10 Best CMS for eCommerce in 2026: Headless CMS, commerce solutions, and more

A modern CMS for e-commerce should handle product and content, while supporting fast updates and integrations. In this article, we’ll help you evaluate core features and review the top 10 e-commerce CMS platforms. 

An e-commerce CMS features checklist 

Before reviewing different options, let’s go over the essential features of any e-commerce CMS worth considering.

• Ease of use: A good CMS should have an intuitive, user-friendly interface so both developers and users can work efficiently.  
• SEO‑friendliness: Fast performance, plus built-in SEO tools such as clean URLs, meta tags, and sitemaps, are another must-have. Many SEO-friendly CMSs now also include AI-assisted SEO tools that generate optimized product descriptions automatically.
• Omnichannel delivery: A CMS built for omnichannel success allows you to ship reusable content to web, mobile apps, kiosks, social channels, and even IoT. A headless CMS, for example, allows you to create content once and deliver it to multiple destinations.
• Integration flexibility: What you want are open APIs and a large number of partner integrations. Your CMS should connect to payment gateways, ERPs, CRMs, DAMs, and third-party e-commerce platforms. 
• Localization: Multi-language and multi-currency support is non-negotiable for global sales sites. This also includes content translation and local payment options. 

When should you use a headless CMS for your e-commerce store? 

Use a headless CMS when you need multiple channels (web, app, marketplaces), multiple countries/languages, high performance, and flexible frontends, or when you want to scale quickly.

Traditional commerce solutions offer limited flexibility. Businesses that want to reach more customers typically use plugins to enhance capabilities such as SEO, localization, and omnichannel delivery. While it moves the needle when you start a business, it hurts productivity and increases operating costs as you grow. Not to mention that having too many plugins also hurts website performance.

A headless CMS, by definition, decouples the presentation “frontend” from the content repository “backend”. It connects your store to multiple channels via API, so you're not limited in how you work with your content. You can model the content as you see fit, including how SEO, localization, and omnichannel delivery are handled. As a result, everything works through the API, your website performance improves, and you can manage your store content more easily.

Top 10 CMS for e-commerce 

Hygraph 

Hygraph is a modern, GraphQL-native headless CMS built for content-rich commerce. Its editor UI is intuitive, with customers reporting that both technical and non-technical users find it easy to use. As a headless system, Hygraph delivers content via modern frameworks, such as Next.js and Nuxt, which ensures consistent, up-to-date content that improves SEO outcomes. 

A single GraphQL API delivers content to multiple destinations. For example, the international fashion company Lindex rebuilt on Hygraph to unify its web and app content. After migrating, campaign setups dropped from one week to just 1-2 days. 

Apart from intuitive content modelling, you can use Hygraph as a PIM to cross‑link products with content via remote sources. Using out-of-the-box integrations and a visual schema builder, your editors can create pages with pre-built components, while developers connect microservices through a unified API. 

BigCommerce 

BigCommerce is an open SaaS e-commerce platform that markets to growing B2C and B2B brands. It combines flexible headless architecture with the ease of use of a SaaS product. This makes it popular with both B2B and B2B brands that need more power than an entry-level platform can offer, but are not ready for self-hosting. BigCommerce has strong native localization, including multi-language storefronts, automatic tax calculations, and support for local payment methods. 

Shopify 

Shopify is a cloud-hosted all-in-one platform that gives you a fast way to get an online store up and running. It handles hosting, security, and payments out of the box, so merchants can focus on product and sales. It comes with basic SEO features, native analytics, and AI writing tools. Shopify Plus brings headless and enterprise options for brands that grow fast. Although not as flexible as fully composable stacks, Shopify is a viable choice if you’re looking for speed, reliability, and minimal technical involvement. 

Adobe Experience Manager  

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) is a digital experience platform that combines CMS, DAM, and Adobe Commerce (Magento) to orchestrate content across a variety of channels. The headless approach gives it the flexibility and speed necessary for SEO and seamless UX.

Thanks to AI tagging and auto-resizing, images and videos are optimized for each channel. Still, keep in mind that this system must be set up and maintained by experts, so it only makes sense if you need a global-scale governance, personalization, and omnichannel control. 

WordPress + WooCommerce 

WordPress with a WooCommerce plugin becomes a highly customizable eCommerce engine. It’s already familiar to a large number of users and has a huge ecosystem of plugins and developers. The Gutenberg block editor and thousands of themes make building a site easy and straightforward. However, as your site grows, managing plugins and security may become more complex. Speaking of plugins, WordPress comes with Yoast and RankMath that help you optimize every page. 

Drupal Commerce 

Drupal is an open-source enterprise CMS. Its commerce solution, called Drupal Commerce, is popular with large organizations with complex, content-rich commerce needs.

With a ton of flexibility and highly structured, it’s a good choice for complex catalogs, multilingual sites, and multi-site governance. For example, you can use it to power your website, mobile app, and other channels. On the other hand, Drupal is a developer-centered platform with a steep learning curve, especially for non-technical teams. 

PrestaShop 

PrestaShop is an open-source eCommerce platform for merchants who want more control than SaaS platforms offer, but don’t want a complex tool like Magento. PrestaShop easily handles large catalogs and includes localization and SEO tools for long-tail traffic.

With thousands of payment, shipping, and accounting modules, PrestaShop is one of the most complete eCommerce systems integration-wise. However, updates can be buggy, and any core change calls for careful module management. 

OpenCart  

OpenCart is a lightweight, open-source shopping cart that’s free to use. It’s simpler to use than Drupal but requires more DIY work than Shopify. There’s little guidance out of the box, with reviews warning that it’s not for beginners.

You need to handle hosting, updates, and most likely hire a developer to maintain it. Like PrestaShop, OpenCart supports a large number of integrations, but the quality of extensions can vary a lot, with core updates sometimes breaking themes and plugins. 

Joomla 

Joomla is a content management system like Drupal or WordPress, so to build a store, you need eCommerce extensions, such as VirtueMart, HikaShop, or Ecwid. More complex than WordPress, Joomla has a moderate learning curve, as you need to choose and configure extensions yourself.

It doesn’t have built-in omnichannel or headless features, but you can piece together multi-channel solutions by, for example, using a store app like Ecwid that can be embedded in any site. 

Squarespace 

Squarespace is a hosted website builder with built-in eCommerce. Its niche market is small shops that want a polished storefront without dabbling in code. Squarespace handles hosting, security, and templates. You just pick one and use drag-and-drop tools to build the pages.

Basic SEO tools are there, but more advanced ones, like custom markup or deep URL control, are more limited than on open-source platforms. There’s no full headless option, so if you need to deliver content to external apps or channels, look for another platform.  

Conclusion  

When choosing the best CMS for eCommerce, you need to ask: When choosing the best CMS for eCommerce, you have to ask yourself what’s the priority: Speed and ease of setup today, or flexibility and scalability tomorrow?

Simpler SaaS platforms like Shopify and Squarespace are a clear win for small businesses that want a fast launch. Open-source tools like WooCommerce, PrestaShop, and OpenCart give you more control but need more maintenance. 

Hygraph stands out as the best overall CMS for modern eCommerce. Its headless GraphQL-native approach is perfect for agile teams that need flexibility to scale, without being locked into pre-set storefront templates. 

If you are thinking long-term, omnichannel, and global, Hygraph is the CMS foundation you’re looking for.