Have you ever wondered which eCommerce platform would help to create a tantalizing online store? You want your eCommerce store to be well-known among your target audience. You want more eyeballs on your online store. Which platform would that possible for you?
The two most renowned eCommerce platforms are Magento and Shopify. For larger and more complex eCommerce websites, Magento is the direct competitor to Shopify. Although there are different systems, both Magento and Shopify have distinguishing features.
Before you make your decision, you must be aware of the significant differences between them. First things first, let’s take a brief look at both of these platforms.
Shopify vs Magento: An overview
According to a study, 3,000,00+ active eCommerce stores are hosted with Shopify. On the other hand, there are more than 1,000,00+ active eCommerce stores on Magento. Both of these eCommerce platforms have distinctive features, including their target customers.
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What is Shopify?
Power Established by Daniel Weinand, Scott Lake, and Tobias Lutke in 2004, Shopify is a software-as-service solution that helps businesses to launch online eCommerce stores. Also, it specializes in hosting, developing, operating, and managing websites for the e-commerce sector.
Shopify provides various tools to meet the needs of an online business store. It entails customer engagement, shipping, sales, and marketing. New users can take advantage of a 15-day trial to better grasp the platform. Also, the users can access a vast library of pre-built templates. It can be utilized for creating a unique website based on the requirements.
Key features of Shopify:
- SEO tools.
- 24*7 support.
- Top-notch security.
- Store management.
- Analytics.
- Shopify dropshipping.
- Shopify POS.
What is Magento?
With the Zend framework and MVC architecture, an open-source shopping cart was created to successfully handle front-end and back-end development. In 2018, Adobe Inc. acquired Magento for $1.68 billion. There are two editions of Magento i.e., Community and Enterprise editions.
Developers can customize the platform by changing the code as per the requirement. With pre-built features and cutting-edge techniques, Magento makes the entire customization of a shopping cart simple.
In June 2020, Magento 2 replaced the first version of Magento or Magento 1. It brings a wide range of features that will help to scale your eCommerce business. You can also hire a dedicated Magento 2 developer who can develop as per your needs.
Key features of Magento:
- Product browsing.
- Payment & shipping.
- Search engine optimization.
- Reporting & analytics.
- Order management.
Shopify vs Magento: Head-to-head comparison
Both platforms offer a various range of features, which improves the online store’s overall performance. Therefore, it helps to bolster your sale within a stipulated time. However, there are some significant differences between them. Here you go –
1. Performance
Magento requires a stable hosting environment for its resource requirements. Since its inception, Magento has been providing a caching-based optimized solution to foster site performance.
On the contrary, Shopify is a lighter application. It performs extensively with the majority of settings. Shopify can support more product SKUs, and that too on the same hardware.
However, customized shopping experiences may get restricted to product recommendations and cross-selling.
Once the server is properly configured, Magento can run without any issues. Most eCommerce store owners choose Magento due to its functionality and uptime. Straightway, it’s the performance champion as it performs better than Shopify when it comes to providing tailored customer experiences.
2. Pricing
The main consideration is pricing when it comes to choosing between two platforms- Magento or Shopify.
Magento is an open-source that can be downloaded for free during setting up a store. However, there are other costs that you need to bear. You need to pay for a domain and hosting provider to go online. For instance, Nexcess is one of the hosting providers. Its cheapest plan starts from $41 per month, while the most popular plan costs $216.
If you have programming knowledge, you can write the codes yourself. However, you can hire a Magento web developer to free yourself from other important tasks associated with your business.
According to an eCommerce store owner, “My budget was not that high when I determined to have an online store. Still, the overall starting budget was $2000, as I have opted for Magento. Once the developers started integrating new modules, the bill went up.”
On the other hand, Shopify’s pricing model is based on subscriptions. According to your business need, you can choose the package. It costs between $29 and $2000+ a month. It entails a free domain and secure hosting. You can also avail of 10% off if you pay the entire amount for a year.
These subscriptions also include free templates. You can build your eCommerce website with these templates. Compared to Magento themes, paid themes of Shopify are more affordable.
There are transaction fees that are associated with Shopify. It can be between 0.5%-2% of your overall sales. The same will be added to your bill if you’re not a user of Shopify’s built-in payment processor. However, there are no transaction fees for Magento.
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3. Ease of use
In terms of usability, Shopify outweighs the significance of Magento. With Shopify, you can build attractive and user-friendly online stores. Drag and drop admin interface makes the entire thing simple for adding new pages. Also, you can modify the online store by rearranging the page items as per your needs. On the contrary, Magento doesn’t offer the same.
Shopify is simple yet lacks adaptability. Magento offers the same functionality with a cohort of integrated features and modifications. Also, Magento provides cutting-edge extensions. This has been possible after the acquisition of Magento by Adobe. For enterprise-level customers, Shopify doesn’t have this thing.
Simply put, Shopify is appropriate for all users with basic technical knowledge. On the other hand, Magento needs an extensive programming language in order to handle the same mellifluously. However, you can either hire the best Shopify developers to build a Shopify online store. Similarly, there are Magento developers for hire too, who can work as per your requirement.
4. Marketing features
Shopify allows you to use its extensive marketing tools. Also, you can run email campaigns with third-party integrations like Constant Contact, Klaviyo, and Senguno. On top of that, you can advertise and sell on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook. Shopify also supports multilingual sites that help to sell in various languages.
On the other hand, Magento depends on the marketplace for the majority of marketing tools. For example, you need to install extensions like Remarkety for running email campaigns. You need to depend on a web developer’s skill to integrate marketing tools. Conversely, Shopify provides a plethora of marketing tools to scale your online business.
5. Add-ons and apps
Your online store needs extra functionality to perform in a robust way, especially if there aren’t enough in-built features. Both Magento and Shopify enable you to install applications, add-ons, and extensions.
Magento marketplace has more than 5000+ extensions, and 1000+ extensions are free. Paid extensions cost around $30, while the others may cost up to $2000. Based on your store’s requirements, you need to install the add-ons.
Here are some of the Magento applications –
- Product pre-order: It sends emails to customers automatically once a new product becomes available.
- Amasty multiple coupons: It allows you to add custom discount coupons and multiple coupons in one order. Therefore, the customer will feel valued every time they make a purchase.
- Banner slider: It allows you to insert advertising banners to create a source of revenue for your store.
Shopify’s app store also contains 1,000+ premium and free applications.
Here are a few examples –
- Mailchimp: It helps you to integrate marketing mail campaigns with the Shopify store to boost your sales.
- Analytics buddy: This pulls all the Google Analytics data into the Shopify dashboard.
- Trust hero: It displays digital security badges to infuse trust among the users, which will eliminate the concern over security.
- Trackr: This application will send you updates based on the activities of their orders.
6. SEO
Shopify is dependable on applications regarding SEO. However, you can edit the image alt tags and page titles, but you need to search the Shopify app store to complete the maximum SEO task.
On the other hand, Magento has a variety of SEO guides to help you. You can customize the URLs and edit image alt tags to help search engines find your web page easily.
7. Payment gateway
You can access a plethora of payment channels, including Braintree and PayPal, through Shopify and Magento. Magento now accepts 300+ payment gateways, and Shopify supports 100+ at this moment.
You may need to pay transaction fees if you’re using Shopify with external payment gateways. This cost varies between 2%, 1%, and 0.5% for basic Shopify, Shopify, and Advanced Shopify plans.
Magento can process payments for international merchants. It’s one of its strongest points because Magento supports various payment languages.
You may also like: Top 6 Essential Security Tips for Magento E-commerce Website.
Shopify vs Magento: Summing it up
You have already noted the similarities and differences between Shopify and Magento. Therefore, you have clarity on which platform will be right for you. Shopify is user-friendly compared to Magento. You will be able to publish your online store faster.
Conversely, Magento needs time to settle your store. Also, you need to hire a Magento web developer for complex projects.
Use Shopify if:
- You are already using an eCommerce website builder.
- Just started an eCommerce business but want to develop a full-fledged eCommerce business.
- You want your store to be up and running quickly.
Use Magento if:
- You want liberty through coding.
- You already have a global customer base.
- You have the vision to create a big brand and are ready to invest your time and money.
We know you’re fighting hard to choose the right one. This guide will help you in order to curate the best online store for your brand. Start today to outperform your competitors!
This article is written by Maulik Shah. Maulik is the CEO of BiztechCS, a development company. He often takes the front seat in the company’s development projects, because he enjoys solving problems through technology. When it comes to writing for any blog, his contribution is priceless. Maulik ensures that his interaction with development is frequent enough, and his industry knowledge is ever-evolving so that he can share it. Despite his packed days, Maulik’s door is always open, and he is generous with sharing this knowledge and experience.
