WooCommerce was developed by WooThemes in 2011 and has been part of Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com) since 2015. As of 2026 about 28% of online stores worldwide run on WooCommerce β more than 4.5 million active sites. The main difference from Shopify is that WooCommerce is self-hosted: you install it on your own hosting and domain, no monthly fee, but maintenance is your responsibility.
What WooCommerce is and who it fits
Technically it's a WordPress plugin β first you install WordPress, then WooCommerce. It adds product catalog, cart, checkout, taxes, and shipping. Best for: (1) accepting payments via Click/Payme/Humo β local plugins are available; (2) entrepreneurs familiar with WordPress; (3) mid-size stores with 5 to 5000 products.
Not for: (1) large stores with 50,000+ products β WooCommerce slows at heavy load; (2) urgent launches β setup takes 1-2 weeks; (3) those unwilling to maintain it β updates, security patches, backups required.
Main setup steps
Step 1 β pick hosting. Standard shared isn't enough; minimum a VPS with 2GB RAM on SSD or WooCommerce-optimized hosting. Sayt.uz "WooCommerce Hosting" runs on PHP 8.3, MySQL 8, Redis, and NGINX, first tier 49,000 sum/mo. Step 2 β install WordPress (5 minutes). Step 3 β pick the Storefront or Astra theme.
Step 4 β install the WooCommerce plugin and run the Setup Wizard: store address, currency, shipping, taxes. Step 5 β payments: "Click for WooCommerce" plugin, and "Payme Gateway" by local developers β 500-800K sum one-time or 50-100K sum monthly SaaS.
Plugins and extensions
The WooCommerce ecosystem has 5000+ plugins. Most needed: WooCommerce Multilingual (uz/ru/en), Yoast SEO for WooCommerce, WP Rocket (caching and speed), Wordfence (security), Mailchimp for WooCommerce, JetPack Boost (Core Web Vitals). Most have free versions; premium $50-300/year.
For delivery within Uzbekistan there are "Yandex Delivery WooCommerce" and "Express24 Integration" β courier dispatch from the cart. For taxes WooCommerce supports VAT β the 12% rate can be configured, but reporting to 1C or MyBusiness needs extra integration.
Security and maintenance
Being self-hosted means security is on you. Main risks: weak passwords (admin brute-force), outdated plugins (CVE exploits), no backups (data loss). Recommendations: enable 2FA (Wordfence Login Security), set up automatic backups (UpdraftPlus weekly), keep plugins updated, use trusted SSL.
Sayt.uz practice
WooCommerce is the most-used e-commerce solution among Sayt.uz clients: 412 active stores as of January 2026. Top plugins: Click Gateway (89%), WP Rocket (67%), Yoast SEO (61%), Yandex Delivery (43%). Average store setup cost: 2.5-4M sum one-time, monthly service 500-1500K sum. A well-configured WooCommerce site achieves LCP of 2.1s on mobile β solid performance.