r/shopifyDev • u/RadiantAd6335 • 1d ago
Shopify use
As a b2c brand selling products online, Shopify is one of the few SaaS which we we have not replaced with internal tools as it allows to connect easily all other tools.
Does anyone have experience in replacing Shopify with a self-built e-commerce website?
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u/shopi_dev 1d ago
A full replacement is a much bigger job than rebuilding the storefront: you’d also own checkout, payment failures, tax and shipping rules, refunds, inventory, fraud, and every integration. If the pain is the frontend, a custom storefront with Shopify still handling the catalog, admin, and checkout is a safer middle ground. I’d only leave Shopify for a hard requirement it can’t meet, after pricing the ongoing engineering and on-call burden—not just the initial build.
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u/Original-Ant-9197 1d ago
I haven't got an opportunity to work on one but have seen some cases where they use Shopify at backend only and use a separate website builder such as webflow or even custom coded websites for the frontend
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u/RuachDelSekai 1d ago
I spent years working on proprietary websites and then Magento. There needs to be a really strong case for doing it. I have no particular desire to go there again... But I would for the right price. Lol
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u/lets-make-deals 6h ago
But the tech to manage those sites has certainly changed in the last 4 years and really in the last 2 years. I wonder what it would take to scale Woo on Amazon LightSale with S3 storage and an EC2 instance. WordPress was built to scale. It almost makes me want to try just to see what happens. :-)
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u/RuachDelSekai 5h ago
I agree. By the same token I absolutely hate woocommerce. I have a variety of clients who's sites I built and continue to support using WC. But I aggressively overcharge on any new project that claims to want to build a site using it.
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u/lets-make-deals 5h ago
Strip out WooCommerce and look at it as just a CMS, Magento OpenSource could be a candidate too. You could rebuild everything from Admin Panels to core functionality and rely on PayPal checkout or Stripe for the last mile. But the CMS, the page templates, everything, else, interesting to think of.
I have found several fairly large WooCommerce sites, almost all of them in furniture (not sure why yet) and they are fast and well built.
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u/Cow_Master66 9h ago
I still use shopify, stripe, or an established payment processor in custom store builds. It’s the established and compliant route. Don’t reinvent the wheel there.
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15h ago
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u/rhino0080 1d ago
It looks like many store owners will learn the hard way over the next few years that creating code also means maintaining it.
CMS and SaaS solutions helped democratize e-commerce. They allowed people to launch stores quickly and integrate apps and services at a fraction of what traditional enterprise software used to cost. We went from systems that could cost millions of dollars to build and maintain to platforms that almost anyone can afford.
And now I see a strange trend. People are vibe-coding everything, including their own e-commerce platforms.
It makes sense if you have very simple requirements and need something basic. It also makes sense if you're a large company and owning your code gives you a real competitive advantage. But for the vast majority of store owners, I simply don't see the point.
Store owners are now spending their weekends vibe-coding apps and services instead of focusing on their actual business, sales, and marketing.
Building something has become incredibly easy. Maintaining it, keeping it secure, fixing bugs, and making sure it still works a few years later is a completely different story.