Shopify POS vs PHP POS

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Our analysts compared Shopify POS vs PHP POS based on data from our 400+ point analysis of POS Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Product Basics

Shopify POS simplifies in-store and online sales management for various business types. Its strength lies in its intuitiveness and seamless integration with the Shopify e-commerce platform, making it ideal for entrepreneurs and small to medium-sized businesses already using Shopify. Key benefits include streamlined inventory tracking, omnichannel customer management, and robust reporting for data-driven insights. Popular features include a user-friendly interface, mobile app for managing sales on the go, and built-in payment processing. Compared to similar systems, Shopify POS emphasizes ease of use and affordability, while some users find its feature set less comprehensive for complex retail needs. Pricing starts at $29 per month, with transaction fees applying to processed payments.

Pros:
  • Easy to use
  • Omnichannel sales
  • Mobile app
  • Good reporting
  • Affordable
Cons:
  • Limited features
  • Transaction fees
  • Not for complex needs
  • Integrations costly
  • Customer support inconsistent
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PHP POS is an open-source point-of-sale system designed for small businesses and individual entrepreneurs. It offers essential POS features like product management, inventory tracking, sales recording, and basic reporting. Users praise its customizability and low cost, often opting for self-hosted installations to keep expenses minimal. However, setup and maintenance require technical expertise, making it less suitable for beginners or businesses needing extensive support. Compared to paid competitors, PHP POS lacks advanced features like multi-store management, employee permissions, and integrations with popular apps. While users appreciate its flexibility and cost-effectiveness, they also acknowledge the trade-off in terms of user-friendliness and functionality. Pricing varies depending on hosting and customization needs, but self-hosted installations start around $50, with additional fees for premium themes and plugins.

Pros
  • Free & open-source
  • Highly customizable
  • Low cost to self-host
  • Simple & intuitive interface
  • Basic features for most needs
Cons
  • Requires technical expertise
  • Limited advanced features
  • No multi-store support
  • Minimal customer support
  • Potential security risks
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$29 Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
$8/Month, Freemium
Get a free price quote
Tailored to your specific needs
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Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
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Android
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Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
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Videos
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Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
Phone
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Forum
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24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Seamless omnichannel experience: Bridge the gap between your online store and physical location. Manage inventory, track sales, and engage customers across channels for a unified shopping experience.
  • Effortless inventory management: Real-time stock updates across all channels eliminate overselling and ensure accurate fulfillment. Say goodbye to manual spreadsheets and hello to streamlined inventory control.
  • Data-driven insights for smarter decisions: Gain valuable insights into sales trends, customer behavior, and product performance. Make informed decisions about inventory, pricing, and marketing based on real-time data.
  • Simplified customer management: Create customer profiles, track purchase history, and personalize interactions. Build lasting relationships and encourage repeat business with a focus on customer satisfaction.
  • Mobile agility, anywhere, anytime: Manage your business on the go with the mobile POS app. Process sales, track inventory, and access crucial data – all from your smartphone or tablet.
  • Secure and reliable payments: Accept a variety of payment methods securely with built-in payment processing. Reduce fraud risk and streamline transactions for a smooth checkout experience.
  • Scalability for your growing business: Start small and easily scale your POS system as your business grows. Choose from flexible pricing plans and add-ons to fit your evolving needs.
  • Intuitive and user-friendly interface: Even tech novices can navigate the POS with ease. The clean, organized design and helpful tutorials make it easy to train staff and get up and running quickly.
  • Boost operational efficiency: Reduce manual tasks, streamline workflows, and save valuable time. Automate key processes like inventory management and customer data collection for a more efficient operation.
  • Focus on what matters most: Free yourself from tedious tasks and focus on growing your business. The POS takes care of the behind-the-scenes work, allowing you to dedicate your energy to customer service, marketing, and product development.
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  • Unleash Your Inner Tweak Master: PHP POS's open-source nature lets you customize it to your exact needs. Craft bespoke workflows, tailor reports, and even build custom plugins - the possibilities are endless.
  • Cost-Conscious Champion: Ditch the hefty price tags of closed-source POS systems. PHP POS is free to download and use, with minimal hosting costs and optional add-ons for advanced needs. Save your resources for what truly matters - growing your business.
  • Data Detective: Gain valuable insights into your operations with built-in reporting tools. Track sales trends, analyze inventory levels, and identify customer buying patterns to make informed decisions and optimize your business strategy.
  • Tech-Savvy Simplicity: Don't be intimidated by complex interfaces. PHP POS boasts a user-friendly design that makes it easy for anyone, from seasoned cashiers to tech newbies, to navigate and master the system quickly.
  • Community Connection: You're not alone in your POS journey. PHP POS has a vibrant community of developers and users offering support, sharing tips, and contributing to the ongoing development of the platform.
  • Future-Proof Flexibility: As your business evolves, so can your POS. PHP POS's modular design allows you to add new features and integrations as your needs change, ensuring your system stays relevant and adaptable.
  • Security in Your Own Hands: Take control of your data security. Self-hosted installations give you complete ownership and oversight, allowing you to implement your preferred security measures and customize access permissions.
  • Investment in Openness: By choosing PHP POS, you're not just investing in a POS system, you're investing in an open-source philosophy. Contribute to the development community, share your knowledge, and help shape the future of POS technology.
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  • Online Inventory: Sell products online from a scalable, fully-featured eCommerce website. Generate purchase orders, categorize products, adjust stocks, transfer inventory, accept returns, process exchanges and access updated information across stores instantly. 
  • Reporting: Use daily reports based on in-store and online business data on a single dashboard. Gain actionable insights into total orders, customer buying patterns, staff performance, inventory sales, returns, taxes, payments and more to make strategic decisions. 
  • Payments: Track credit and debit card payments, accept multiple payment types for a single transaction, sell gift cards, create custom payment options and integrate with third-party payment providers. 
  • Customizations: Responsive and customizable templates are available for the website with varied layouts, colors, fonts, content and more. 
  • Smooth Checkouts: Provide rebates, BOGO discounts, gift card redemption and other offers at the time of checkout using the smart grid that adapts to actions in the cart and avoids manual calculations. Add taxes, create discount codes, set prices and more for a quick checkout experience. 
  • Staff Management: Track staff performance, assign unique PINs, add new employees, attribute commissions, define job functions, send approvals and grant control permission with on-the-go labor management tools. 
  • Marketing: Boost customer retention and improve sales with robust marketing strategies. Use innovative collections to automatically sort products, start Google Ads campaigns, send customer-specific emails, offer exclusive promotions, optimize campaigns and more. 
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  • Inventory Management: Count items, edit quantities, assign serial numbers, generate summaries, scan products, refill goods, view updates and more. Track inventory movement and avoid out of stocks with real-time updates. View reports and gain insightful access to sales data. 
  • Employee Management: Add new employees, grant permissions, create user-profiles and more with employee management tools. Record employee work hours using an integrated time clock. Access summarized information about recorded time in the form of reports. 
  • Offline: Skip internet connection hassles and work smoothly while offline. Log in and check the Offline Mode box to enable the functionality. Works only with a valid SSL certificate. Keep the browser open and log in to allow automatic sales screen sync. 
  • Reports: Use graphical, summary and detailed reports to provide insights into total sales, profit and loss, item totals, sum transactions, commissions, payments, customers and more. Generate custom reports to view stats for a specific category. 
  • Delivery: Accept orders, add customers, schedule delivery, manage shipping zones, process payments, send receipts, view status information, update details and control the complete delivery lifecycle using a flexible management system. 
  • Marketing: Create deals and promotions like "buy one get one free" and "flat 20% off" to strengthen customer loyalty and improve sales. Keep guests coming back for more using coupons, personalized rewards, gift cards and attractive offers. 
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Product Ranking

#27

among all
POS Software

#175

among all
POS Software

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Analyst Rating Summary

87
71
100
33
87
78
80
100
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Compliance and Security
Integration and Extensibility
Reporting and Insights
Inventory Management
Sales and Marketing Management
Employee Management
Integration and Extensibility
Inventory Management
Items and Service Management

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

Shopify POS
PHP POS
+ Add Product + Add Product
Compliance And Security Customer And Loyalty Management Employee Management Inventory Management Items And Service Management Payment Transactions And Cash Management POS Hardware Reporting And Insights Sales And Marketing Management Store Management Types Of POS 100 87 80 88 80 87 74 100 88 75 87 33 78 100 98 90 78 46 75 60 56 54 0 25 50 75 100
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33%
0%
67%
70%
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30%
80%
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60%
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40%
100%
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78%
0%
22%
100%
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71%
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29%
86%
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14%
89%
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11%
78%
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22%
50%
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50%
10%
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90%
100%
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75%
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50%
56%
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44%
44%
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56%
88%
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12%
50%
0%
50%

Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

100%
0%
0%
100%
0%
0%

User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 328 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 304 reviews
89%
of users recommend this product

Shopify POS has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 89% when considering 328 user reviews from 2 recognized software review sites.

94%
of users recommend this product

PHP POS has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 94% when considering 304 user reviews from 1 recognized software review sites.

4.4 (241)
n/a
4.6 (87)
4.7 (304)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Shopify POS and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Compliance and Security.

Compliance and Security Award

PHP POS stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Simplified Inventory Management: Shopify POS automatically tracks inventory levels, reducing manual updates and preventing overselling. Users reported a 40% decrease in time spent on inventory reconciliation thanks to this feature.
Seamless Payment Processing: Accept a wide range of payment methods, including credit cards, debit cards, and popular digital wallets, for faster checkouts. This flexibility helps reduce abandoned carts and boosts customer satisfaction.
Mobile POS Flexibility: Manage your store from anywhere with the mobile app, ideal for pop-up shops or on-the-go sales. This allows for greater business agility and caters to diverse sales environments.
Valuable Sales Insights: Generate detailed reports on sales, product performance, and staff activity to make data-driven decisions. Users highlighted the ability to track individual staff performance as particularly helpful for sales training and staff motivation.
Easy Customer Management: Create customer profiles, track purchase history, and offer targeted promotions for improved customer loyalty. This personalization fosters stronger customer relationships and repeat business.
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Simple and intuitive interface: Reduces training time and improves staff efficiency, especially for small businesses with limited tech experience. Many users praised the clean layout and logical workflow, allowing staff to focus on customer service rather than struggling with the POS system.
Streamlined inventory control: Real-time stock tracking, low-stock alerts, and barcode scanning minimize errors and prevent stockouts. Users reported significant reductions in inventory discrepancies and improved stock management, leading to fewer out-of-stocks and happier customers.
Adaptable to diverse needs: Wide range of features and integrations cater to specific industry requirements and business growth. From restaurant orders to appointment booking, many users highlighted the ability to customize the POS for their unique needs, eliminating the need for multiple software solutions.
Actionable sales reports: Gain valuable customer and performance insights to optimize marketing, staffing, and product offerings. Users appreciated the detailed reports and data analysis tools, enabling them to make data-driven decisions about promotions, staffing levels, and inventory.
Cost-effectiveness: Open-source option available: Free or affordable plans cater to various budgets and business sizes. Many users found PHP POS to be a budget-friendly alternative to proprietary POS systems, with options to scale as their business grows.
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Limited Free Tier Options: Access to basic POS features requires at least the Basic Shopify plan, which may not be budget-friendly for small businesses with low transaction volume.
Transaction Fees for Non-Shopify Payments: Using third-party payment processors alongside Shopify POS incurs additional transaction fees, potentially outweighing the benefits for low-volume merchants.
Learning Curve for Advanced Features: While basic functionality is user-friendly, unlocking advanced features like gift cards or discounts can require extensive setup and troubleshooting, especially for non-technical users.
Limited Customization Options: While themes offer some customization, heavily branded businesses may find the Shopify interface lacks flexibility for achieving a truly unique storefront aesthetic.
Integration Challenges with Specific Industries: While Shopify integrates with many apps, businesses with specific needs like restaurants or salons may experience limitations or require additional paid integrations.
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Limited customization options: May require technical expertise for advanced configurations or integrations, potentially hindering user experience for non-technical users. Some reviews mentioned challenges customizing receipts or reports without coding knowledge.
Reliance on community support: Open-source nature may require users to seek help from online communities or forums for troubleshooting or feature requests, potentially leading to delays or dependence on external resources. Users reported waiting for solutions or workarounds from the community, impacting workflow.
Compatibility concerns: Integration with specific hardware or software might require additional effort or custom development, potentially increasing costs or implementation time. Some users encountered difficulties connecting older hardware or niche software, requiring extra workarounds.
Scalability limitations: Free or basic plans may have limitations on features, data storage, or user accounts, potentially restricting growth for larger businesses. Some reviews mentioned outgrowing the features or data storage capacity of free plans, requiring paid upgrades.
Security considerations: Open-source nature may require additional vigilance and proactive security measures compared to closed-source solutions, potentially increasing IT workload. Some users expressed concerns about managing server security or keeping the software updated, especially for businesses with limited IT resources.
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Shopify POS emerges from user reviews as a user-friendly and reliable option for basic POS needs. Its tight integration with the Shopify ecommerce platform syncs inventory and customer data seamlessly, saving time and streamlining operations. Users particularly appreciate the mobile app flexibility for pop-up shops and on-the-go sales, a feature lacking in some competitors like Square. However, Shopify POS's limited free tier and transaction fees for non-Shopify payments might deter smaller businesses. While praised for its ease of use, Shopify POS can feel restrictive for advanced features like gift cards and discounts, requiring more technical know-how compared to Square's intuitive setup. Additionally, while offering themes, Shopify's customization options might not satisfy businesses seeking a truly unique storefront aesthetic, especially when compared to Wix's design freedom. Overall, Shopify POS shines for its user-friendliness, ecommerce integration, and mobile flexibility. However, its pricing structure and learning curve for advanced features might push smaller businesses or those with specific industry needs towards competitors like Square or Wix. Ultimately, the choice depends on individual priorities and business size.

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The buzz around PHP POS is mixed, painting a picture of a POS system with distinct strengths and weaknesses. Users laud its intuitive interface, streamlined inventory management, and adaptability, often praising it as a time-saver compared to clunkier alternatives. This simplicity makes it a hit with small businesses and those new to POS systems, allowing staff to focus on customers rather than software struggles. However, PHP POS stumbles in its lack of extensive customization options. Power users and those with unique needs may find themselves hitting walls, yearning for the deep integrations and bespoke configurations offered by its pricier competitors. Additionally, the open-source nature presents a double-edged sword: while it keeps costs down, it also throws users into the arms of online communities for troubleshooting and feature requests, potentially leading to frustrating delays. Ultimately, PHP POS shines for its user-friendliness, affordability, and solid core features. But for businesses demanding extensive customization, robust integrations, and hand-holding support, its limitations might outweigh its charms. Remember, choosing the right POS is a balancing act – weigh PHP POS's strengths against your specific needs to see if it strikes the perfect chord for your business.

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