Picking the right online store platform is incredibly important. This sets the stage for an effective, or fruitless, ecommerce business.
There are numerous options for new businesses or existing ones not happy with their current platform. Two of the greatest contenders are Magento and Shopify. These two platforms are frequently pitted head to head in the race for the best ecommerce platform, despite the fact that they are completely different.
While Magento has enjoyed prominence for quite a long time, Shopify is probably one of the biggest rival in the market. With the release of Magento version 2.0, Magento may inch significantly higher on the list, making it a perfect solution for all business sizes.
Magento vs Shopify: What Are They?
Shopify and Magento are two different ecommerce platforms. Both enable you to build your online store’s website with their software. They both are well-equipped to help you deal with your inventory and process sales and both give you the option to accept payments in various ways with the assistance of add-on tools.
Furthermore, while we’re discussing about add-ons, both platforms have great deal of these. On Shopify they’re called “apps,” and they’re “extensions” on Magento, but they work similarly—they let you add new capabilities and highlights to your store ranging from UGC displays to automated accounting programs.
Both likewise come with a large number of free and paid themes available and great SEO features, making it simple to set up your store well when initially creating it.
Clearly, both platforms cover the basics well. That’s about where the similarities conclude, however, because both tools work in extremely different ways.
We’ll highlight necessary insights to how Magento and Shopify differ and how each platform translates into ecommerce store features. This discussion will help store owners choose the best ecommerce platform for their needs.
Fundamental Differences between Shopify and Magento
- Shopify is a commercial product (that you have to pay for) while Magento Open Source is a free, open-source software.
- Shopify is a hosted solution (where your online store is facilitated by them) while Magento necessitates that you provide your own hosting, install, setup and configure everything before you can actually start creating your store – which requires medium to high level of web development and programming skills.
- Shopify is more for beginners, with a basic user interface, while Magento is packed with features but more reasonable for advanced developers
Magento vs Shopify: Pros and Cons
Magento Pros
Functionality
Magneto offers amazing functionality compared to almost any other ecommerce platform out there. This makes it one of the most flexible options for merchants looking to create personalized customer experiences, particularly if they have a developer team behind them.
Advanced Shopping Cart Options
Shopping cart customization can make all the difference in terms of genuine ROI. As one of the most essential stages of a customer’s journey, the correct options during purchase can be the distinction between clicking cross and clicking buy.
Extension Expandability
Magento has double the number of extensions as Shopify. And it’s not just quantity either. Magento extensions remain constant to the platform’s reputation for flexibility by providing more in terms of functionality.
Great Community
A benefit that is not talked about enough. Magento’s community provides the eCommerce web application with a ton of support that other non-open-source applications don’t receive.
Magento Cons
Hard for Beginners
Magento was not designed for those hoping to take their first steps into eCommerce. While there is a page manufacturer in the progress for open source, you still very much need either coding knowledge or a developer to begin.
Cost
While the open source itself is free, hosting isn’t. This can cost huge money denominators in case you’re a large store. It can cost you more than the Shopify equivalent, but we would argue that you get more for your money by self-hosting
Shopify Pros
Convenience
Shopify is intended to be a simple eCommerce platform that provides owners with an easy way to get started selling rapidly. Pages can be easily customized, as can items. While this customization is nowhere near Magento’s, it’s sufficient to get started.
Free Themes
Shopify by itself has several free themes bundled to get started with. They require no coding, are responsive, and look modern day.
Inclusive
Shopify is all managed through a single point of contact. Instead of having to manage your store on various fronts, you’re able to access and do everything in one place.
Cost
Once you’ve gone through all the additions you’ll have to add to your Magento budget, Shopify is often considered an inexpensive option.
Shopify Cons
Transaction fee per sale
Each time you sell an item, you pay Shopify. With the initial plan, this starts from 2.9% + 30¢ per sale. If you use an external payment method, you can add an additional 2%.
Lacks Functionality
Shopify just cannot compete with Magento in terms of functionality.
Magento vs Shopify: Which platform is best for Your Online Store?
While both Shopify and Magento are genuinely powerful ecommerce platforms, Shopify gives greater ease of use since it is a hosted and fully managed service.
Magento, while being free by itself, expects you to purchase hosting and execute all the software or system setup and installation procedures by yourself – only fairly high tech-savvy people (and not every day typical end-users) would be able to do.
In light of this, just as the portion of the points discussed above, Shopify comes out a winner as an ecommerce platform for building your online store with maximum ease of use and powerful capabilities.