains the most widespread optionthanks to its open character and its integration with WordPress. But that advantage disappears in the highest visibility projects, where Shopify has managed to consolidate as an undisputed leader.
Thus, reducing Shopify to a simple hosting provider could fall short, since the company has built around its platform an ecosystem of services that includes payment solutions and physical terminals for points of sale and marketing tools, analysis and logistics with an important added value. The scope is such that, according to W3Techs data, shopify shops generated nearby 300,000 million dollars in sales for 2024a figure higher than the GDP of many countries.
The impact of Shopify is also reflected in the comparison with other parameters that the consultant measures: today there are more websites using this system than pages in French, Portuguese or Chinese, or that sites hosted on servers located in the United Kingdom, India or Canada. In W3Techs words: “Shopify is huge. And keep growing fast”.
