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CTX Feed alternative for large WooCommerce catalogs
CTX Feed (Product Feed Manager for WooCommerce, by WebAppick) is a widely installed feed plugin with a free version and support for more than 200 channels. Searchmaker's Feeds module writes one thing, a static Google Merchant XML file, from the same local index that powers search and filters. This page compares them using CTX Feed's own pages.
Last verified · 13 of 14 facts verified from CTX Feed's own pages
First, the fair part
Who CTX Feed is best for
Stores that send products to many channels (Google, Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, marketplaces, affiliate networks) and want to start with a free plugin that has ready templates, several file formats and a visual field mapper.
Side by side
CTX Feed and Searchmaker, fact by fact
Each CTX Feed entry links to the vendor's own page. Where we could not confirm something it says "Not verified" rather than a guess.
| What | Searchmaker | CTX Feed |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Feeds module 119 € per year for 1 site, 390 € for 5 sites, 1 050 € for 25 sites, excluding VAT. Also part of Complete (449 € for 1 site). A one-time lifetime option exists. Searchmaker page | Pro: Single Site $119 per year, Five Sites $199 per year, Ten Sites $229 per year. Licenses renew at the price paid. Prices in USD as listed on the page.Source: webappick.com |
| Free version | No free version. Searchmaker page | Yes: Product Feed Manager for WooCommerce – CTX Feed on wordpress.org, described as supporting unlimited products per feed and unlimited feeds, with 95 templates, variable product support and basic filtering. Source: wordpress.org |
| Sites and product limits | 1, 5 or 25 sites per license. The price does not depend on the number of products. Searchmaker page | Pro: 1, 5 or 10 sites by plan. No product-count limit is stated on the listing or pricing page. Source: webappick.com |
| Channels supported | Google Merchant Center only in V1. Other channel templates, external connectors and visual feed rules are outside V1. From the product scope in the repository documentation.Searchmaker page | 95 pre-built templates for 220+ channels, including Google (Shopping, Local Inventory, Promotions, Dynamic Remarketing), Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Etsy, Bing and affiliate networks. The pricing page lists 90+ templates for the Pro plan.Source: wordpress.org |
| Feed formats | XML (Google Merchant RSS 2.0 with the g: namespace). Searchmaker page | XML, CSV, TSV, XLS, TXT and JSON. Source: wordpress.org |
| Google Merchant support and attributes | Fields written per item: id, title, description, link, image link, availability, condition, price, MPN (from SKU or a feed value), GTIN, brand (from the configured brand taxonomy) and an optional fixed Google product category. Variable products are written as one item per variation with item_group_id, the variation's own price, sale price, availability, image and link, and color, size, material and pattern from its attributes. Options: include out-of-stock, condition, category, variable products (per variation or per parent). Read from the engine's feed writer and the plugin documentation.Searchmaker page | Google Shopping, Local Inventory, Promotions and Dynamic Remarketing templates, and category mapping to the Google taxonomy. item_group_id values are generated from WooCommerce parent product IDs, according to the vendor's guide. item_group_id: https://webappick.com/how-to-set-up-product-variations-in-google-shopping/. The full list of Google attributes supported: not verified.Source: wordpress.org |
| How and where feeds are generated | A streaming XML writer reads the prebuilt index and writes a static file, one per language, to the uploads folder through a temp file and atomic rename. Generation runs from the admin handler, WP-Cron or WP-CLI; public requests for the feed URL never trigger generation. Searchmaker page | Products are processed in small batches (default 200 per batch). Generated feeds are stored in the uploads folder at /wp-content/uploads/woo-feed/[format]/[feed-name].[ext]. A feed can be regenerated manually from the Manage Feeds page. Batch default: https://webappick.com/docs/ctx-feed/basic/introduction-to-ctx-feed-plugin-settings/Source: webappick.com |
| Scheduling | Manual, hourly, twice daily or daily, and regeneration after each index rebuild. After price and stock patches the feed is regenerated at most every five minutes. Searchmaker page | Automatic updates depend on WordPress cron (or a server cron job). Free intervals: 1, 6, 12 or 24 hours and weekly. Pro adds 5, 15 and 30 minutes. Cron setup: https://webappick.com/docs/ctx-feed/basic/how-to-setup-cron-for-auto-feed-update/Source: webappick.com |
| Variation handling | One item per variation by default, grouped by g:item_group_id (parent SKU, else parent ID); the variable product itself is not listed. Each variation item has its own id (the variation SKU when unique, else parent ID-variation ID), price and sale price, stock status (in stock, out of stock, backorder), image (its own, else the parent's), a link that preselects the variation, and color, size, material and pattern from its attributes. A setting switches to one item per variable product with the lowest variation price. Read from the engine's feed writer; tested on real WooCommerce variations.Searchmaker page | The free version includes all variations in the feed. The Pro version adds options such as parent only, default variation, first variation and parent plus variations. A Variation Query Type setting is also documented for stores with more variations than simple products.Source: webappick.com |
| Documented guidance for large catalogs | Measured at engine level on a synthetic catalog of 100,000 parent products with 159,758 variations, writing the feed from the index. Parent-only: 100,000 items, about 43 MB of XML, about 3.1 s. One item per variation: 239,692 items, about 129 MB, about 6.4 s. Writer memory stays flat (under 1 MB of allocations). This is not an end-to-end measurement on a real store and not a comparison with any other plugin. Engine writer only, one development machine (Intel i9-10900K, PHP 8.3 CLI, 128 MB limit); to be reproduced before it is treated as a claim. See docs/BENCHMARKS.md in the repository.Searchmaker page | Documentation: "You can also decrease the product per batch value if you don't want to increase your PHP time limit." and, for a stuck regeneration, to try increasing the PHP memory limit and execution time. Quoted from the vendor's documentation; no recommended memory or time values were found on the pages checked.Source: webappick.com |
| Hosting and PHP requirements | WordPress 6.5+, WooCommerce 8.0+, PHP 8.1+ with the sodium extension; the feed writer needs ext-xmlwriter. No Redis, daemon or shell access. Searchmaker page | WordPress 6.2 or higher, PHP 7.4 or higher. Memory requirements: not verified.Source: wordpress.org |
| WP-CLI | Yes: wp searchmaker feed [--lang=fi]. Searchmaker page | Not verifiednot verified (no WP-CLI mention found in the documentation pages checked) |
| Refund terms | 30-day money-back guarantee. Searchmaker page | 30-day money-back guarantee, "no conditions attached". Source: webappick.com |
| wordpress.org installs and rating | Not applicable: no free version, sold directly from searchmaker.io. Searchmaker page | 90,000+ active installations; rated 4.6 out of 5 from 835 ratings. Figures as shown on the date checked.Source: wordpress.org |
| Performance, end to end | Engine-level measurement of the feed writer on a synthetic catalog (239,692 per-variation items, about 129 MB, about 6.4 s; 100,000 parent items in about 3.1 s). Not an end-to-end comparison. Benchmarks | Not measured yet. See the protocol on /benchmarks |
Last verified 4 October 2026. Prices and terms change; check the linked page before you decide.
Where Searchmaker differs
What is different, and only what we can back up.
- Searchmaker's Feeds module covers one channel, Google Merchant Center, and one format, XML. CTX Feed covers far more, so this is a difference in scope, not an advantage.
- The feed is written by a streaming XML writer that reads a prebuilt index, with no WooCommerce product queries at generation time. CTX Feed's documentation describes processing products in batches, with a products-per-batch setting whose default is 200.
- Generation can be started from WP-CLI (wp searchmaker feed). We did not find WP-CLI in the CTX Feed documentation we checked.
- The same index serves search, faceted filters and the feed, and the three modules are sold together as Complete.
- Searchmaker's price per site does not depend on the number of products. CTX Feed also states unlimited products, so this is not a difference.
- Searchmaker writes one item per variation, grouped with item_group_id, or one item per variable product with the lowest variation price if you choose that. CTX Feed also lists variations as their own items, so this is not a difference; its Pro version has more options for which variations or the parent are listed.
- There is no free version of Searchmaker.
When to choose CTX Feed instead
When CTX Feed is the better fit.
- You sell through more than Google: Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, marketplaces and affiliate networks are listed on CTX Feed's wordpress.org page.
- You want a free plugin to start with. The wordpress.org listing describes unlimited products and unlimited feeds in the free version.
- You want more control over which variations are listed. CTX Feed's documentation describes options such as parent only, default variation, first variation and parent plus variations in the Pro version; Searchmaker lists all variations or the parent only.
- You need formats other than XML, such as CSV, TSV, XLS, TXT or JSON.
- You run several sites: CTX Feed Pro lists Five Sites at $199 and Ten Sites at $229 per year.
Performance
Head-to-head measurements are pending.
Not measured yet. We have not run CTX Feed and Searchmaker on the same server and catalog, so this page makes no speed comparison.
What we have measured is Searchmaker's feed writer on its own, at engine level, on a synthetic catalog of 100,000 products with 159,758 variations: parent-only, 100,000 items (about 43 MB of XML) in about 3.1 seconds; with every variation as its own item, 239,692 items (about 129 MB) in about 6.4 seconds. That is not an end-to-end test on a real store and it is not a comparison with CTX Feed. The protocol for the end-to-end comparison, which we will publish with raw numbers and scripts, is on the benchmarks page.
Questions
Questions people ask when comparing.
Is Searchmaker Feeds a replacement for CTX Feed?
Only if you need a Google Merchant feed. Searchmaker Feeds writes a Google Merchant XML file and nothing else, while CTX Feed supports many channels and formats. If you need channels other than Google, CTX Feed is the broader tool.
How does CTX Feed generate feeds?
According to its documentation, the plugin processes products in small batches (the default is 200 products per batch) and stores the generated files in the uploads folder under woo-feed. Automatic updates depend on WP-Cron or a server cron job that you set up. Searchmaker writes a static file from a prebuilt index and can run from WP-Cron, the admin or WP-CLI.
How does CTX Feed handle large catalogs?
The documentation says batch processing lets it create feeds for unlimited products, and suggests decreasing the products-per-batch value if you do not want to increase your PHP time limit. If a feed gets stuck it suggests raising PHP memory limit and execution time.
Does CTX Feed support product variations?
Yes. The free version includes all variations in the feed, and the Pro version adds options to choose which variations or the parent are listed. Searchmaker writes one item per variation with item_group_id by default (all variations), or one item per variable product with the lowest variation price if you choose that; it has no option to list only the default or the first variation.
What does CTX Feed cost compared with Searchmaker?
CTX Feed has a free version. Pro is listed at $119 per year for one site, $199 for five and $229 for ten. Searchmaker Feeds is 119 € per year for one site, excluding VAT, with no free version. Prices are in different currencies; check both pricing pages.
Which is faster on a large catalog?
We have not measured CTX Feed against Searchmaker yet. Our own numbers are for the engine's feed writer alone, on a synthetic catalog with 159,758 variations: 100,000 parent-only items (about 43 MB of XML) in about 3.1 seconds, or 239,692 items with every variation as its own item (about 129 MB) in about 6.4 seconds. That is not an end-to-end test on a real store, and we publish no competitor numbers we have not measured.
What if I switch and it does not work for me?
Searchmaker has a 30-day money-back guarantee. CTX Feed's pricing page states a 30-day money-back guarantee with no conditions attached.
See how it fits your catalog.
Try the in-browser demo, then pick a plan. Every license has a 30-day money-back guarantee.
CTX Feed and all other product names are trademarks of their owners. They are used here only to describe those products. Searchmaker is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by them. Information about other products comes from their public pages on the date shown and may have changed.