Shopify vs Magento: The best ecommerce platform for your business

There is no doubt that eCommerce is king in today's world. While online retail continues to grow, customers expect personalized, easily navigable, and secure shopping experiences. Today, Shopify and Magento lead the market for eCommerce solutions, and it's not hard to see why. Both offer many fantastic attributes that help businesses do their job and do it well. However, they have their differences, and stakeholders must therefore choose carefully. To help you best navigate your platform decision, we will discuss both Shopify vs Magento in the context of Community Support & Plugins, Website Security, Content Management, Speed and Performance, and Costs.

Shopify vs Magento Community Support & Plugins

Magento and Shopify approach community support and plugins a bit differently. Both Shopify and Magento have pretty extensive communities, and many people willing to help with your issues. However, Shopify is proprietary, while Magento is open source. Translation? Simply put, proprietary software is less flexible, while open source is available to the entire community. Thus, open source allows for increased innovation, collaboration, and opportunity for individualization. Magento plugins are vast, thanks to this large community of developers. While Shopify plugins are fewer, the marketplace is easier to navigate and cleaner.

In this case, Magento offers a far more available and robust community, as well as far more plugins than Shopify. While simplicity may be good when starting an ecommerce business, many businesses will want greater support and flexibility as they expand, which Magento does better. Nonetheless, Shopify still holds a strong positioning with its extensive community and wide array of available plugins.

Shopify vs Magento Website Security

Again, Shopify and Magento take a different approach to security. Because of how it is build and employed, Shopify includes layers of added security to keep it in legal compliance, regardless of what package you choose. Magento, on the other hand, depends on your developer team to add security to it. It is dependent on you to ensure that your security is being updated appropriately to protect your website and your customers.

Thus, Shopify takes the win on security, given that it has built-in layers that will keep you compliant regardless of how large your business is. Magento has regularly faced security threats and issues due to its approach to this, though that is not to say that you can't have a perfectly secure Magento website if you have the right team in place.

Shopify vs. Magento Content Management

Content management, as with many things, is in the eye of the beholder. There are many considerations relative to how you manage your content, not the least of which is dependent on who is on your team.

Shopify, as an out-of-the-box solution, is very easy to understand and navigate. Given this circumstance, this ensures that it is easy for users to be able to manage their content appropriately. Shopify also comes with a wide variety of pre-existing themes to customize your website. However, the proprietary platform, while easy to use, does not leave much room for creativity. Therefore, if you are looking for a highly customized solution, Shopify may not be the right choice.

Magento is much more difficult to use. Once a website is set up, users can be taught how to manage content with a moderate amount of effort. It is definitely not a platform that is easy to use immediately. However, it offers a ton of flexibility, a wide variety of themes available on the internet, and an almost limitless opportunity to be creative with it.

Here, we have a draw on content management. Shopify is the right solution for simplistic, straightforward commerce that fits the needs of teams without developers or experts. On the other hand, Magento offers a great capability for intensive content management that leaves the door open for creativity and flexibility.

Shopify vs. Magento Speed and Performance

When it comes to speed and performance, Magento and Shopify are pretty comparable. LittleData reported load times of 2.6s for Shopify and 2.8s for Magento, suggesting that Shopify has slightly better performance. However, Magento overtook Shopify when it came to larger websites, indicating that Magento may be better equipped for larger businesses.

Once again, the superior platform is dependent on what your business goals are. For smaller businesses and sites, Shopify may be a better solution, while Magento is good for larger organizations. Moreover, it is important to remember that Shopify is self-hosted, while Magento requires hosting (short of the Commerce edition). This has a role to play in your website's performance. Thus, Shopify has a better foundation and takes the cake in this category.

Shopify vs. Magento Costs

Magento and Shopify differ a bit in how they structure their pricing. Because Shopify is hosted, its features and costs are more oriented on how large your business is, how much you're selling, and therefore, how much platform you require. Their costs start at $29/mo and run up to $299/mo for small to medium businesses. For enterprise accounts, their costs start at $2000/mo and increase based on volume. However, Shopify basically handles everything for you, from security, to hosting, to payment processing.

On the other hand, Magento is technically free to download and start. However, you have to pay for your own security, hosting, and other functions. Moreover, since Magento is difficult to use, you will undoubtedly require a development team to manage it to your liking. Magento Commerce offers a robust number of tools for enterprise accounts as well, also starting at approximately $2000/mo. While not discussed in depth here, it is also worth noting that Magento migrations tend to be costlier and more complex than Shopify migrations, who have experts willing to help assist you with creating efficiencies in this process.

Relative to costs, Shopify comes out on top relative to more straightforward and comprehensive pricing. Magento offers more flexibility to build what you want and pay for what you want, while Shopify offers an opportunity to buy a simple package and get started quickly without multiple layers of costs. Moreover, both platforms often require additional costs for the extensions that many businesses desire for their storefronts, so this drives additional costs on both platforms. Nonetheless, Shopify is overarchingly the cheaper and simpler solution.

Conclusion

It's easy to see why Shopify and Magento are two of the most popular options when it comes to eCommerce platforms. They both offer robust capabilities for their end users, dependent on what their business goals are. Ultimately, Shopify pros and cons include the following:

• Pros: It is a great option for getting started and scaling quickly at low cost, particularly with small and medium businesses. It also caters to those who must manage their commerce platform themselves, and may or may not have a consistent developer team.
• Cons: It lacks flexibility and less opportunity for creativity at the high end, and doesn't have the same level of community as Magento.

Magento eCommerce, on the other hand, is targeted to different business goals. Magento pros and cons include:

• Pros: It is great for larger businesses with in-house developers. It also offers a ton of flexibility and creative capability, especially when it comes to content management. Finally, it has a strong community for solutions and enhancement.
• Cons: Pricing is complicated when it comes to getting started, the site usually requires a development team, and may even require an in-house Magento specialist. Likewise, it does not have built-in security.

Ultimately, Shopify offers a great solution that is scalable to most businesses, offers easy-to-use software for setup and ongoing management, and helps get teams off the ground far more quickly with their robust packages that include hosting, security, and built-in commerce functions. This makes it the more approachable and functional option for most eCommerce businesses. If you're not sure where to start, our team at Electric Enjin is here to help. We can go further in depth on Shopify pros and cons vs Magento pros and cons, and get you to the solution that you need and deserve. Reach out to us now for more information!

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