Thousands of online retailers are presently choosing between the two best-in-class eCommerce systems, Magento vs. Shopify. Despite having a number of flaws, both systems earn points for having the best functionality for an online business with plenty of features.

You have come to the correct spot if you are thinking of undertaking a Magento to Shopify or Shopify to Magento migration (now known as Shopify to Adobe Commerce).

Basic Overview

 With the help of the comparison between a self-driving and manual automobile, we can clearly comprehend the differences between Magento and Shopify.

Programming, coding, and other back-end tasks are automatically managed by Shopify, similar to how a self-driving car operates. The benefit is that even if you have no experience with coding, you can still construct and set up your website. The drawback is that you can’t alter it whatever you choose.

Magento, on the other hand, is more akin to a manual automobile where inputs may be specified and the website can be customized. However, you require special coding knowledge in order to operate with Magento.

For a better understanding, the following points highlights the key distinctions between Magento and Shopify:

  • Magento was founded in 2008 whereas Shopify was founded in 2004.
  • Magento was built on PHP while Shopify was built on Ruby.
  • Magento is open-source and Shopify is Hosted.
  • Magento is basically for enterprises with a large product catalog whereas Shopify is for small-scale businesses selling limited products.

Key differences between Magento and Shopify

  1. Pricing

The Magento open-source edition is cost-free. The domain name, hosting, themes, and add-ons, however, are not free. You may launch your eCommerce company using the free version.

However, you must choose premium versions if you wish to increase the functionality of your eCommerce website or grow your eCommerce business. Magento Commerce and Magento Commerce Cloud are the two premium versions that are offered. The cost will vary depending on how you personalize your eCommerce website.

Detailed pricing of each Magento version: You must speak with Magento development businesses with expertise in creating specialized eCommerce solutions powered by Magento if you want a precise quotation. Shopify provides a 14-day free trial before charging a monthly fee. You don’t have to pay for external expenses like outsourcing or in-house management of developers because it is a plug-and-play solution.

Conclusion on Magento and Shopify’s prices!

Due to the different price structures of Magento and Shopify, it is difficult to determine which is more economical. The cost of Magento is based on your needs and is open-source. However, while Shopify’s set pricing may appear more affordable, you will still have to pay for additional items like apps and themes.

  1. Themes

Magento costs up to $499 and includes five completely mobile-responsive themes. Even better, you can build a theme from yourself, but it requires coding know-how or the money to engage Magento experts.

The following are a few features that distinguish Magento themes.

  • Options for flexible customisation (but you need a firm technical foundation).
  • the capacity to create animations and make your business engaging.
  • Adding a highlighted product slider to your homepage is an option.
  • Adding newsletter subscription choices to your website’s footer.
  • On your product pages, you may also include cross-selling blocks.

Shopify provides more than nine free and 88 paid mobile-friendly designs. When compared to Magento themes, each theme is reasonably priced from $150 to $350.

Additional intriguing characteristics of Shopify themes and templates are as follows:.

  • To add, swap, delete, and resize components of your Shopify theme, use the drag-and-drop editor.
  • You may quickly add additional pages and change the colour scheme and imagery to suit your company’s demands.
  • It’s simple to include social network feeds into Shopify themes.

Conclusion on Shopify vs. Magento themes!

Compared to Magento, Shopify has a broader selection of inexpensive themes. You don’t need to hire developers or have good coding skills. Instead, you may alter your site to better suit the requirements of your eCommerce business.

  1. Apps & Extensions

3600+ extensions are available on the Magento marketplace. Even coding experience is not necessary to install and use these extensions. Popular among these extensions are:

Amasty Multiple Coupons: By enabling users to upload personalized discount discounts and combine multiple coupons on a single transaction, this plugin promotes repeat purchases and helps clients feel appreciated.

Product Pre-order: Utilizing this plugin, you are able to instantly notify prospective buyers through email once a new product becomes available.

Remarkety: You can combine social media feeds and email marketing campaigns with your store with Remarkety. From the Adobe Exchange Partner Magezon, you can also obtain high-quality Magento extensions like Magezon Builder.

Over 4200+ free and paid applications are available in the Shopify App Store to increase sales by giving your website extra functionality.

Following are a few well-liked Shopify extensions:

Trust Hero: By displaying trust icons to your visitors and prospective customers, Trust Hero helps reduce cart abandonment.

MailChimp: A marketing automation software for integrating email marketing initiatives.

Trackr: Using Trackr, clients can follow their orders in real-time and learn more about their locations.

Analytics Buddy: By downloading all of your Google Analytics data into your Shopify dashboard, Analytics Buddy provides insightful information.

Conclusion on Magento Extensions vs. Shopify Apps!

Compared to the Magento Marketplace, the Shopify app market is simpler to use and provides more high-quality extensions. Compared to Shopify, Magento offers more extensions. But advanced coding knowledge is needed to deploy Magento extensions.

  1. Marketing Features

In order to provide marketing tools, Magento mainly relies on its Marketplace. For instance, you need to add extensions to email campaigns like Remarkety. A web developer is also necessary if you want to incorporate marketing tools.

Shopify, on the other hand, provides integrated marketing solutions to help your shop grow. On social media networks, you may directly advertise and sell, and you can utilize connectors like Seguno and Klaviyo to do email campaigns. Shopify even enables websites that are bilingual.

Conclusion on Magento vs. Shopify Marketing Features!

Shopify could come out on top in the area of marketing features. But the tale goes far deeper than that. Shopify may have built-in marketing tools, but its SEO possibilities are limited. The default settings for Shopify, including the URL hierarchy and configurations at the server level, cannot be altered.

But compared to Shopify, Magento gives business owners greater flexibility and marketing options. In contrast to Shopify, Magento allows you to adjust the structure, meta tags, image optimization, and URLs of your eCommerce website.

  1. Ease of Use

Magento developers must be skilled in coding and other technical areas since usability depends on them. To access the community-contributed code, they also need to have strong research abilities. When using the Magento Content Management System, Magento is not user-friendly (CMS). However, a developer’s flexibility to try new things and use their imagination is a wonderful thing. Magento has a thriving global community of Magento developers and a responsive help center that provides round-the-clock support.

The Shopify interface is simple to use and offers convenience for non-technical team members, so there is less to worry about. No matter if it is a B2B or B2C online store, it is a breeze to put one up thanks to the platform’s “drag and drop” functionality. You may add or remove goods, customize the store, and even set up payment options. The fact that live chat, email, and help are available around-the-clock is the finest aspect.

Conclusion on Magento vs Shopify Simple to Use!

Compared to Magento, Shopify is simpler to use. It is a fantastic option, especially for someone without technical knowledge.

  1. Core Functionality

The following two essential features are supported by Magento:

Robust features for managing inventories and orders: Magento offers robust inventory support. With its extensions and customized solutions, you may give a tailored user experience, build a limitless number of items and customer characteristics, and organize your data.

A fantastic method to expand a multichannel business: Utilizing Magento, you may connect your online business to social networking platforms, marketplaces, and comparison shopping websites. The eCommerce software also enables you to develop and upload product catalogs in bulk for various channels.

Here are a few essential features that Shopify provides:

Reduce the number of times shoppers abandon their shopping carts by automatically sending emails to those who did so for various reasons.

By collaborating with shipping companies like UPS, USPS, DHL Express, and Canada Post, we can offer discounts and streamline order delivery.

POS capability is also available for Shopify and Magento. The sole distinction is that Magento offers a third-party POS through its extensions, whereas Shopify offers a first-party POS system.

  1. Sales Tools

The inventory system used by Magento is distinctive and enables features like bulk product import from the database, various product versions, total visitor count, and total revenue statistics. Additionally, Magento provides the following great sales tools:

  • Using extensions, you may combine your store’s multichannel selling possibilities with Facebook, Instagram, and eBay.
  • Custom checkouts help improve your online store’s checkout process.
  • Options to reduce the rate of abandoned carts.
  • ability to specify fixed-price and percentage discounts.

The following tools are provided by Shopify to assist you in making sales and earning money:

  • Options for recovering abandoned carts to make up for potentially lost revenue.
  • Selling options across several channels, including Amazon, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram.
  • On Shopify, you can market both digital and physical goods.
  • Shopify collaborates with any courier provider to deliver your items, including USPS, DHL Express, UPS, and Canada Post.

Conclusion on Shopify vs. Magento sales tools results!

Shopify has a wider selection of sales tools than Magento, which can only be accessed by purchasing pricey extensions.

  1. Transaction fees and payment processors

Although payment processorS are not included with Magento, you may download one from the Magento Marketplace. It does, however, entail that each payment will incur a transaction cost.

The Shopify Payments payment processor, on the other hand, ensures there aren’t any transaction costs (except for regular card processing fees). Here are the fees per transaction that you will have to pay if you decide not to use Shopify payments:

  • Shopify Basic: 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction
  • Shopify: 2.6% + 30 ¢ per transaction
  • Shopify Advanced: 2.4% + 30¢ per transaction

Regarding payment gateways, Magento supports approximately 150 of them, the majority of them cater to big organizations. If you like, you may also connect well-known payment processors from the Marketplace, such as Stripe or Square.

Shopify has compatibility for more than 100 payment processors, including PayPal, Stripe, Amazon Pay, and Apple Pay, but each one charges a transaction fee.

Conclusion on Shopify vs. Magento payments!

Magento provides better transaction costs and payment processors. Shopify is constrained by the fact that it provides fewer payment gateway alternatives and transaction costs.

  1. Community Support

Being an open-source platform, Magento offers a sizable developer community to support you. To get answers to your questions, you may search through earlier discussions or post a new query. Due to the global activity of Magento users, you will receive responses promptly. Additionally, Magento features a support section that includes FAQs, troubleshooting advice, and best practices.

Shopify provides active customer service via phone, email, and live chat channels around-the-clock. You may also consult self-help resources like forums, tutorial videos, and help desks. If you have any problems, there are also committed specialists available to assist you. 

Conclusion on Magento vs Shopify Community Support

Due to the availability of instant assistance and community support, Shopify is more dependable.

  1. Security

Although Magento has an inherent security system, it is sufficiently versatile to allow you to apply security enhancements to your website. To keep your website secure, Magento also constantly provides updates and fixes. To further safeguard your important data, Magento 2 even enables you to add security extensions.

On the other side, Shopify features Level 1 PCI-DSS certification and built-in SSL encryption to automatically safeguard your website. It is also a great tool for eCommerce companies that wish to discover how to handle consumer data delicately when clients interact with shop websites.

Conclusion on Magento vs Shopify Security!

Although Shopify makes security simple to access, Magento delivers more frequent upgrades and community assistance.

  1. Upgrades

Since Magento will no longer support Magento 1 as of June 30, 2020, upgrading to Magento 2 is a requirement.

The updated Magento version provides a better product catalog, framework upgrades, and an easier way to handle routine admin tasks. This major change has been made by several eCommerce platforms in an effort to take advantage of the potential. Although there is a one-time expense associated with the transfer, long-term ROIs will be favorable.

For enterprises who have outgrown the regular Shopify edition and are succeeding in the market, i.e., those with annual turnover of between $1 and $2 million, Shopify has however released a newer version of the eCommerce platform. The more recent model is known as Shopify Plus.

Shopify Plus is a tempting upgrade to think about because of the numerous options it offers. Shopify Plus provides a wide range of add-ons and features, therefore it is clear that its price will also be on the higher side. The Shopify Plus plan has a starting price of $2000 per month and a maximum monthly cap of $40,000.

Conclusion on Shopify vs. Magento Upgrades!

If you want all of your businesses to have a worldwide audience, adopting Magento over Shopify Plus sounds like a good choice. Shopify Plus does not offer a comprehensive administration solution, thus stores powered by it must be handled individually.

Which Ecommerce Platform Is Stronger, Magento or Shopify?

Before laying the groundwork for your eCommerce business, it is essential to compare the two platforms because they differ on a number of important factors. Before deciding, consider the following:

  • How much can you spend?
  • What are the demands of the company in relation to the size of the store?
  • Are you searching for a plug-and-play solution or do you have developers?
  • How much customisation are you considering?
  • What do you envision for your eCommerce business in the foreseeable future?

You may always talk to businesses that are Shopify and Magento certified about your needs. Your greatest option for creating the ideal eCommerce platform will be assisted by the specialists.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Magento and Shopify 

Despite the many advantages that Magneto and Shopify both provide, there are still areas where they fall short for your eCommerce. Let’s examine each of their advantages and disadvantages.

Shopify store advantages:

  • Excellent app shop for enhancing the functionality of your website.
  • A number of payment and checkout methods.
  • A sizable group of devoted followers.
  • Excellent client service.
  • Multiple selling channels (Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, and eBay).
  • Really simple to use.
  • More than 70 themes that are mobile-responsive.

Shopify store disadvantages:

  • You must pay for applications if you want greater features.
  • Integrating an app into the market is extremely difficult.
  • If you don’t utilize Shopify payment, each transaction has costs.
  • Fewer free theme options.

Magento store advantages:

  • Excellent community with excellent user assistance.
  • A platform with a great deal of customisation potential.
  • Ideal for medium-sized to big companies with in-house web development capabilities.
  • A large selection of free themes are available.
  • Fantastic telephone help.
  • It is free to use and open-source.

Magento store disadvantages:

  • Beginners should avoid this since it requires understanding of coding.
  • Setting up a shop takes a long time.
  • There are several expenses associated with opening your shop.

Magento vs Shopify: Summary

You have now read about the main parallels and divergences between Magento and Shopify. Now that you are aware of which platform is best for you, let’s briefly review their key distinctions.

Magento is less user-friendly than Shopify. You’ll get access to a support staff right away and be able to go online more quickly.

Magento is more of a project. To make your concept a reality, you’ll need time and technical know-how, and you’ll rely heavily on a Magento forum (or on developers).

Our Magento vs. Shopify showdown is now over. We are confident that you will create an online store to be proud of no matter whatever platform you decide is the best fit for your company. We’re wishing you success!