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Shopify uses Google Cloud
Google Cloud, not Azure or AWS, is the cloud provider for Shopify. They cemented their strategic alliance back in April 2025 with Google’s crown jewel, Youtube, having played a major part in the agreement. Ironically, another of Google’s big client, Yahoo, is also suffering from disrupted services.
Is it better to host your own online store?
That’s also true with the best Shopify alternatives. Hosting your own online store has its pros and cons too but it’s not as complex as you might think and can be considerably cheaper.
For example, Shopify’s cheapest plan is $29/mo and Wix’s ecommerce plans are a similar price. Compare that to Hostinger’s web hosting plan, at $18.95/mo (currently $2.75/mo for four years) with an AI website builder and management tool that can streamline bulk actions on a WooCommerce store, it’s less pricey and just as easy to use.
It’s the same across the board when it comes to hosting providers.
Bluehost’s WordPress plan is $21.99/mo (currently $9.99/mo for 36 months)So, price wise, I’d say it’s better to host your own ecommerce store and in my opinion, the additional management overheads are not considerable enough to be a disadvantage anymore.
The other advantage is options. If you host your own ecommerce store, you’re free to move it around between hosting providers to get a better deal when your store grows.
Looking for a Shopify alternative?
There are plenty of decent Shopify alternatives although none are as big as it is. Hostinger offers some powerful ecommerce tools and has plans starting as low as $1.66/mo with our exclusive Cyber Monday Hostinger deal. BigCommerce is another dedicated ecommerce platform and offers many of the same tools and features, although is similar in price, with plans also starting at $29/mo.
Shopify in numbers
Shopify is the biggest independent ecommerce platform out there in terms of market capitalization and one of Canada’s biggest tech firms.
At just over $200 billion, it is six times bigger than eBay and on Black Friday itself, helped its five million partners generate $6.2 billion in GMV (gross merchandise value), 25% up year on year. In 2024 alone, it processed nearly $300 billion in transaction.
With such a performance, it is not surprising that its stock price is up almost 45% since the beginning of the year.
Major customers – according to its Wikipedia pager – include Tesla, PepsiCo, Lindt, Red Bull and luxury giant LVMH.
Our website builder lead weighs in on Shopify snafu
Owain Williams, whose team reviewed Shopify earlier this year, shared another view in the wake of the outage.
Shopify is ranked as our best website builder for online stores. During testing for our Shopify review, we found it easy to use and packed with dedicated features and tools for building, launching, and growing your website.
However, with plans starting at $29/mo, it isn’t cheapest, with both Squarespace and Hostinger offering strong ecommerce platforms at a lower price point. Although issues like these are rare with Shopify, those who want full control may want to consider purpose built ecommerce hosting.
Shopify might be an easy and convenient way to manage an online store but when Shopify goes down at critical times of the year it highlights how important it is to have the best web hosting infrastructure.
Using the best ecommerce hosting providers to host your own online store doesn’t need to be complicated either.
ScalaHosting will manage every technical aspect of your site and hosts like Hostinger, SiteGround, and Bluehost have all the tools and support you need to create a WooCommerce store with WordPress.Hosting your own ecommerce store gives you complete control over your site.
Should the worst-case scenario happen during peak trading, you can easily restore your site from a backup and change the server on which your site is hosted. This way, your business is no longer relying on a single platform.
Shopify down reports pouring in from all around the globe
UK
US
Shopify stores are still up and working
It’s important to note that customers can still buy from Shopify. It’s just that shop owners cannot access their stores dashboard and backend right now. As James Capell, who heads our Web Hosting division puts it, “it’s reassuring to shop owners to know that their customers can still purchase”.
Owain Williams, our Website builder lead adds, “this give proof that shoppers aren’t impacted”. James also did a test purchase just a few minutes ago. “I’ve also received confirmation that my order has been cancelled via email so; stores seem to be working, checkout, purchase, and cancellations are working (at least for the store I checked).”
This is unfortunate timing
It’s Cyber Monday and Shopify admin is down. @ShopifySupport @harleyf pic.twitter.com/wrvQ7CthU2December 1, 2025
Shopify couldn’t really have picked a worse day, other than Black Friday, to have an outage.
A number of frustrated store owners (above) have taken to X to vent their feelings – as one has commented, “as a small business owner this is so bad”.
Hopefully, it won’t last too much longer – the Shopify status page has it logged as “degraded performance” across areas like “API and mobile” and “Point of Sale”, rather than a partial or major outage. But at the time of writing, reports on Downdetector are still on the rise…
What has Shopify said?
Shopify has confirmed on its status page that it has a log-in issue, with the incident report headed saying “some merchants encountering error messages within their admins”.
Its latest post around half an hour ago at 10.26am ET / 3.26pm GMT said that “to help avoid complications, please remain logged in on any devices that are currently logged in”.
That advice may have come too late for many users, but if you use Shopify it’s worth remaining logged in so you’re not further hit by the issues. Right now, the reports on Downdetector are unfortunately continuing to climb, with reports in the US close to the 4,000 mark.
A global outage
Shopify is a global e-commerce platform and today’s issue are hitting stores around the world. In the US, there have been almost 3,700 reports from frustrated users, while in the UK the reports have stabilized at around 1,300.
The main knock-on effect is Shopify users being unable to log into their accounts and process orders, which is particularly bad timing since it’s Cyber Monday and we’re running into the holiday season.
Shopify hasn’t yet revealed a cause of the issue, but said on its status page at 10.26am ET / 3.26pm GMT that it was “continuing to investigate the current issue”.
