Choosing the right platform can be a game-changer for your online business. As we step into 2025, two heavyweights in the ecommerce platform arena continue to dominate the landscape: Magento (renamed Adobe Commerce in 2021) and Shopify.
Both offer unique advantages, but which one is the best choice for your ecommerce venture?
As a certified Shopify partner with a vast amount of experience working with both plaforms, we’ve used our knowledge and expertise to create the ultimate comparison and settle the Magento vs Shopify debate.
Let’s get started.
30% of the top million websites are using Shopify or Shopify Plus
In the past, Magento has been more widely used across the globe. But in recent years, Shopify users have surged, and it’s widely considered to be the most popular ecommerce platform around. And this is backed by data. According to BuiltWith, Shopify powers 24% of the top one million wesbites (30% including Shopify Plus), while only 8% are using Magento.
Magento vs Shopify: the pros & cons
So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty.
From our team’s experience building, developing and managing award-winning Shopify and Magento websites, we’ve collated the pros and cons of each platform below, looking at general features, cost and scalability.
Magento
While Shopify currently powers more websites than Magento, Magento still powers 0.8% of all websites on the internet. This might not seem like a great deal, but bear in mind that there are over 1.5 billion websites worldwide, so in raw numbers, you can see how many websites use Magento the platform.
Each year, the Magento platform handles transactions worth $155 billion. So, the market for Magento is huge, but is it the right platform for you? We’ve collated our experts’ opinions on the pros and cons of the platform, to help you determine if Magento could be right for your business.
Pros:
– Flexible platform that gives you complete freedom to customise your website to your preferences and branding
– Free to use but you do have to pay for hosting
– Widely supported with high-quality extensions for more advanced functionality
Cons:
– Significant time investment getting your store set up
– Difficult to get to grips with for someone new to the platform and often requires advanced coding knowledge
Shopify
Shopify on the other hand, is the third biggest ecommerce platform in the world, with over four million users across 175 countries.
Shopify has generated over $1 trillion in sales during its 18 years of operation.
Shopify is notoriously known as the best platform for small – medium-sized business on a budget, but is it right for you? Read our pros and cons to using the Shopify.
Pros:
– Over 200 stunning, mobile-ready storefront themes
– Your online store will automatically optimise itself for different devices and screen sizes
– Comprehensive ecommerce website builder with a large app store to extend the functionality of your site
– Easy to use with 24/7 support
– Fully hosted
Cons:
– Only 13 Shopify themes are free
– Transaction fee per sale (though this can be avoided by using Shopify Payments)
– Best suited for small-medium scale businesses with less than 100,000 products and minimal SKUs
– More restricted app store means some more complex functionality or integrations are unavailable
It’s worth noting that while the standard versions of Shopify are best suited to businesses on the smaller side, large-scale businesses shouldn’t be put off. Shopify Plus is designed for high-volume, enterprise-level ecommerce businesses. It includes all of the core Shopify features, but also offers additional resources to help merchants with higher sales volumes and transactions. If you’re confused by the Shopify vs Shopify Plus debate, talking to an ecommerce expert with experience of the platform can be really helpful.
Features
Magento is known for its customisable features that offer unparalleled flexibility, while Shopify is known for its simplicity and user-friendly interface. Both offer a range of features, but we’ve curated the highlights below.
Magento
Advanced customisation: Magento allows for deep customisation, making it suitable for large enterprises with specific needs
Multi-store capabilities: you can manage multiple stores from a single dashboard, ideal for businesses expanding into different markets
SEO-friendly: Magento comes with SEO tools and features to help improve your website’s visibility in search engines
Catalogue management: easily add products to the catalogue, make updates or modifications, and set options such as shipping and payment ways
Advertising & marketing: access a range of marketing tools for your ecommerce business – handle coupon codes, promotions, manage newsletters and cross-sell products
Shopify
User-friendly: Shopify’s drag-and-drop interface makes it easy for beginners to set up their online store without technical expertise
App store: extensive app store with various plugins and extensions to enhance your store’s functionality and streamline/automate internal processes
Mobile optimisation: mobile responsiveness is built into Shopify’s themes, ensuring a seamless shopping experience on all devices
Powerful analytics tools: access a detailed view of your store’s performance, allowing you to track sales, traffic sources and customer behaviour
Themes & templates: browse and purchase free and premium themes, helping you to create an attractive website without any coding knowledge or development skills
Cost
Magento
Magento’s open-source version is free to use, but you’ll need to budget for hosting, development, and ongoing maintenance. Enterprise-level businesses can expect higher costs due to customisation and server requirements. Unlike Shopify, Magento requires merchants to jump in at the deep end and invest in the platform upfront, as you won’t be able to achieve much without the skills and expertise of a developer (or team of developers).
Shopify
Shopify offers tiered pricing plans, starting from a monthly fee:
Basic: £19/month
Standard: £49/month
Advanced: £259/month
Plus: $2,300/month (on a three-year term)
While it’s a more straightforward cost structure than Magento, additional expenses may be incurred for premium themes, apps, and transaction fees. The benefit, however, is that your platform grows with your business, allowing you to upgrade when you have the budget and resources to do so.
Subscriptions
Subscriptions have soared in popularity in recent years, offering convenience for customers and repeat sales for ecommerce brands. Both Shopify and Magento offer subscription capabilities, but which is better for recurring purchases?
Magento
Subscription and recurring payment options are available for Magento 2 via two routes: third-party extensions, or advanced customisation to the storefront achieved with code. Both options have pros and cons, and the best option for you depends on your unique requirements. If you want a truly bespoke option, then you may find that extensions don’t meet your needs, but in this case, you’ll require an experienced Magento 2 developer to implement this functionality and ensure a seamless shopping experience for customers.
Shopify
Shopify makes it pretty simple to set up, sell and manage subscription services, including subscription boxes, recurring deliveries and digital memberships. Like Magento, you won’t find this functionality natively, but the recently released Shopify Subscriptions app is quick and easy to install. If the app doesn’t quite meet your needs, however, there are numerous third-party integrations available via the Shopify App Store.
Omnichannel selling
Magento
POS integration can be achieved in Magento via extensions. These extensions, such as Magestore, will allow you to sell on the go with an iPad or Android tablet, or even from a web browser. Many Magento POS systems also integrate with online marketplaces, payment gateways and shipping platforms, making life easier for omnichannel retailers.
Shopify
Shopify offers its own POS system, making it the superior choice for retailers operating both online and brick-and-mortar stores. Shopify POS also boasts multi-store capabilities, which streamlines selling across multiple locations with one back office for every sale. Plus, with the help of apps, you can personalise your POS system to suit your needs.
Scalability
While both platforms offer a lot of growth potential, the right platform for you will ultimately depend on the resources, budget and technical know-how. We’ve seen many Magento users come to us with websites with a huge amount of technical debt, making changes to the back end time-consuming and laborious. If you have a full team of Magento developers in-house, then this platform may be for you, but if not then we’d always recommend Shopify.
Shopify offers a range of plans at different price points, so your website can grow and scale with your business. The simple interface, ready-made themes and access to over 8,000 apps make customisation a breeze, so you can have the functionality and sleek design you crave without the time-consuming and expensive processes. For those with access to developers or coding experience, Shopify’s Liquid template langyage opens up opportunities for the deeper levels of customisaton generally sought after by larger businesses, making online stores inifintely more scalabale.
A Shopify success story
Yogamatters is a prime example of Shopify offering better scalability. Until 2020, they’d been using the Magento 1.9 website, and while it was best in class at the time it was built, it was very apparent that the platform had become outdated and no longer met the client’s needs.
We decided that Shopify Plus would be the best platform for the client, offering flexibility, freedom and scalability. It gave them the tools they needed to focus on growing the brand and taking the next step in the expansion of the business, due to a user-friendly interface, access to 1000s of apps to increase website functionality instantly, and the ability to operate at enterprise level across the world with country-specific shopping experiences.
Since launch in 2020, revenue, website sessions, conversion rate and SEO performance have all increased substantially. To find out more about the development process of the Yogamatters website, read our case study.
Magento vs Shopify: our conclusion
Our research indicates that while Magento has been the go-to ecommerce platform in the past (especially for large-scale businesses), Shopify is now outperforming it, with Shopify users consistently increasing year-on-year.
When it comes to the Shopify vs Magento debate, there are many factors to consider. The right platform depends on your business goals, size and resources. Before you make a decision, we’d recommend making a thorough plan and consulting an experienced ecommerce agency before beginning any development work – there’s nothing worse than investing your time and money into a website only to start all over again a couple of years down the line.
Get in touch or leave us a comment below to speak to one of our ecommerce experts if you need clarification on which platform is right for your business.
