Shopify and Magento are the most popular and reliable platforms in the eCommerce business industry. There are millions of merchants who select these two to start up their businesses or to settle in. Both platforms achieve success by providing outstanding services.
Although Magento has enjoyed a long period of success, Shopify has emerged recently as their most significant competitor.
It’s challenging for millions of eCommerce shop owners to choose between these two eCommerce platforms. Because In the highly competitive eCommerce industry, Shopify and Magento are frequently compared against one another and often pitted head to head in the race for the best eCommerce platform.
So it’s obvious, you will find it harder for you to choose the right one for your online store.
Before making a choice, you have to be aware of the size of your business, the number of products you carry, the payment and delivery methods you provide, and your ideas for the user experience of your store.
In this blog, we’ll contrast two popular e-commerce platforms: Shopify and Magento. Both platforms provide distinctive e-commerce store experiences, but they are very different from one another practically in every way, including who they are intended for. We hope this article will help you to choose which one is the best suited for your business.
So, let’s get started…
What is Shopify?
Shopify is a platform that allows you to create, and manage your website and store. This user-friendly website builder automatically manages programs, coding, inventory, and accepting customer payments and other back-end processes. Even business organizations can create websites without any coding knowledge.
What is Magento?
Magento is an open-source eCommerce platform like WordPress that allows users to get your Magento store and manage the online store. Magento enables businesses of all sizes to take their online sales to the next level with its robust features, scalability, and customizable templates.
It also gives users the ability to control the appearance, functionality, and content of their online store without compromising the shopping experience. Magento provides services like built-in functionality for stores, multiple payment features, unlimited customization options, SEO, and features.
Shopify vs Magento- Pros and Cons
Pros and Cons of Shopify
| Pros | Cons |
| Effective for beginners- ease of use and easy customizations, Coding knowledge is not mandatory. | Lack of functionality and customization opportunity. |
| Less expensive and can be managed through a single point of contact with Pretty good customer support. Features Multiple Channel Branding. | Cost of paid apps. |
| 70+ mobile-friendly themes (10 free and 64+ premium). App store with a diverse collection for extending the functionality of your website. | Single Transaction Media (Shopify Payments)- Unless Shopify Payments is used, transaction fees are enforced. |
Magento’s pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
| Open source and free to use with a comparatively larger supportive user community. | Ineffective for beginners |
| Flexibility with unlimited customizations, a good range of themes to choose from, and functionality. Ensure advanced personalized customer experience. | Hard to find a Magento-supported web hosting provider. |
| Ideal for larger businesses with their own web development team | Expensive hosting fees for a larger store. |
Shopify vs Magento in Numbers
According to the research, Magento currently has more than 163 thousand live eCommerce stores. On the other hand, Shopify has over 4 million eCommerce stores. But 1.05% of Magento stores are featured within the top 1 million sites globally, compared with 2.71% of Shopify stores. 1.57% of Magento stores are featured in the top 10,000 sites globally, compared with 4.44% of Shopify stores.
Despite the number of sites using Shopify, Magento is known for its open-source software, incredible functionality, and ability to customize the eCommerce experience.
Shopify vs Magento- Payment Gateways:
Shopify and Magento both make it easier to connect your store with a payment processor. Shopify has its own processor called ‘Shopify Payments’ which costs zero transaction fees. Shopify Transaction fees you need to pay if you do not use Shopify payments:
For Shopify Basic plan- 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction
For Shopify plan- 2.6% + 30 ¢ per transaction
For Advanced Shopify plan- 2.4% + 30¢ per transaction
For Shopify Plus- 2.15% per transaction
The following fees would be avoided if you use Shopify Payments. Because you are responsible for the transaction fees imposed by the credit card processor and not Shopify.
Shopify supports over 100 alternative payment gateways, all of which have a transaction fee attached to them. Popular gateways like PayPal, Stripe, Amazon Pay, and Apple Pay are among them.
Magento supports more than 1500+ payment gateways. However, most of them are geared toward big businesses like WorldPay. You only need to install them from the marketplace in order to link your store with the more widely used payment processors.
Compared to Shopify, Magento offers more payment processor choices. While using Shopify, if you don’t use Shopify Payments, which might be rather limited, it imposes its own transaction costs.
Shopify vs Magento- Simplicity of Access:
Your business tools are supposed to be easy for you to operate. At this point, Shopify holds dominance against Magento. Shopify is an all-in-one kind of platform. It works like a ‘drag and drop’ type website building tool. You can easily customize your store with Shopify and you do not need any technical skills.
For using Magento, you need coding knowledge. You need other technical knowledge like interpreting jargon to build your required online store. Otherwise, you need to hire a web developer to build the website for you.
Compared to Shopify, Magento calls for a higher level of development and website construction expertise. Shopify is easier to use, but Magento is a little harder to use. However, Magento has more robust and is the ideal option for programmers and professional website builders.
Magento supports 2 core functionality: Robust inventory and order management features and A great solution to grow a multi-channel business.
Shopify vs Magento- SEO:
SEO helps to increase the amount of traffic from search engines to your website. For its SEO, Shopify is completely reliant on its apps. While page names and picture alt tags are editable, the majority of your SEO strategies are found in the app store.
To get you started, Magento includes a ton of SEO instructions and guidelines. Image alt. tags can be edited (Which can aid Google in determining how to classify an image on the site for image searches). You can modify URLs to make it simpler for users of search engines to find your web page. These all are built-in functions.
Magento has a competitive advantage over Shopify in SEO features. In Magento, a greater variety of built-in SEO tools, including SEO prompts and the ability to alter URLs are available. For many of your SEO requirements and objectives, you need to search and install apps with Shopify.
Shopify vs Magento- Themes and Templates:
Website design is one of the most important factors in determining business credibility. So, you need to choose your themes and templates carefully for making a great first impression.
In Shopify, you can modify, add, switch, delete, and resize elements of your theme using ‘the drag-and-drop editor’. All available themes (9 free and 88 premium themes, each theme costs around $150 – $350) are user-friendly and mobile-optimized. New pages can be created easily. Social media feeds can be added easily.
In Magento, you will get five mobile-optimized themes which will charge you approximately 499 dollars. Although coding expertise or budget to hire a Magento developer is needed, you will get all the flexibility you need for customization. Also, animations can be added for making the website more aesthetic and get higher traffic. Featured product sliders, incorporate newsletter options, and cross-selling blocks can be added to the website.
Shopify is more affordable than Magento. Also, you don’t need the skill of coding to customize.
Shopify vs Magento- Selling features:
eCommerce platforms and sales tools go hand-in-hand. You can’t have one without the other. Let’s take a look under the hood of Shopify and Magento to observe their selling features.
- Lost Cart Sale Recovery- Sending automated emails to visitors who left your website before completing a purchase can help you recoup possibly lost sales. Shopify and Magento both provide the feature for their users.
- Multiple channel Selling- As a built-in function, you can sell on all social platforms. Shopify and Magento both provide the feature to their users.
- Joint ventures- Partnerships with USPS, DHL Express, UPS, and Canada Post will save you the hassle of finding your own courier service. You can enjoy this advantage with Shopify.
- Checkout customization- You can customize the checkout page to enhance your online store checkout the way you want. Magento provides this feature.
- Customization on Product Price: Magento allows you to set percentages and fixed price discounts.
- Wider Range: You can sell digital and physical products on Shopify.
So, compared to Shopify, Magento offers a more remarkable selection of sales tools.
Shopify vs Magento- Apps and Extension:
It’s crucial to expand the capability of your online store, especially if the platform’s default capabilities are inadequate for your needs. You can quickly install applications, extensions, and add-ons with Shopify and Magento both.
Over 4200+ apps, both free and paid, are available in Shopify’s App Store for various business needs, including email marketing, shipping, social media advertising, and more. Such as Trust Hero (Display security assurance to encourage customers to finalize purchase), Trackr (Customer can track their product), analytics buddy (Combine all of your Google analytical data into your Shopify dashboard), etc.
There are 3600+ extensions available at Magento Marketplace. 1970 of those are free. Such as product pre-orders (When a new product is released, automatically email customers to gather feedback on your newest offering), Banner slider (Add customized URLs to advertising banners to add a new revenue source to your store), Amasty multiple coupons (Add personalized discount coupons, combine coupons for one purchase), etc.
Even coding experience is not necessary to install and use these extensions.
Additionally, you can acquire top-notch Magento extensions from Adobe Exchange Partner Magezon.
The cost of the apps depends on the development company that produced them. And you will need expert help to install them.
Compared to Magento Marketplace, Shopify’s App Market is simpler to use and has a wider selection of well-made apps. Although Shopify offers fewer extensions than Magento.
Shopify vs Magento- Marketing Features:
If you have access to strong marketing tools, your business would reach new customers easily. Shopify offers brilliant marketing tools such as the capacity to launch email campaigns via third-party connectors.
On Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest you can sell and advertise directly. Shopify can support multilingual sites, by which you can sell in different languages.
The majority of Magento’s marketing solutions are sourced from its Marketplace. You will need to install extensions or add-ons like ‘Remarkety’ for running email campaigns. Moreover, you will have to rely on a web developer to integrate your marketing tools.
Unique inventory features supported by Magento include bulk product import from the database, various product versions, total visitor count, and total revenue statistics.
Shopify may offer in-built marketing features, but it has its limitations in SEO options. Magento offers business owners more marketing features and flexibility than Shopify.
Shopify vs Magento- Customer Support:
Shopify offers 24/7 phone support, social media support, 24/7 live chat support, video tutorials, advanced specialist support, email support, a help center, and a community forum.
On the other hand, The user community-based platform Magento includes excellent user manuals that walk you through the steps of creating an online store. They can walk you through the process step-by-step and are stocked with helpful advice from other Magento developers.
Although Magento does not offer dedicated assistance, you do have access to SiteGround’s excellent help and support team. Overall, SiteGround and Magento are a wealth of information and support.
In this section, Magento has a competitive advantage over Shopify. As it is intended for experienced web developers, the quality of its user manuals is very excellent. Shopify’s support cannot compete with the level of expertise provided by Magento and SiteGround.
Shopify vs Magento- Pricing:
Shopify has costs, such as transaction fees if you use an external payment gateway. If you simply want a less expensive option, Shopify is the better option. It’s also much more cost-effective, with a fixed monthly payment in addition to a transaction fee per sale.
When choosing the right platform for you, pricing is one of the most important factors in how much you can afford to pay to build your website.
Despite being open source and cost-free, Magento has a number of additional expenses. As a Magento retailer, you must take into account prices for hosting, security (such SSLs), and developer expenses. The biggest expenses are often the developer fees; some Magento stores will set you back thousands of dollars merely to build them.
To summarize, let’s see the table below for a clear picture of the pricing differences between Magento and Shopify.
| Pricing Feature Name | Shopify | Magento |
| Monthly Charge | Shopify Basic: $29Shopify: $79Advanced Shopify: $299Shopify Plus: $2000 | × |
| Themes | Free – $150 to $180 | Free – $499 |
| Hosting | Hosting costs are included in every monthly plan without extra expenses. | The price depends greatly on the Magento hosting provider you choose |
| App | Start from $15/month | Free – $15,000 |
| Developer | × | Up to you |
| Domain | Free or you can purchase domains through Shopify at $14/year | $10 – 15/year |
| Transaction | Basic Shopify: 2%Shopify: 1%Advanced Shopify: 0.5% | (Stripe) 2.9%+30¢ |
Shopify vs Magento- Security:
The primary priority for any merchant’s online store should be security. Google’s security policies have changed, so customers are now greeted by warnings before proceeding to websites without SSL certificates. Websites without SSL certificates may encounter a variety of concerns, such as non-compliance problems, cyberattacks, and a lack of trust from both search engines and online customers.
Magento requires you to buy and install the SSL certificate separately, whereas Shopify handles the integration. A managed hosting service may take care of this process for you, but you’ll need to choose one first.
Shopify vs Magento- Performance and Adaptability:
Shopify is a lightweight application. So, it can run fast and can hold more product. Although, Shopify does not have the same level of functionality as Magento. Shopify’s personalized shopping experiences are limited to occasional product recommendations and cross-selling. Running a site on a well-optimized hosting platform can have a significant impact on actual page load times.
Magento is a resource-intensive application that necessitates a stable hosting environment. As additional products are introduced, a merchant’s hosting infrastructure may begin to experience difficulty. With more than a decade of experience, Magento provides a caching-based optimized solution to enhance site performance. There is no other place to find the answer.
Shopify makes it simple to do a variety of tasks without writing a single line of code. This includes inserting customized images to provide a more personalized experience, Adding products to your store, setting up optimized payment options, personalizing the customer experience, etc.
If you require more advanced functionality, your monthly premium will rise. If you want to use gift cards, create professional reports, and use advanced shipping options, you’ll have to pay more than $29 per month.
One of the most flexible eCommerce platforms is Magento, which combines built-in features with add-on extensions. Magento is designed to provide businesses with total control over the consumer experience by default. This includes producing fully customizable products, marketing them, and if necessary, managing them across numerous retailers.
Shopify vs Magento- Mobile responsiveness:
When it comes to the mobile user experience, Magento dominates. Fantastic mobile designs have been seen by both agencies and retailers. The usage of mega menus, fluid product grids, and distinctive layout tweaks are popular in Magento stores.
Some of these features are also available in Shopify, but in today’s mobile-first market, you’ll be far more successful if you maintain a store with fantastic functionality and code that shines in terms of SEO.
Final Thoughts
There is neither a winner nor a loser in the contest between Shopify and Magento. Make a decision based on the requirements of your company, then evaluate it to swiftly alter your mind before spending a lot of money.
Between Shopify and Magento, which one is better for you is depending on what you want to do with it and your level of expertise in web development.
Shopify is excellent for new users, but Magento provides advanced users with a wide range of design and theme possibilities that are simply unavailable in more straightforward eCommerce software.
If you want to create unique customization then Magento is better for creating personalized experiences that customers will not find anywhere else. If you looking for simplicity, then Shopify is useful for creating an easy-to-use online store that doesn’t require much coding or technical knowledge.
We made an effort to thoroughly describe every significant feature of the Shopify and Magento platforms so that you may choose the one that is best for your company.
If you have any queries about Shopify and Magento, please let us know through the comment box or email us at info@ecomclips.com
To know more about Shopify or Magento, please check out our other blog. Also, you can check our YouTube videos related to Shopify and Magento.
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