Magento vs Shopify | Which is the best e-commerce platform?

E-commerce platforms play a crucial role in the success of online businesses. Among the most popular options, Magento and Shopify stand out. Both platforms offer powerful functionality and distinct advantages.

In this article, we'll look in detail at the differences between Magento and Shopify, to help you make the best choice for your business.

What is Magento?

Launched in 2008, Magento is an open source e-commerce platform renowned for its flexibility, advanced features and dynamic developer community. Whether you want to create a small store or a large-scale e-commerce business, Magento offers a powerful, scalable solution to meet your needs. In 2018, Magento was acquired by Adobe and is now called Adobe Commerce.

What is Shopify?

‍Shopify is a Nocode e-commerce platform that enables entrepreneurs and businesses to create their own online store and sell products over the Internet. Founded in 2006 in Canada, Shopify has become one of the leading players in e-commerce, with thousands of businesses using their platform to sell their products online.

Magento vs Shopify: Advantages and disadvantages 

Ease of use

Magento is complex and requires a certain amount of technical expertise. It's a self-hosted platform, which means you have to manage the installation and configuration of the software on your own server. This can be more difficult for less experienced users.

Magento offers more advanced flexibility and customization, but this also implies a steeper learning curve. Creating an online store with Magento requires web development skills and a deeper understanding of the platform.

Shopify, on the other hand, is renowned for its ease of use. The platform is intuitively designed, with a user-friendly interface and simplified navigation. Shopify offers attractive, pre-built design templates, making it easy to create an aesthetically pleasing website. What's more, it offers a host of applications and plugins to extend the store's functionality.

Price

Magento :
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• Adobe Commerce Open Source (formerly Magento Open Source): Free. This is the open source version of Magento, offering great flexibility and advanced customization. However, you'll have to manage hosting, installation and maintenance yourself.
• Adobe Commerce Pro (formerly Magento Commerce): You will need to contact the Magento sales team for specific pricing information. Adobe Commerce pro is the full version of Magento that includes advanced features, technical support and additional services. Prices can vary from $22,000 to $125,000 per year, depending on your negotiation and the volume of business generated from the platform.
• Adobe Managed Service: You will need to contact the Magento sales team for specific pricing information. This version includes all the benefits of Adobe Commerce Pro plus technical support. Prices may therefore be considerably higher. This plan is designed for large accounts.

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Shopify :
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Shopify Starter: €5 per month

• Ideal for selling on social networks with limited functionality, optimized for mobile.

Basic Shopify: €36 per month
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• Ideal for small businesses or existing stores.
• Up to 1,000 stock locations (physical locations). They enable you to manage and track product inventories, specifying where they are located.
• 2 employee accounts
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Shopify: €105 per month
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• Ideal for larger companies - more robust tools such as gift cards and basket recovery.
• Transaction fees are also lower for this plan, costing 2.6% + €0.25.
• Up to 1,000 stock locations
• 5 employee accounts
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Advanced Shopify: €399 per month
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• Ideal for businesses - low transaction rates and priority shipping.
• Transaction fees are also at an all-time low. 2.4% + €0.25 for online transactions 
• Up to 1,000 stock locations
• 15 employee accounts
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Shopify Plus: €2,000 per month
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• Ideal for companies - used by Sony, Unilever, etc.
• You get the full range of features and much more.
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Note that you can save 25% on all Shopify plans if you sign up for an annual plan.

Templates

Magento offers just fifteen templates, both free and paid, designed to meet the specific needs of e-commerce sites. The average cost of a ready-to-use template is $100. Prices range from $17 to over $400.

Shopify, on the other hand, offers a wide selection of templates, with 10 free themes and 64 premium themes, each costing between $140 and $180.

It should be noted that we're only talking here about templates offered by the platforms, but that third parties can offer their templates for sale on their marketplace or other third-party marketplaces.

Extensions and modules

Magento offers nearly 5700 extensions via the Magento Marketplace. These extensions cover a wide range of functionalities such as payment, logistics, marketing, inventory management, etc.
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You can find free and paid extensions in the Marketplace. Some extensions can also be custom-developed to meet your specific needs.
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For its part, the Shopify App Store provides over 8000+ free and paid apps to add functionality, manage your store and boost sales. Shopify apps are designed to be easy to install and configure, even for non-technical users.

Security

Magento is a self-hosted platform, which means you're responsible for the security of your own server. You can choose the hosting provider and implement appropriate security measures to protect your website.
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Magento also offers advanced security features, such as CAPTCHA validation to prevent brute-force attacks, protection against common security flaws, encryption of sensitive data, etc.
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Magento also offers regular updates to correct security vulnerabilities and improve platform protection.

You can also add third-party extensions to your Magento store to further strengthen security, such as firewalls, intrusion detection tools, etc.
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Shopify is conversely a hosted platform, which means that the platform is responsible for the security of the underlying infrastructure and security updates.
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Shopify uses advanced security measures to protect its users' website, such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption to secure transactions, protection against Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, real-time monitoring of suspicious activity, and more.

Shopify makes regular backups of your store data to protect against accidental data loss.

Shopify is PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) Level 1 certified, which guarantees that customers' payment information is secure during transactions.

SEO

With Shopify, it's quick and easy to create an online store that's search engine friendly, as many SEO features are built in. Most SEO options are automatically generated thanks to built-in apps, making processes very simple. The platform offers over 200 SEO-enhancing applications.
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Magento offers over 250 SEO applications to choose from, all of which will do a similar job, but it will undeniably take you longer to reach the same level as with Shopify.

Means of payment

Magento does not offer its own payment solution, but the platform is compatible with a multitude of third-party payment gateways. The associated fees will therefore depend on the payment gateway you choose to use. Magento does not charge additional transaction fees.
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It is important to note that specific fees may vary depending on a variety of factors, including your geographic location and the type of credit card used for payment.
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Shopify offers an integrated payment solution called Shopify Payments. However, the platform is also compatible with a host of third-party payment gateways.
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Transaction fees for Shopify Payments range from 2.9% + €0.25 to 2.4% + €0.25 per transaction depending on your subscription plan.
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One of the huge advantages of Shopify over Magento is the ability to make sales in person, whether at events such as ephemeral stores or markets. Now you can sell across all channels thanks to an incredibly convenient management interface!

Customer support

Magento offers customer support. In addition, Magento has a large community of users and developers, which can be a valuable source of assistance and advice. We recommend contacting Adobe directly for specific information on their customer support.
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Shopify also offers comprehensive customer support. They offer 24/7 assistance via live chat, e-mail and telephone. They also have a dedicated help center with support articles and videos, as well as a Shopify merchant community where you can chat and share experiences. Shopify also offers online courses and a blog to help entrepreneurs learn and grow their business.

Summary: comparative table

Conclusion

In summary, Magento and Shopify are two excellent e-commerce platforms offering unique advantages. Magento is very robust (but less flexible) and suitable for large companies, while Shopify is simple, user-friendly and ideal for small and medium-sized businesses. Choose wisely according to your specific needs.

And if you're already on Magento and want to migrate to Shopify, we've put together a five-step guide.