Shopify Plus vs. Magento: Everything You Need to Know

If you’ve been in the ecommerce game for a while, chances are you’ve heard of Magento. But you may not be as aware of Shopify Plus, Shopify’s enterprise offering.

In today’s article, we’ll break down the differences between Shopify Plus vs. Magento with the intent of giving you a clearer picture of what’s best for you and your ecommerce business.

Understanding the differences between these ecommerce platforms is crucial for your business because each platform offers unique features, pricing, and capabilities that can significantly impact your operations and growth. So, let’s dig in and find out which is better for you.

 

Comparative Analysis of Features and Benefits

Shopify Plus

• Cloud-hosted: Offers security, stability, and scalability.
• User-friendly: Known for its well-designed interface, including the admin panel, making it easy and intuitive to manage.
• Customization: High level of customization, flexibility, and automation.
• Quick start-up: Easy to get started.
• Support: Dedicated support resources, including a launch manager and success manager.
• Pricing: Comparatively low monthly fee and incredibly low card rates if using Shopify Payments.

Magento (Adobe Commerce)

• Self-hosted: Unless you opt for their recently launched enterprise cloud service.
• Customization: Ultimate customizability as you build the platform from the ground up.
• Learning curve: Steeper learning curve.
• Start-up time: Longer start-up time.
• Pricing: More expensive, especially factoring in the costs of the team to build the custom commerce solution on top of the technology license.

Shopify Plus vs. Magento

So, who’s the winner?

Both Shopify Plus and Magento have their strengths. Here’s who we think wins in these categories:

Flexibility and Customization: Magento

As mentioned above, Magento is essentially fully customizable. There are no limits. Shopify Plus, on the other hand, has some limits. We haven’t found these limits to be a deal breaker; in fact, we’ve seen these limits to be healthy for companies, forcing them to assess their processes, streamline, and be more efficient. But if you truly need full customizability, Magento is the clear winner.

Innovation Leader: Shopify Plus

While Magento has been around for a long time and has a lot of experience, in this day and age, they’re usually playing catch-up. Shopify Plus is the innovation leader, being the first cloud-hosted enterprise commerce solution, constantly rolling out new and interesting features to improve users’ shopping experiences.

Community: Shopify Plus

While Magento may have had a strong community of app developers in the past, it’s died down considerably. Shopify Plus, on the other hand, has a vibrant community of app developers turning out apps full of useful features and add-ons so you can get all the customizations and features you need with a few simple app installs.

Scalability: Shopify Plus

Sure, this is store-dependent. Your Magento store could be as scalable and reliable as Shopify Plus’s offering, but that’s on you. You might think Magento would be more scalable and stable because you have “more control,” but this is far from the case. Having your checkout self-hosted is generally less stable and leaves you susceptible to hacks, server outages, and the wide array of other problems that can happen with software when you’re hosting your own store.

Cost: Shopify Plus

Both in terms of money and time, Shopify Plus is the clear winner here. The service is less expensive, and it’s much quicker to get up and running. It allows retailers to spend less time on software and technology and more time doing what they do best — being a retail company and focusing on their products and marketing.

 

Shopify Plus vs. Magento: Which Is Right for You?

Magento is right for you if:

• You absolutely need ultimate flexibility (say for an eBay-like marketplace or other complex ecommerce store that varies greatly from the norm).
• You have deep pockets.
• You have a software team on hand.
• You don’t mind the stress of handling stability and security.

Shopify Plus is right for you if:

• You’re okay making some (not many) sacrifices or changes to your business to fit within Shopify Plus’s limits.
• You want to spend less.
• You want to free up more time for selling.
• You don’t want to deal with the scalability and security stress.

Shopify Plus vs. Magento: Final Thoughts

At Metacake, we’re huge fans of Shopify Plus. That’s why we became one of Shopify’s few Shopify Plus partners. But it’s not for everyone.

We love Magento, too. It’s able to do some great things and is right (and necessary) for some clients.

But if you’re a fast-growing business, look at Shopify Plus first and see if it’ll do everything you need before taking on the task, responsibility, cost, and time of building a commerce solution from scratch through Magento or a similar platform.

Shopify Plus offers all the benefits of Shopify, with the scalability and security of their cloud-hosted platform, but also the flexibility and customization that enterprises need in a commerce solution. We find that Shopify Plus is more economical and efficient, and it meets the needs of 90% of enterprise clients.

If you’re still undecided about Shopify Plus vs. Magento and need to consult a professional, we’re always here to help. Contact us today to explore how our award-winning team can assist you with this decision.