With so many e-commerce business development platforms out there, it is sometimes difficult to make a final decision that will 100% suit your business requirements. Let's try to compare the two most significant offers - Adobe Commerce Magento and Shopify. What are their advantages and disadvantages? Which platform is most beneficial based on your requirements? Which is easier to maintain? Preferable pricing? Efficiency? Let's move on to the details.
Shopify was founded in 2004. The platform operates on a SaaS (software as a service) model and is aimed primarily at newbie e-commerce sellers. For this reason, many aspects of creating and managing an e-store are properly simplified, for example, editing the front end of the site is largely reduced to drag and drop; no programming skills are required.
Shopify Pros:
- simple management,
- a large number of ready-made themes with rich and convenient editing capabilities,
- excellent 24/7 technical support,
- convenient interface for both store owners and customers,
- large application store with a wide selection of plugins and integrations,
- built-in SEO features and customization options
- secure and reliable hosting
- ability to sell through multiple sales channels (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Amazon)
- available tariff plans
Shopify Cons:
- multilingual store option is only available for more expensive subscriptions,
- URL The page structure created with Shopify is not very SEO friendly,
- additional fees for certain applications and plugins,
- limited control over site speed and performance,
- there may be high transaction fees for some payment gateways,
- limited reporting and analytics capabilities
Adobe Commerce Magento has been around since 2008 and version 2 was introduced in 2015. Magento 2 is already the default release of the CMS in question, since support for Magento 1 ended on June 30, 2020. Magento is a more powerful and customizable e-commerce platform. It is suitable for businesses of any scale but is especially popular among larger businesses where advanced features are most important.
Magento Pros:
- the main advantage of Magento is Open Source, that is open source code, thanks to which you can freely adapt the store to your needs and requirements,
- various support for free modules,
- various payment systems,
- excellent performance and the ability to scale the platform at scale,
- regular updates,
- support for multistore enterprises,
- wide possibilities for customizing the design and functionality of the store,
- large developer community for support and extensions
- advanced SEO and marketing features,
- built-in support for multiple languages and currencies,
- scalability for working with high traffic and large product catalogs,
- flexible pricing options for both Open source and Enterprise versions are available.
Magento Cons:
- high technical knowledge or a team of specialists is required to implement expanded editions of the store,
- some of the more advanced features are only available in very expensive paid versions of the platform,
- high service fee,
- high cost of hosting
Let's compare the two solutions.
Magento vs. Shopify - Cost
In Magento, there are 3 versions:
Open Source Edition is basic free version. Commerce Edition has more advanced features. The cost starts at $22,000 per year and increases with store turnover. Commerce Cloud Edition has similar features to the previous version, but here they are cloud-based. The cost starts at $40,000 per year and increases with store turnover.
Magento Open Source is the most popular version and can easily meet the needs of very large stores. Paid versions of the software are mainly chosen by big corporations.
In the case of Shopify, we also distinguish between several versions. Since we are dealing with SaaS, each plan comes with a monthly subscription:
Basic Shopify - $29/month. Shopify - $79 per month. Advanced Shopify - $299 per month.
More expensive plans give you bonuses such as more admin accounts, additional languages, more sophisticated reports, and more attractive commission rates and shipping costs.
There are also two other Shopify plans:
Shopify Lite - The most basic features you need to start an online store (only $9/month). Shopify Plus is the version for large businesses with the most extensive features (costs $2,000 per month).
Magento vs. Shopify Availability
Magento is a high barrier-to-entry platform in terms of store implementation, definitely targeting advanced users. However, such difficulties are rewarded with rich functionality. Shopify is a solution built from the ground up for beginners.
Magento and Shopify - design
Magento was built in PHP and is available under an open-source license. Thanks to the use of a popular and proven language and openness, the platform allows adapting it to your needs, of course, if we have the appropriate skills.
Shopify, in turn, uses a language created specifically for its needs, namely Liquid - it is built on top of Ruby. It was thanks to him that the platform became able to introduce functions that allow you to edit your store for free using simple functions designed for beginners. This state of affairs imposes restrictions that make it is impossible to implement some particularly advanced functions.
Magento vs. Shopify Performance
Your Shopify store is hosted by a service provider, so you will need to contact the official support team for performance issues. By using Magento, you have more control over the technical base, so you can optimize your store more effectively. When it comes to how the platforms actually work, it's hard to pick a winner, as a lot depends on what and how many extensions you use. In the case of Magento, it is definitely better to build your store on version 2.0, which brings a lot of improvements in terms of performance.
Magento and Shopify - functionality
Magento in its basic version offers many features, including those intended for more advanced users:
- Tools for marketing,
- Promotions and conversion optimization,
- Website management,
- Positioning optimization,
- Catalog management,
- Product browsing,
- Catalog browsing,
- Invoicing,
- Payment and shipping,
- Order management,
- Customer accounts,
- Customer service,
- Multilingual store support,
- Analytics and reports,
- Selling customization for mobile devices.
Shopify also has a lot of useful features, although many of them can only be obtained by installing additional apps:
- Unlimited Product Offerings,
- Employee Accounts,
- 24/7 Support,
- Multiple sales channels,
- Manual Order Creation,
- Discount Codes,
- Free SSL Certificate,
- Gift Cards,
- Professional Reports,
- Automatic Shipping Calculation.
Magento and Shopify - what to choose?
As you can see from the comparison above, Shopify is a great solution for beginners who want to start selling online with little effort and money. On the other hand, the simplistic nature of the platform limits your options to some extent, especially if you are thinking about growing your store in the next few years. Adobe Commerce Magento, on the other hand, is an ideal solution for budget-conscious merchants who are planning to expand and need a store with custom-designed features.
Summarize:
Adobe Commerce Magento 2 is an excellent content management system, one of the most popular in the e-commerce world. Companies choose it because it provides many options for running a website. In addition, it has additional advantages:
- Magento is one of the main systems that is quite attractive, personalized and structured;
- Open, powerful and flexible architecture;
- Promotes rapid growth of an e-commerce site;
- Has incredible performance that improves the quality of the site’s customer experience;
- The platform is easy to maintain and update.
It must be noted that Magento 2 was designed to increase the efficiency of e-commerce websites. This is due to her ability to help businesses develop effective websites that align with company goals. Magento 2 makes it easy to launch online projects that meet a variety of needs. Therefore, if you work with different products, this reliable platform is definitely suitable for you.