Shopify vs. Magento: Unbiased Comparison and Analysis for 2024

Navigating the landscape of e-commerce platforms can be a daunting task, especially when it comes to choosing between giants like Shopify and Magento. In 2023, the stakes are even higher as both platforms have evolved, offering a plethora of features and capabilities. “Shopify vs. Magento: Unbiased Comparison and Analysis for 2023” aims to demystify the choice, providing a clear, objective, and comprehensive analysis of both platforms. Whether you’re a startup looking to make your mark or an established business considering a platform switch, this guide is designed to arm you with all the information you need to make an informed decision tailored to your business needs. We’ll delve deep into the functionalities, pricing, user experience, and scalability of both Shopify and Magento, ensuring that no stone is left unturned in your quest for the perfect e-commerce solution.

Pros and Cons: Shopify vs Magento Coalition

For successful business outcomes, it is essential that the right eCommerce platform is chosen. It should be an informed decision and requires proactive research. There are many factors that need to be considered but some of the most important concerns that all store owners share are store performance and UX.

We have narrowed down the scope to two ultimate solutions, whereby creating a complete Magento vs Shopify comparison guide to help you make the best decision:

Order and Inventory Management system for Magento and Shopify

Both Shopify and Magento allow you to create and sell an unlimited number of products.  However, with Shopify, you have the option of direct integration with dropshipping inventory like Oberlo.  It is also important to understand that even though Magento allows the virtual creation of an unlimited number of products, your server performance and site loading speed may not be supportive of that. Since Shopify is a fully managed and hosted solution, you do not have to worry about these issues.

Learn More:

Dropshipping from amazon to shopify inventory

Magento vs Shopify: Shipping Charges Calculation

Both platforms are equipped with powerful and flexible options that allow users to calculate shipping charges, which is essential for businesses selling physical goods via eCommerce storefronts. With Shopify, the flexibility to integrate dropshipping tools equipped with exact Shopify shipping calculator apps can be more beneficial if you want accurate rates to be communicated to the customer.

Learn More:

How BigCommerce drop shipping is still profitable?

Should I use BigCommerce or Magento for my start-up business?

Coupons and discount codes: Magento comparison with Shopify

When it comes to coupons and discount codes, Magento facilitates discount code creation and calculation from the start. With Shopify, this feature is not supported on its Lite plan, but is available on the rest of the plans.

Read Also Shopify vs Oberlo

Better options for payment gateway: Shopify or Magento

Shopify supports over 70 payment gateways while the numbers supported by Magento are far fewer. Where Shopify has the edge here, it should be noted that more gateways can be added to the Magento store via third-party add-ons. One problem with Shopify is the pressure to use its built-in payment gateway. Even though there is no Shopify gateway transaction fee, third-party gateway transactions are charged.

Magento vs Shopify: Apps and Add-ons

There are over 100 apps and add-ons available for Shopify. These assist in enhancing and expanding the functionality of the store, like loyalty programs, email marketing and accounting. The Shopify App store is constantly growing and highly moderated. On the other hand, since Magento is an Open source, community-driven platform, it offers a whopping 5000+ apps and add-ons (mix of paid and free).

Magento multi-lingual options in contrast to Shopify

To create a fully multilingual Shopify store, third-party/paid apps have to be utilized, as Shopify does not offer full multilingual capabilities directly. Another option is to custom code your theme but this requires the capabilities of an expert Shopify developer. Magento offers more built-in multilingual support, giving it a clear edge over Shopify here.

Shopify Technical SEO implementation in opposition to Magento

Both platforms score the same on SEO capabilities offered. With powerful SEO features, both Shopify and Magento help you drive more organic traffic via your store.

Read also: Magento vs AEM: Which is Good for Businesses?

Magento vs Shopify: Branding and Design Comparison

Successful stores offer unique designs that help them build recognizable brands. Both platforms offer responsive and mobile-friendly premium and free themes. However, Shopify proprietary themes can not be tweaked a lot and since they can not be fully customized, store branding may be affected.  Magento 2 upgrade, on the other hand, includes drag and drop visual editing option that can be utilized by even non-coders to achieve beautiful sites.

Feature/Aspect	Shopify	Magento
Type	Hosted e-commerce platform	Self-hosted/open-source e-commerce platform
Ease of Use	Very user-friendly and easy for beginners	More complex and requires technical knowledge
Customization	Limited customization without coding	Highly customizable with coding skills
Scalability	Good for small to medium-sized businesses	Suitable for small to large enterprises
Extensions/Apps	Extensive app store with paid and free apps	Magento Marketplace with free and paid extensions
Themes/Templates	Plenty of professionally designed themes	Less variety but highly customizable themes
Performance	Cloud-based, generally fast	Performance can vary based on hosting
SEO	Built-in SEO features	Strong SEO capabilities
Security	Fully managed security and updates	Requires manual security measures
Cost	Monthly subscription fees	Open-source (free) but requires hosting and maintenance
Support	24/7 customer support	Community support, with paid enterprise options
Target Audience	Beginners, small to medium businesses	Intermediate to advanced, small to large businesses

Plus, Shopify also charges transaction fees for payments made via external gateways like PayPal, Braintree, and Authorize.net. The fee can range from  2.0% to 0.5% but with costly monthly subscriptions, while lowering transaction fees. However, these can be waived if users opt for Shopify’s direct payment gateway.

Magento on the other hand is a self-hosted solution, so users have to pay a third-party hosting service, starting from as little as $3.95. Since good hosting is essential for site performance, choosing the right hosting solution becomes very important. In addition to that, setting up and managing a Magento store will require expert help, which comes at a cost.

The Community Edition of Magento is free to download, while the Enterprise solution cost depends on your specific store needs.

Magento Pricing:

-Community Edition: FREE

-Hosting: $4-$100+/month

For both Magento and Shopify, add-ons is a cost that needs to be factored in. Plus, in most cases, basic software is not enough.

Blogging functionality

While blogging functionality comes as an integrated feature at Shopify, it can be achieved with Magento as well. However, it requires a developer to customize the Magento blog to fully reap the benefits it offers.

Community

One of the best ‘pros’ in the Magento box is the large community. It is an active community of developers that create solutions for all kinds of user needs. The community also offers resources for beginners to learn about Magento. Plus, with such a broad community, finding developers is easy. Users can find help, access support and maintenance services with the help of outside developers.

Marketplace

Some users may want to create a multi-vendor marketplace where multiple vendors can utilize one shopping cart to sell their products. Both Shopify and Magento 2 have add-ons available to create multi-vendor systems that allow multiple vendors to sell their products through a single shopping cart.  However, Magento offers better capabilities such as promotional features to manage marketplace stores than Shopify. Plus, Magento 2 upgrade offers increased scalability and performance that can cater to the needs of a growing multi-vendor store.

Which is better?

Both Shopify and Magento are powerful eCommerce platforms. Where Shopify is easy to use, hosted and fully managed platform; Magento, while being free itself, requires you to purchase hosting and carry out setup and installation procedures yourself. When we compare Shopify and Magento, Shopify has the edge when it comes to ease of setting up and capabilities offered. However, both platforms have a set of their own pros and cons that need to be weighed according to a user’s expectations to decide which will better suit their business needs, budget and level of expertise.

Magento Pros & Cons

Magento Pros

Community Support

The Magento community is huge, with a plethora of user-generated content that allows you to get whatever help you need with your Magento store. Simple to understand and comprehensive information is available on every topic, related to Magento. It offers a great platform to connect you to other Magento users. This allows free information flow that helps resolve all kinds of issues that you may be facing with your Magento store.

Flexibility and freedom

With Magento, as long as you have a developer handy, you can customize your store to stand out from the crowd. The uniqueness of your store, helps build a brand and enables customer recall.

Magento Vs Shopify Cost

Since Magento is an Open source platform, available in the public domain, it is free to use. However, users have to incur hosting charges.

Magento Cons

Technicalities

With Magento, setting up and managing the store can be daunting a daunting task for a non-technical. It requires extensive coding knowledge and is difficult to get a grip on.

Time and effort

It takes some time to familiarize yourself with the Magento interface and for first-time users, it is best to understand the platform before getting into the actual work. Users need to appreciate that in order to make your site look exactly like how you want it,  tweaking lines of code can be time-intensive.

Cost

Even though it is free, users still have to pay for hosting and apps, which can be costly. And as your store grows, you will need to pay more for hosting. Even though most apps are free, there will be installation and yearly fee that you will have to pay for others. Plus, you may also need to hire a developer for Magento.

Shopify Pros & Cons

Shopify Pros

Mobile-friendly themes

Shopify offers over 100+ themes that automatically optimize for different screen sizes and devices. It is very important, most users now research products on their phones before making a purchase.

App Store

Shopify has a large App Store that allows you to extend the functionality of your site. This enables you to build a comprehensive eCommerce website to take your store to the next level.

Support

Shopify offers 24/7 support with live chat and email functionality that helps you resolve problems quickly, while you continuously make sales. Shopify also has a forum that allows users to exchange information.

Shopify Cons

Limited free themes

If you are looking for free themes, then you will be disappointed, as Shopify has a very limited number of themes that are free. However, to entice your customers into making purchases, investing in premium themes can be very beneficial.

Complexity

Making use of a lot of apps, it can make your site complex. Therefore, it is important to pick and choose apps that will benefit you the most.

Transaction fee

Other than Shopify’s own payment gateway, users will have to incur transaction fees. This goes down if you invest in a more inclusive plan or if your sales go up.

FAQs About Magento vs Shopify :

Is Magento better than Shopify?

In terms of the themes offered, Shopify is a clear winner as it has a wider range of more contemporary themes. This means you do not have to compromise on design. While this is true, Magento offers features that can take your store to the next level. The only problem is that coding requires expert help.

Magento vs Shopify – points to consider:

• How soon can you start selling your products?
• Is the layout customer-friendly in terms of navigation and finding products they are looking for?
• Choosing a theme is the most important decision and has to be weighed against what you will be getting in exchange for what you are willing to pay.

How much does Magento 2 cost as compared to Shopify?

Magento Commerce licensing starts from around $22k per year, increasing as the merchant’s turnover increases, whereas Shopify Plus is a flat $2,000 per month, increasing as the volumes go up.

How to compare Magento 2 vs Shopify Plus?

There are advantages and disadvantages on both sides. Shopify Plus is easy and fast to set up and has all the key components of an enterprise-level e-commerce solution. And it does not require, complex server setup or lengthy learning processes. Shopify Plus enables you to grow your business with product range creation and excellent marketing tools. For merchants with more complex requirements, the native flexibility and scalability offered by Magento 2 Enterprise Edition make for a better choice.    

How to do Magento to Shopify migration?

Even though both platforms enable powerful capabilities, some users prefer to make a switch between platforms. Since Shopify is a hosted platform, there would be no reliance on third-party hosting, resulting in cost savings. It is easy to set up and you can start selling your products in no time. The themes offered are contemporary, making it ideal for today’s customers.

However, it does not offer the same level of customization as Magento and except for transactions via its own gateways, the rest are chargeable.

How to do Shopify to Magento migration?

Magento is an Open source platform that allows users the flexibility required for modifications as per the user’s needs. With advanced customization opportunities, users can make use of multiple languages, currencies and customer-targeted pricing. However, a successful migration would require an experienced developer to transfer all data without any errors and complications.

Why is Folio3 the top Shopify custom plugin development company in the USA?

Folio3 is one of the leading Shopify custom plugin development company, thanks to its team of highly experienced and skilled developers and strategists. The company has successfully developed and launched hundreds of Shopify custom plugins for various businesses of all sizes and shapes. To enable a faster development process, the company maintains streamlined and proven workflow processes and systems. The company also offers customization for the predesigned features, such as feedback system, content management, push notifications, integrations, and more.