Magento and Shopify are the two most popular eCommerce platforms today. eCommerce store owners are often overwhelmed by the multiple functionalities of both platforms and unable to choose one over the other.
Shopify is an easy-to-use solution for building online stores and comes with a monthly fee. On the other hand, Magento, a popular choice for a Magento development company, is an open-source platform like WordPress and is free to install onto your computer.
This article will take you through a detailed discussion on Magento vs. Shopify, highlighting the critical points of comparison, how each scores over the other, and a brief FAQ section to help you choose the suitable one.
Table of Contents
7 Key Points of Comparison
Let’s directly get into the seven points of comparison or differences between the two platforms:
1. Pricing
Pricing is a crucial factor to consider in choosing a shopping cart. It is essential to consider your budget for the store. Here are the differences in the pricing and costs of the two platforms.
Magento does not need a monthly subscription. It is free to download, install, and set up. However, you need to pay for a hosting provider and a domain to publish your site. Therefore, Magento pricing is flexible.
Besides, you can consider adding several integrations to enhance your store’s capabilities. These apps, available on the Magento App market, can cost up to $15000.
Shopify pricing is subscription based. Five tiers of costs range from $9 to over $2000 per month. The latter plans include the domain and hosting fees, so you don’t need to buy them separately.
Shopify also offers an affordable set of themes and website templates. The maximum price for a theme in Shopify is $180, while in Magento, it can go up to $499.
As per pricing and costs, Magento and Shopify are two distinct platforms and choosing one between them would depend upon your budget and needs.
2. Templates & Themes
The visual aspect of your website is vital, and this is decided by the theme you choose. So, here’s all about the themes of Shopify vs. Magento.
Shopify offers a wide range of themes, with 13 free and 73 premium ones. The highlighting feature is the drag-and-drop editor, allowing you to add, remove, resize, or switch elements of the Shopify theme. The price of this theme would be around 4150-$300. Further, all the themes are mobile optimized. You can easily change their color palette, add or create new pages, and add social media feeds.
You can get some of the best WordPress Magento eCommerce themes with Magento. Six fully mobile responsive themes charge you up to $499. You can also create your theme from scratch.
Some highlighting features of Magento themes are flexible customization by adding feature product sliders, animations and even a newsletter option in the webpage footer.
The range of themes, to sum up, is broader in Shopify, and it is also simpler to custom design for your Shopify store.
3. Usability
Most eCommerce store owners are not qualified designers or developers, so the ease of use offered by Magento and Shopify is a critical point of concern.
Regarding usability, Magento is less user-friendly than Shopify, especially for beginners and non-tech users. It offers users complete control over the website, but one requires comprehensive knowledge of website development technologies to install and set up the online business.
Shopify, on the other hand, is essentially user-friendly. Its hosted platform makes it easy to use for people with zero to advanced technical backgrounds. With Shopify, setting up a store is more manageable.
4. Apps & Extensions
Adding extensions is a way of enhancing the functionality of a website. All systems and platforms offer app stores and extensions. Let’s talk about each.
Magento currently provides 3600+ extensions through the Magento marketplace. Alongside, some highlight extensions, such as Mageplaza, allow promoting products by offering custom discount options or plugins.
About Shopify, the platform’s app store provides more than 4200 free and paid apps to add features, boost sales and control the store. There are additional booster apps and the advantage of integrating email marketing campaigns when you use Shopify.
5. Marketing Features
Regarding SEO, both Shopify and Magento are similar. With both platforms, you can edit the page title and description the way the store displays in the search results. Magento has a wide range of features and functions with the ability to add modules.
Similarly, you can buy more SEO apps in the Shopify app store and Magento Marketplace. Both platforms also come with a robust set of marketing features to promote your online brand. For instance, Magento allows users to freely create flexible coupons for multiple purposes, while Shopify provides a built-in email tool to promote products and share updates.
6. Payment Fee
Shopify offers about 100 payment gateways to choose from in return for some specific fees. Accordingly, there are credit card processing fees and transaction fees of 2.4% on Shopify Lite and 2% on basic Shopify.
Magento does not have the Magento payment, which implies that you must download the payment processor’s extension through the Magento marketplace with a transaction fee. Presently, Magento provides 339 selections for store owners to choose from.
Magento’s payment apps support different languages, so whether you want to use eCommerce software solutions or step up in the eCommerce business, this is very helpful.
7. Help & Support
Shopify has much-dedicated help and support and stands out among other eCommerce platforms. A professional team is available 24/7 for email, phone and live chat to solve customers’ problems in minutes. Shopify users can also dig into the community forums, API documentation, help center, and other video tutorials.
You also have the option to hire professional certified Shopify experts to ensure maximum problem resolution and hassle-free business operation.
On the other hand, Magento is a self-hosted solution and does not offer live chat, phone, or email support unless users register for the Magento Commerce Cloud Plan for B2B.
However, Magento users can benefit from an excellent user community. You can get informed advice from Magento experts from all over the world in this community.
Benefits of Using Shopify
So, both Shopify and Magento undoubtedly have a lot to offer. However, since you are choosing one of them, here are some ways Shopify might win over Magento.
The most critical area where Shopify stands out is its usability. The platform is intuitive, straightforward, and easy for beginners and users with technical knowledge. You can easily and quickly design your store with Shopify's drag-and-drop builder and themes. Shopify is incredibly user-friendly. However, a Shopify website agency can offer specialized expertise in design and customization, adding another layer of polish to your already user-friendly platform.
Magento, on the other hand, is an open-source platform lacking this kind of user-friendliness. It requires one to have advanced developmental knowledge and abilities to set up. Even in Magento commerce, numerous capabilities make it complicated to get your store up and running.
Benefits of Using Magento
While Shopify boasts user-friendliness, Magento wins in the areas of features and add-on customization.
Magento allows you to operate your site in the desired way. Magento’s list of features is incomparable to Shopify and any other eCommerce platform. Functionalities like content preview, checkout, and international commerce are particularly impressive.
There are a variety of integrations, allowing you to customize your store and extend its functionality. Many of these integrations in the Marketplace are ‘Magento Partners’ who work with the platform to enhance its capabilities. Another major advantage of Magento is the availability of add-ons.
Magento vs. Shopify: FAQs
Here are some of the most common questions about Magento vs. Shopify answered in brief:
- Does Shopify Perform Better Than Magento?
- What Are the Pros and Cons of Magento Vs. Shopify?
- Is Magento Good for eCommerce?
- Is Magento Better Than Shopify?
Does Shopify Perform Better Than Magento?
Shopify and Magento are the top eCommerce platforms in the market. While Magento is an open-source solution allowing users complete control over their site, Shopify is a hosted platform that provides an all-in-one service to build your online eCommerce business.
What Are the Pros and Cons of Magento Vs. Shopify?
Shopify is comparatively easy to use, although it doesn’t allow users to customize their source code freely. On the other hand, with Magento, users can personalize each element on their online store, but this solution is quite complicated for beginners and non-tech users.
Is Magento Good for eCommerce?
In general, Magento is an excellent platform for building your online business. This is primarily because it is packed with powerful eCommerce features to help you step up your eCommerce marketing strategies.
Is Magento Better Than Shopify?
The conflict between Magento and Shopify is quite neck-to-neck, so it’s tough to choose the better one. If you want an all-in-one service to start your business, go for Shopify. On the other hand, if you are looking to customize your website freely, opt for Magento.
Magento vs. Shopify Takeaways
Deciding whether Magento or Shopify is better for your eCommerce store depends on your site-building experience and what you want to do with it. For beginners, Shopify is great, but Magento offers a broader range of design and theme options for more experienced users. Magento is also a much safer re-platform option for eCommerce businesses.
