With the rise of eCommerce and the arrival of new retail competitors, more and more merchants are looking to eCommerce as a solution to selling their products. If you’re thinking about starting an eCommerce business, you might be wondering which platform is the best for you. Depending on your personal and business needs, you may choose either eCommerce platform.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably asking yourself which eCommerce platform is better for your business. After all, they both have their pros and cons. In this article, you will learn more about the differences between Magento and Shopify, as well as what each of these eCommerce platforms can offer your business. Read on if you want to learn more about which eCommerce platform is better for your business.
What’s the Difference Between Magento and Shopify?
Magento Overview
Magento Commerce is an open-source platform that allows you to sell products online and create a website. It offers many customization options so you can make a responsive website that represents your brand perfectly.
With the new version, Magento 2 Commerce, there are many integrations that make it easy for you to connect your eCommerce store to other platforms, like Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, MailChimp, and more.
Shopify Overview
Shopify is a popular eCommerce platform that makes it easy to create an online store. It comes with many features, such as an integrated payment system called Shopify Payments, marketing tools, and much more. Advanced Shopify also offers 24/7 customer support.
The Shopify platform is best for businesses that are just starting out, or for those who want to get their business started quickly, with a pricing plan that can suit all business owners. With Shopify Lite and Shopify Plus, all enterprise-level businesses can find what’s best for them.
Popularity Between the Two
In the competition for the finest eCommerce platform, Magento vs Shopify are typically placed against each other. However, they each represent an entirely distinct solutions with a wide range of products.
While Magento Commerce has long been a popular hosting service for complex stores, Shopify has recently emerged as a serious threat. Magento might rise even further in the rankings now that Magento 2 Commerce, an improved version of the original platform, has been released, making it a perfect choice for businesses of all sizes with custom features.
We’ll show you all the Magento vs Shopify pros and cons, and we’ll go through the foundations and most significant features of Magento 2, so you can make an informed decision about which open-source solution is ideal for your company.
So, which of the two is more popular and why?
Historically, Magento Commerce has been the most widely used platform for online retailers since its launch in 2004.
Shopify has witnessed a dramatic increase in popularity over the previous few years and currently accounts for 21% of all eCommerce stores.
If you keep reading, you’ll see that in Magento vs Shopify, Shopify has built a reputation as a user-friendly custom eCommerce platform.
However, Magento has proven itself as more than a one-size-fits-all website builder, and therefore still has a considerable number of users. One in every two websites on the internet runs on Magento, which is used by about a quarter of all online retailers.
Magento vs Shopify Features Comparison
1. Themes & Templates
How your business will appear to customers is one of the most important concerns among business owners. However, different themes let you showcase both your brand and your aesthetic perfectly! Let’s compare Magento with Shopify’s themes!
Themes for Shopify
Shopify offers a range of themes and has 73 themes altogether. If you’re a Shopify user, you’ll have to pay between $150 and $350 for a theme that will make your storefront look like a work of art.
Features to look out for:
- The Shopify theme’s drag-and-drop editor lets you add, alter, delete, and resize items
- All of the themes are responsive themes
- You can add or create new pages quite easily
- Change the color scheme and graphics to fit your company’s look
- Quickly integrate social network feeds using Shopify
Themes for Magento
Magento offers responsive themes as well. Through the Magento Marketplace and private vendors, you can find hundreds of themes ranging in price up to $499 each. Magento allows you to design your own theme from the ground up (some greater coding skills are required, as basic coding skills won’t cut it – or a budget big enough to hire someone with a greater coding knowledge level than you).
Features:
- It allows custom development
- There are some superior functionalities, like adding animations to your pages
- You can use a product slider on your homepage to highlight your most popular items
- Product pages should have “cross-selling blocks.”
2. Scalability and Flexibility
In order to achieve your long-term company objectives, it’s critical to select an eCommerce solution that will best suit your needs.
To scale Shopify, you’ll have to pay more money for a more advanced plan. Advanced Shopify, which costs $299 a month, offers the most options for expanding your shop. The scalability of this design is limited, though. The maximum number of stores Shopify will support is 8.
This also applies to adaptability. Even with the help of a skilled IT staff, online businesses are limited in what they can achieve with this hosting solution.
Magento’s scalability and adaptability are limitless, but online businesses will need to enlist experienced IT staff. On peak days, you will be able to deal with more items, more consumers, and even foreign expansions. Magento is an open-source platform that allows custom features.
3. Performance Configuration
Magento is a resource-heavy platform because of all the behind-the-scenes work that goes into personalizing the eCommerce experience, cross-selling, up-selling, and more.
If the server is correctly set up, Magento will work smoothly. Online businesses rated uptime and functionality as the two most important factors in their decision to use Magento.
In comparison to Shopify, Magento is a more powerful platform because it is a feature-rich online store, as well as a flexible solution for a flawless business operation.
An improved ROI is nearly guaranteed by providing personalized client experiences in the Magento eCommerce business.
4. Adaptability
When it comes to adaptability, Magento Commerce is one of the most versatile e-commerce systems on the market.
Shopify, on the other hand, provides sufficient capability to allow small and mid – range online businesses to flourish and develop. Using Shopify’s eCommerce platform, even basic coding skills can suffice.
Adding items and SKUs to your site, optimizing payment methods, and customizing the user experience and the appearance and feel of your store are all part of this process.
5. Ease of Use
Web designers and developers aren’t common among online businesses that start their own shops online. Even consumers who are familiar with the fundamentals are looking for a platform that is simple to set up and use.
The Ease of Use of Magento
Magento isn’t as user-friendly as Shopify for non-technical consumers when it comes to usability. Users can have total control over their website, but they need a professional team to manage their Magento Commerce.
Convenience of Shopify
Shopify, on the other hand, appears to have a significant advantage over Magento. Shopify is a platform that can be used by both tech-savvy and non-technical users. As a result, setting up a Shopify store is so easy that it changed the business game forever.
6. Apps & Extensions
Adding extensions is an option if you want to enhance the functionality of your website beyond what is provided by its themes. App shops and extensions are available on every platform. Most of these applications may be added to your eCommerce site with a single click.
Magento Extensions
The Magento marketplace now offers roughly 3600+ add-on extensions. Any built-in feature can be added with no programming skills.
If there is a special function you feel will fit your store perfectly, there’s probably an extension for it. Mageplaza, for instance, has marketing features that offer customers customized discounts and multi-channel selling. When a new product is released, you can use Product Pre-Order to email your potential consumers and set up marketing email campaigns for future sales.
Shopify Apps
Shopify App Store offers over 4200+ free and premium applications to improve your store’s functionality, management, and revenue. By using Trust Hero by Booster Apps (one of the third-party extensions), your visitors and potential customers will see trust symbols, which will reduce cart abandonment and help business growth.
In addition, Shopify allows you to integrate marketing email campaigns like the MailChimp account to reach out to your target demographic.
7. Inventory Management
There is no limit to the number of items that may be added to Magento Commerce Cloud.
Shopify, on the other hand, is limited to 100 variation choices for each complicated product, and it also gives just three variant options.
Magento is the only eCommerce platform that actually allows for endless product expansion. As an additional feature, Magento allows you to construct sophisticated product kinds, which can contain both bundling and grouping of certain items.
But what’s your inventory size? If it is relatively small, you may be happy with either choice, but if you have a relatively large inventory, then Magento B2B is the way to go!
Magento Open Source is the greatest eCommerce system that allows your online business to combine many goods into one product bundle and sell it either at a predetermined or dynamically determined price.
8. Payment Gateway Options
Before making the switch to Shopify or Magento, you should think about payment methods and avoid any technical issues with third-party gateways.
When it comes to payment methods, both Magento and Shopify have a wide range of options and different payment processors.
Customers that use an external payment gateway such as PayPal or Stripe will be subject to additional transaction fees when using Shopify. There is an initial transaction cost of 1.9 percent + 30 cents, and additional costs increase with the size of your business.
Magento Commerce Cloud, on the other hand, offers advanced features and enables a wide range of third-party payment gateways, like Stripe, Braintree, Authorize.net, or paying with gift cards, all the while ensuring safe transactions and avoiding extra transaction fees with only a basic plan.
9. Shipping Charges Calculation
To successfully sell anything online, you need to be able to accurately calculate shipping costs and add flexible shipping methods if at all possible.
It’s important that you don’t face any shipping cost losses and that you offer a reasonable delivery rate to your clients.
To ensure that your shipping prices are accurate, both Magento and Shopify include a strong and versatile option for automatically calculating the shipping expenses with any and all shipping carriers.
10. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
eCommerce relies heavily on SEO tricks. Proper SEO add-ons can position you on the first page of SERPs, resulting in more organic searches for your eCommerce store.
Shopify SEO
Shopify’s search engine optimization capabilities are severely limited. You can only add meta tags, change the website’s structure, experiment with keywords and alt text, and conceal pages from search robots. You won’t be able to alter the URL structure or affect website load speed (which may become a problem if you add a lot of plugins).
Magento SEO
Magento gives you access to a wider range of options. It is possible to apply optimal Magento SEO strategies such as canonical tags and redirects, URL changes, and meta description optimization in addition to the fundamental strategies. As a bonus, having access to the source code will allow you to optimize your pages and speed up Google’s crawling of your content, as well as track organic traffic your online business is getting.
11. Provision of Discount Codes and Coupons
When it comes to boosting eCommerce sales, you need to use discount codes and coupons.
Using Magento’s built-in promotions engine, everyone can add coupons and discount codes without difficulty.
With the Magento promotions engine, you can provide two sorts of discounts: one for new customers and the other for returning customers.
Catalog Price Rules is a general guideline that may be applied to all products in the catalog. Cart Price Rules is a discount promotion that can be applied only to products in the cart at checkout.
Discount codes and coupons can be provided by script or by using the Ultimate Special Offers app, however as your online business expands, customizing the scripts will be necessary, which may be a complicated process as you scale.
Shopify also gives you multiple options for discounts and coupons. You can manage all of them through the Discounts section of your Shopify control panel. You can set discount rates, create a sale, invent and distribute discount codes, and automatically set up discount codes for abandoned cart recovery emails.
12. Security
Using Shopify, you don’t have to worry about security since Shopify’s staff installs all the fixes and certifications for you. Shopify is SSL encrypted and PCI compliant to protect consumers’ private information on the platform. Keep in mind, however, that Shopify is a hosted platform, therefore security upkeep is taken care of by the company itself.
In order to secure its customers, the newest version of Magento 2.4.4 employs a variety of security measures. Cross-site scripting (XSS) hacks and clickjacking exploits are no longer a possibility with Magento 2.4.4. This reliable hosting provider also checks its systems for any possible vulnerabilities and offer security fixes every quarter to ensure the safety of standard shops.
13. Coding
Magento Development Company and Shopify are considerably different when it comes to code and the coding level of knowledge required.
Magento is written in PHP, while Shopify is written in Liquid. Although both Magento and Shopify are open-source, they are owned by different companies. When making a choice, it’s critical to understand the coding language being used because it dictates what you can do with it.
Open-source indicates that the source code is publicly accessible and may be edited by anybody, whereas proprietary code cannot be. The template code in Magento may be customized to meet the demands of a particular shop. Shopify does not allow this.
This makes Shopify a good option for small businesses, but not great for a medium business that requires modifications to the source code.
14. Patches and Updates
Shopify takes care of clients’ fixes and upgrades. In Magento, a house developer has to take care of it. Even though it takes more effort from a medium business or developer team, Magento’s solution allows a greater degree of customization and control with its superior functionalities. This is largely thanks to the Magento community of eCommerce developers and contributors, which is one of the largest in the industry.
Magento releases dedicated security patches routinely as a consequence of continual testing and development by a community of professional developers and development teams well-versed in the requirements of an online business.
Shopify, however, is solely run by in-house developers. Because of this, the number of people working on fixing security issues is greatly reduced, but so are the development costs.
Despite the fact that there is a Shopify bounty program that compensates people who uncover vulnerabilities, the repairs themselves are handled by Shopify itself.
15. Supportive Community
Magento has the biggest user community out of any eCommerce platform out there, and it’s only becoming bigger.
Because of this excellent user community, if you ever have an issue, even if it is some of the major issues with your site, the Magento community forum will almost certainly have a solution for it.
It’s as simple as going to the Magento community forum, searching for your issue, and applying the proper solution.
Alternatively, Shopify members may access the extensive community with forums, a support center, API documentation, and various video tutorials. Also, you can pay qualified Shopify professional developers to assure optimum problem resolution for any minor issue you may have and uninterrupted business operations.
16. Help &Support
Magento has a strong and active community with forums that provides a multitude of assistance to its users. Thousands of Magento developers throughout the world are capable of creating effective solutions for firms that have specific requirements.
If this is the case, you won’t have to worry about finding a good developer to work with. Magento or third-party developers offer support and maintenance services.
In addition, there are numerous video tutorials available to those who want to learn more about Magento.
Shopify, on the other hand, provides far greater customer care, with round-the-clock, seven-day-a-week service. With a dedicated team, Shopify goes above and above to serve its clients, but this is included in the monthly subscription plan. You’re paying for both the platform and the customer service while using Shopify.
Magento vs Shopify Initial Cost Comparison
The pricing is one of the main distinctions in the Magento vs Shopify battle. A Magento website may be set up for free. There are two methods to construct a website using Magento: Open Source and Commerce. Magento Commerce, now known as Adobe Commerce, includes features like unlimited products, unlimited stores, and more.
Shopify requires a monthly cost and even though it is less feature-rich than Magento, it’s also cheaper and easier to use. Of course, you can upgrade Shopify’s features with more and more expensive options. Out of the box, though, Magento is probably the more capable of the two platforms at low price points.
We have a guide to Magento costs here: How Much Does Magento Cost?
Magento vs Shopify Pros & Cons
- Magento Pros
Magento Commerce is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms out there. It provides a wide range of features and capabilities, which makes it ideal for both a large and medium business. Magento provides several advantages, including the flexibility to tailor your site to your needs. One of the best features of Magento is that it is continually updated for free. You may use any third-party program or plugin without concern for compatibility.
The platform also offers live chat help via Zopim for inquiries concerning Magento or your website.
Magento has an open API that allows other developers to simply create Magento extensions. This means you can employ more superior functionalities as your business develops and grows without having to upgrade your Magento version.
- Magento Cons
One major con to using Magento is the cost. It often costs more to create a Magento site, as the building is handled in-house.
Another downside of Magento is that it requires more than just basic coding abilities, unlike Shopify.
- Shopify Pros
Shopify is an excellent platform that is easy to learn. It’s also easy to use and is a great option if you’re looking for an eCommerce tool that has a low cost of entry.
Shopify integrates with many apps, making it easier to customize your site and add features. It offers 24/7 customer service and live chat support.
Shopify has a straightforward interface that’s easy to use for beginners and offers unlimited bandwidth and storage. On Shopify, you can create your own app store so customers can find what they are looking for more easily on your website.
- Shopify Cons
Shopify has some cons, like the fact that it’s not as customizable as Magento. It also doesn’t have a robust reporting system.
Where Magento wins
Magento is best for those who want the most features, flexibility, and advanced customization. If your business is looking for the most features and customization available, Magento is the best option. This eCommerce platform has an open-source code that gives you access to all of its features—even those not yet developed.
If your online business needs more than just the basic plan and you want to get creative with its marketing strategies, Magento might be the best option for your company.
The two most prominent features where Magento wins are:
- Features
- Add-ons and customization
Where Shopify wins
Shopify is an eCommerce platform that is specifically designed for small to medium-sized businesses. It’s a powerful and easy-to-use eCommerce platform, which means you don’t have to spend a lot of time learning how to use it or hiring a professional developer to create custom designs.
Shopify also charges much less than other platforms. Compared to Magento, Shopify’s monthly fee is significantly less, at $29 per month.
You only pay for the number of products you sell per month, so if your business grows, Shopify will grow as well and you’ll never have to worry about scalability issues.
As an all-in-one service for small businesses, Shopify provides more value than any other platform out there, and these two features are where Shopify wins:
- Usability
- Pricing
Why Magento Is Better than Shopify?
There are many reasons why Magento might be better than Shopify. In comparison to Shopify, Magento provides greater options for customization, scalability, and extension of features. You may even design your own add-ons and add as many payment gateways as you like without incurring additional expenses. In addition, Magento gives you complete control over the upkeep, speed, and security of your website.
Whichever platform you choose, you’ll want the right eCommerce team structure filled with great people to get the best results.
Large businesses might want to look at our enterprise eCommerce platform comparison for useful info about the features platforms offer to huge companies. If you need to change, we’ve got a great eCommerce replatforming guide to help you through the process.
So, if you are not sure which way to go, request a consultation with an eCommerce Consultant who will go further into details about which one is better for your business!
