Commerce platforms can be daunting. Among many choices, Shopify and Magento stand out as the leaders of the pack’s leading ecommerce platforms – each with its own way of selling online.
Choosing between these two is more than just a technical decision for business owners. It’s about finding the right foundation for their digital future. Magento has unlimited customization but requires technical know-how. Shopify has simplicity and speed but with some creative limitations.
Understanding these differences is key to launching your first online store or switching platforms. This guide will break down what each platform offers – from pricing and features to scalability and support. Let’s get into the nitty gritty that matters for your business.
What is Magento?
Magento is a giant in the entire e-commerce store field, known for its many features and open source. Magento has two core versions: Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce. The open source version is suitable for enterprises equipped with a technical team to support, and fully control development permissions to create powerful and flexible online and offline stores. Adobe Commerce is a version of the platform that enhances enterprise-level business functions for online stores.
Magento Pros and Cons
| Pros of Magento | Cons of Magento |
| Scalability: Wireless expansion capabilities. Capable of handling enterprise-level product management and handling traffic peaks. | Technical Complexity: Professional installation and maintenance technical knowledge is required to keep the store running. |
| Customizability: A powerful customization function and various customizations can be made according to the brand image, including everything from the checkout process to product display. | Resource Investment: Beyond the initial setup, costs add up fast. Server hosting is $200-$1000 a month. Custom development projects start at $10,000. Enterprise-level implementations can be $100,000+. |
| B2B Functionality: Run B2B and B2C sales in one place. Set custom prices for different buyer groups, and manage multiple accounts and bulk orders. | Steep Learning Curve: Store management involves multiple systems and workflows. Even experienced ecommerce professionals need time to get up to speed with Magento’s many features. |
| Multiple Payment Methods: Give your customers their preferred way to pay. Transactions are secure. | Long Launch Cycle: Due to the high degree of customization, the development and deployment time of Magento projects is usually long. |
| Smart Insights: Turn data into sales. Track customer behavior, monitor inventory levels, and spot trends as they happen. | Difficulty of Maintenance: The platform is complex and subsequent maintenance requires continuous investment. |
| Advanced Inventory and Fulfillment: Robust inventory and fulfillment management system. | |
| International Supports: Multi-language and currency for enterprises from different countries and areas. Supports complex tax rules and regionally differentiated tax calculations. |
What is Shopify?
Shopify is the leader in the ecommerce space with its focus on simplicity and speed to market. Built for modern commerce, it’s for everyone from first-time sellers to established brands. The platform excels at rapid deployment – merchants can launch a store in hours using pre-built themes and intuitive tools. For businesses that want growth without technical complexity, Shopify is the streamlined path to online success.
| Pros of Shopify | Cons of Shopify |
| Quick Setup: Launch your store in days, not months. Build professional storefronts with point-and-click. No coding is needed. | Design Limitations: The built-in customization tools have technical limitations. Advanced design changes often require custom code solutions. |
| Built-in Essentials: Everything is in one place. Track inventory, process orders and manage marketing campaigns without switching platforms. | Hidden App Costs: Core features may not meet advanced business needs. Each extra app adds to monthly operational costs. |
| High Reliability: A stable cloud hosting ensures the website is online 24/7. Built-in SSL certificate and PCI-compliant payment to ensure transaction security. | Payment Gateway Charges: Using external payment providers incurs extra transaction fees. |
| AI-Powered Shopify Magic: A sidekick AI assistant to help run and grow your business. | Difficulty of Data Migration: The process of migrating to/from Shopify may complicated. |
| Shopify Ecosystem: Rich Shopify app resource and third-party integrations. | Weak Content Management and SEO Optimization: Limited content management capabilities and relatively fixed URL structure. |
| Multi-Channel Sales: Publish your store across channels. Reach shoppers wherever they scroll, search, and shop. |
Magento vs Shopify: Pricing Plans
In the Shopify vs Magento debate, the total cost of ecommerce platform ownership is one of the most discussed aspects of both platforms. Each ecommerce platform’s pricing plan caters to the specific businesses it targets with its e-commerce website creation tools.
Magento Pricing
The Magento Commerce has two primary versions: Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento Commerce). Magento Open Source is free to download and is suited to businesses with technical expertise or access to a talented e-commerce developer.
This plan gives businesses access to numerous templates managed services and add-ons in the Magento marketplace. Although it is a free version, businesses using this plan must pay for domain hosting, which can cost up to $500/month. Moreover, customization extensions in the Magento marketplace are also paid and may contribute to costs when used.
It is also worth noting that, under the Magento Open Source plan, businesses may still need to pay development costs and invest in security and maintenance costs.
Adobe Commerce pricing is custom but usually starts at $22,000 per year. This plan is ideal for established businesses that need advanced ecommerce business i-commerce functionality. It also comes with the latest personalization and AI-enhanced features for product recommendations.
Businesses must be keen about additional costs that may inflate Magento Commerce pricing. These include development costs and high-end web hosting alone. Magento also offers a fully managed, cloud-hosted version of this plan called Adobe Commerce Cloud, which is priced separately and starts at $40,000 a year.
Shopify Pricing
Shopify is a cloud-based e-commerce platform that offers straightforward subscription packages with varying features. The Basic Plan (ideal for solo entrepreneurs and startups) is $39 monthly. While it provides access to the Shopify POS and allows merchants to sell unlimited products, it does not support multiple staff accounts.
The Shopify Plan costs $105 per month and is recommended for growing businesses that need enhanced reporting and seats for up to five staff members. The Advanced Plan at $399/month is suited to scaling businesses that need custom reporting and analytics and enhanced chat support 24/7. This plan also accommodates 15 additional staff accounts.
Shopify Annual Plans & Enterprise Options
Save 25% across all plans with annual billing. For high-growth enterprises, Shopify Plus starts at $2,300 monthly with a three-year commitment. Plus unlocks advanced features:
- Priority support is available 24/7
- No staff account limits
- Support for 200 POS locations
- Advanced B2B capabilities
Shopify’s transparent pricing makes budgeting straightforward. Entry costs stay low, ideal for businesses seeking quick launches without the technical overhead. Yet consider future needs – extensive customizations and third-party apps affect long-term costs.
Magento vs Shopify: Ease of Use
Shopify’s user interface is intuitive, and merchants without coding knowledge can easily follow the interface knowledge to set up their online stores step by step. The intuitive design and drag-and-drop function make it easy to set up a store.
In contrast, Magento offers advanced customization options, which are ideal for businesses with web development expertise or resources. They can highly customize their online website stores, with comprehensive and flexible settings. But for small business owners without a technical team, it will be more challenging.
Magento vs Shopify: Design, Themes and Templates
Regarding store design, compare platforms based on brand image promotion and provide customers with the best shopping experience to make a website-building platform choice.
| Magento Design Features | Shopify Design Features |
| Full source code access | Visual theme editor |
| Custom theme development | Drag-and-drop customization |
| Advanced template system | Section-based layouts |
| Multiple store views | Mobile-first design |
| Complex attribute management | Built-in image optimization |
| Custom checkout flows | Custom CSS/HTML capability |
| Advanced product configuration | Dynamic content sections |
| Flexible content management |
Magento’s website builder is customizable and flexible but not user-friendly for sellers without a coding background. It provides full code access in HTML, PHP, CSS, and JavaScript, enabling developers to create unique and highly customized e-commerce websites.
Although the website builder comes with a native theme and a limited selection of free and paid options, the standout feature is it allows developers to build their own from scratch. Leveraging this, businesses can design unique websites that provide an exceptional customer experience. Mobile optimization is also built into Magento themes.
The Magento website design toolkit also features in-built SEO capabilities. This feature allows developers to create websites that rank on search engines, enhancing their online visibility and attracting organic traffic.
In the Adobe Commerce version, Magento’s CMS allows for detailed content management. Developers can leverage this capability to integrate landing pages and blogs into a Magento store.
The Shopify platform is built for beginners. Unlike Magento, Shopify offers an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that allows sellers to design a beautiful e-commerce website without coding knowledge. The marketplace also offers more than 100 highly customizable free and paid Shopify themes. Unfortunately, users cannot create a theme from scratch on Shopify’s theme editor.
Although Shopify has built-in SEO capabilities, they are limited. However, businesses using this platform can enhance the functionality of their websites by integrating third-party apps from the Shopify app store.
Shopify’s website builder allows you to build mobile-optimized sites. Moreover, you can add a blog section to help you create and manage content for your business.
Magento vs Shopify: Shipping and Inventory
Inventory management and shipping are two crucial elements when running an e-commerce brand. Online shoppers are more likely to buy from your business if the product will ship to their destination most quickly and conveniently. Furthermore, you can run your business online and store more smoothly if you avoid stockouts and do not worry about how orders are fulfilled.
Shopify Shipping and Inventory
The Shopify platform integrates with popular shipping carriers such as DHL, UPS, and USPS, allowing businesses to sell locally and internationally. Shopify basic shipping features include real-time carrier rates, label printing, and delivery estimates from top shipping carriers. The platform also allows sellers to set custom shipping rules by location, weight, and price range, although this customization is limited compared to Magento’s.
For stores in the US, Canada, and Australia, the Shopify app store offers Shopify Shipping, a feature that enables them to access up to 88% shipping discounts on major carriers. Through the Shopify app store, it is also possible to integrate with third-party shipping apps to offer more flexible shipping options to customers.
When it comes to inventory management, Shopify allows businesses on all paid plans to track inventory across multiple locations automatically. That way, sellers can conveniently monitor stock levels, organize products, and receive low-stock notifications. Shopify inventory management tools also let sellers add up to 100 variants per product, allowing for flexibility in product listings.
US-based merchants also benefit through access to the Shopify Fulfillment Network. This service helps sellers with high order volumes to streamline their logistics from storage to picking, packing, and shipping.
The main difference between Shopify and Magento Shipping is that the latter allows users to configure more flexibly according to destination, product type, customer group, weight, price, and many other elements. Businesses with specific shipping requirements benefit significantly from this customization.
Read More: Shopify Tracking: A Step-by-Step Guide to Easy Order Tracking
Magento Shipping and Inventory
Major carriers come natively integrated with the Magento platform. However, businesses are not limited to just the popular shipping carriers. By leveraging the Magento extensions themselves, they can integrate with other carriers in the regions they ship to. Magento’s open-source nature also allows businesses to install custom solutions that aid in shipping, such as rate calculators.
Magento’s open-source and Adobe Commerce’s inventory management are advanced and more sophisticated than Shopify’s. Some of the robust tools in this inventory suite include multi-warehouse inventory, SKU management, and detailed stock status updates. However, Magento and Shopify both support selling physical and digital products.
Unlike Shopify, which provides US sellers access to a dedicated fulfillment network, merchants using Magento can only connect to 3PL providers via APIs.
While Shopify provides tools that help small and medium businesses automate their shipping and inventory management, Magento focuses more on enterprise clients.
However, it is worth mentioning that Shopify Plus, Shopify’s enterprise tier, also provides outstanding features catered to large, high-volume brands. This plan compares favorably with Magento Order Management, which comes with Adobe Commerce and supports features like intelligent order routing, store fulfillment, and global inventory visibility.
Magento vs Shopify: Payment Gateways & Processing
Customers shopping on online marketplaces want to be able to pay for their orders conveniently. Likewise, businesses seek a platform to process payments without any hassle.
Magento Payment
Although there is no native Magento payment gateway, the platform offers extensive customizable options. It is integrated with PayPal and Stripe and supports additional gateways via extensions. Magento and Adobe Commerce payments attract no transaction fee from the platform, allowing businesses to integrate with the most affordable providers to suit their needs.
The Magento platform also offers native multi-currency payments and multi-language support, allowing businesses to sell globally and display prices to customers in their local currencies. Other advanced payment customizations on Magento include customized checkout workflows, multi-store support that allows different online stores to use different currencies, and integration with digital wallets like Apple Pay and BNPL payment providers.
Shopify Payment
The starkest difference between Magento and Shopify’s payment processing is that Shopify features a native payment gateway called Shopify Payments. This payment gateway is available in select countries and to businesses that meet specific eligibility criteria. Businesses that use Shopify Payments can transact for free, although standard credit card processing fees still apply. The gateway offers multi-currency support, but sellers can also use third-party integrations to enable it.
Shopify Payments has a transparent processing fee structure dependent on the plan that you are on. The fees per transaction are as follows: Basic Plan (2.9% + $0.30), Shopify Plan (2.7% + $0.30), and Advanced Plan (2.5% + $0.30).
Although there are no transaction fees when using Shopify Payments, Shopify charges extra on top of what the payment gateway provider charges when you use third-party payment services to process credit cards. The rates also vary depending on your plan, with an additional 2%, 1%, and 0.6% being the going rate on the Basic, Shopify, and Advanced shopify plans.
Magento vs Shopify: Security
Online shoppers buy more confidently when their transaction and payment details are guaranteed to be secure. Therefore, choosing an e-commerce platform that prioritizes security for businesses and their customers is crucial.
Magento, being an open-source platform, only comes with built-in security features like two-factor authentication and regular updates. Although the platform is PCI-DSS compliant, sellers have to shoulder the burden of enhancing the security of their online stores. Most have to hire developers and incur regular security and maintenance costs for this.
Compared to Magento security, Shopify’s approach is more hands-off for the seller. As a cloud-hosted platform, Shopify’s security responsibilities fall on the company, which ensures regular updates, 256-bit SSL certificates, continued surveillance, and compliance with standards like PCI and GDPR.
In the Magento vs Shopify security face-off, Shopify is more suitable for non-technical sellers who prefer website security to be managed.
Magento vs Shopify: Sales Features
Selling in high volumes is the reason for carefully selecting which e-commerce platform to build your ecommerce store. Shopify and Magento excel at sales features, enabling businesses to sell on multiple channels.
Magento Sales Feature
Magento sales features include the flexibility to create custom solutions to enable sales across multiple channels. The platform also includes built-in multi-store management tools that allow brands to run multiple stores from a centralized dashboard.
With Magento, sellers can also explore its extensive custom rules for tiered and category-specific discounts, which enable them to run multiple promotions to attract new customers and retain existing ones. However, the abandoned cart recovery is only available as an Adobe Commerce sales feature or via third-party extensions.
Shopify Sales Feature
Unlike Magento, Shopify sales tools include built-in social media and marketplace integrations so businesses can list their products on multiple channels from the start. Moreover, Shopify also provides POS Lite on all plans to enable in-person selling.
Product management is quite simple on Shopify. Sellers can list different products and group them using product variants and collections. This feature enables customers to explore a store’s catalog better, enhancing their chances of buying.
The Shopify platform also features built-in features and all essential promotions and discount tools which become more advanced on higher plans. Merchants can create and run different campaigns from their seller dashboard and automate them to free their workload.
Shopify also has an abandoned cart recovery feature available from the Shopify plan. This tool ensures your business can maximize sales by personalizing reach out to customers who did not go through with checkout.
When looking at Shopify vs Magento sales features, it is evident that the former is best suited to small businesses and growing brands that want a more straightforward way to sell and engage with customers. On the other hand, Magento Commerce’s sales features fit better with large enterprises.
Magento vs Shopify: Integrations & Apps
Both platforms support third-party app and tool integrations to enhance functionality. Shopify’s app store offers a vast selection, while Magento Marketplace provides extensions for Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce.
Ultimately, the choice between Magento and Shopify depends on your specific business needs and priorities. For businesses seeking a user-friendly and cost-effective platform with basic e-commerce features, Shopify is an excellent choice. On the other hand, Magento is more suitable for businesses that require advanced customization, extensive marketing tools, and robust SEO capabilities.
Magento vs Shopify: Customer Support
There are huge contrasts to the customer support you can expect when using Magento and Shopify.
| Shopify Support | Magento Support |
| · 24/7 live chat support on all plans； · Priority phone support for Shopify Plus users； · Comprehensive resource center and educational materials； · Active community and expert marketplace； | Open Source Version: · No official support； · Relies on developer community forums； · Optional paid enterprise solution partners； Adobe Commerce Version: · 24/7 professional support； · Dedicated account managers； · Round-the-clock phone and email channels； · Certification courses and training resources； |
Magento vs Shopify: Which is Better for Your Business?
The choice between Shopify and Magento depends on your specific business needs. Consider your business scale and growth plans: Shopify offers seamless scaling with minimal technical requirements, while Magento provides deeper control but demands greater investment as you expand.
Your technical resources significantly impact this decision. Shopify enables quick launches with minimal technical expertise, whereas Magento requires strong technical knowledge but offers extensive customization options. From a budget perspective, Shopify provides predictable monthly costs, while Magento involves higher initial investment but more flexible ongoing expenses.
Shopify allows rapid deployment, but Magento needs more setup time in exchange for greater control. Your customization needs will influence this choice too. Shopify handles standard e-commerce needs effectively, while Magento excels when unique features are required.
Choose the right ecommerce platform that aligns with these factors and supports your long-term vision, as it will form a crucial part of your business foundation.
What’s Next?
Magento and Shopify are two leading e-commerce platforms offering unique features and capabilities for businesses of all sizes. While Magento provides advanced customization and scalability, Shopify delivers a user-friendly experience and cost-effective solutions.
Magento Vs Shopify FAQs
Note: This blog was originally written in English and translated using an automated tool to make the content accessible to a global audience. We believe in sharing valuable insights with everyone and apologize for any inaccuracies. If you spot any errors, please feel free to contact us for corrections. Your feedback helps us improve and ensures the content’s value is fully realized.
Abby Zeng
Content Specialist
I’m deeply passionate about SEO and creating engaging content. My initial goal is to deliver high-quality, informative, and entertaining content that stands out in the digital landscape. By merging analytical insights with creativity, I aim to boost traffic for websites.
