Shopify vs Magento: Which eCommerce Platform is Best for You?

Choosing the right e-commerce platform to build your store is extremely crucial as it sets the stage for the success of your eCommerce venture. Whether you're a small business or a vast enterprise, choosing the right eCommerce platform is not a decision to be taken lightly.

Shopify and Magento are the two most popular e-commerce platforms out there and are often pitted against each other in the race for the best eCommerce platform. In this article, we’ll help you to choose the best eCommerce platform for your business needs by weighing each platform’s pros and cons as well as comparing the two on five parameters.

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Pros and Cons

Shopify Pros:

• Multiple checkout and payment options
• 70+ mobile responsive store theme options
• A complete eCommerce builder
• An extensive app store to extend the functionality of your website
• Excellent customer support
• Easy to use

Shopify Cons:

• Transaction fees
• Cost of themes and apps
• Integrating apps into your store makes it more complicated

Magento Pros:

• A massive user community offering tons of support for users
• Flexible platform- no limitation on how you can design your store
• A wide range of themes to choose from
• Ideal for medium to large businesses
• Magento is an open-source platform and is free to use
• Phone support available

Magento Cons:

• Not easy to install - time-consuming
• Quite difficult for beginners
• A lot of costs associated with setting up your store

Shopify vs Magento: Which eCommerce Platform to Choose and Why?

We will be comparing the two eCommerce platform on the following five parameters:

• Pricing
• Ease of Use
• Extension and add-ons
• Community & Support
• Payment Processors

1. Pricing

The main difference between the two is that Shopify is a hosted platform, while Magento is self-hosted. This means that as a hosted platform, Shopify takes care of all your hosting needs with no extra effort or expense required from you. Magento, on the other hand, is free to install, but you’ll need to pay for web hosting, security, extensions, and your domain.

With Shopify, users can get access to a 90-day free trial. After which there are three main price plans to choose from, with fixed monthly rates. In contrast, the overall cost of Magento will depend on different factors; however, the Magento Community software is free for everyone. To use Magento, you’ll need to pay for your web hosting.

Shopify	Magento
Shopify Basic ($29/month)	Startup: $9.95/month
Shopify ($79/month)	Grow Big: $19.95/month
Advanced Shopify ($299/month)	GoGeek: $29.95/month

Final Verdict:

Magento: Expensive

Shopify: Affordable

2. Ease of Use

Another critical factor is how easy the platform is for your teams to use. The consensus is that Shopify tends to be more comfortable to use than Magento, making it the preferred options for beginners or amateurs.

Shopify is generally quick to set up a website once you’ve signed up to the service. It offers a user-friendly way to create online stores without the need to have coding skills. Shopify has drag and drop areas, making it reasonably easy to build a site. It takes only a few simple steps to get your website up and running. Shopify is ideal for a business that is new to website development. If you require advanced features, you can add additional apps or hire a Shopify expert to help you build a custom e-commerce website.

On the other hand, there is a myth that Magento is more challenging to use. While it is true that Magento does not provide on-site developers for you to help with building your site, which can prove to be challenging, Magento 2 addresses this concern with a user-friendly admin panel that’s much simpler for new users to get to grips with.

However, we cannot deny the fact that Magento has a steep learning curve, making it difficult for new users to navigate its complexity. To use Magento to build your online store, you will need to hire a developer(s), find a hosting partner that can host your site, as well as get someone to integrate your tech stack.

Final Verdict:

Shopify: User Friendly

Magento: Complex

3. Extensions & Add-Ons

Apps and extensions help broaden the functionality of your website. Added functionalities to a website are essential for improving and expanding the functionalities of your e-commerce website in various ways.

This is where Magento takes over Shopify. Magento has thousands of add-on extensions (both free and paid options). Magento Marketplace has over 5,000 extensions to choose from, and 1,970 of those are free. Moreover, Magento 2 comes with more frontend features for shoppers such as coupon codes, gift cards, customer dashboards, related products, wish lists, order status modules, and so on compared to Shopify.

On the other hand, Shopify is far behind on integrations and extensions. There are very few add-on apps on Shopify. The collection of apps is small compared to Magento. Shopify’s App Store contains over 1,200 apps, both free and premium. The Shopify App Store is under continuous development for new apps for email marketing, loyalty programs etc.

Verdict

Magento is the clear winner over Shopify with over 5000 extensions.

4. Community & Support

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It is likely that time, and again your online store may run into technical issues. It is crucial to have a back-up support system in place to help you fix these issues. Because the sooner you fix them, the sooner you can get back to the main focus of your business.

Luckily, Shopify and Magento offer excellent customer support options. Shopify offers 24/7 phone support, Social media support,24/7 live chat support, Community forum, Email support, Help centre, Video tutorials as well as advanced specialist support. Shopify does go above and beyond to support its customers. With Shopify, you’re paying for the support as well as the platform.

Magento, on the other hand, is a user community-based platform and has excellent user guides that take you through the online store building processes. They give you step-by-step guidance and contain useful information from other Magento developers. In Magento, you will not have access to dedicated developer support, you will, however, have access to SiteGround’s help and support team. The vast number of Magento developers worldwide ensure that you’ll never have a problem finding a capable developer to work with.

5. Payment Processes

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Safety of payment transactions is the number thing that needs your attention when you are building your e-commerce store. After all, your site can only be profitable if you can complete transactions safely. You’ll need to ensure that you have plenty of ways to take payments and that all ways are secure.

Both Shopify and Magento charge a transaction fee for payments. The fee percentage for Shopify ranges from 0.5% to 2.0% with more costly monthly subscriptions resulting in lower transaction fees. FOr payment made through external payment gateways like PayPal, Braintree, etc., Shopify charges a transaction fee. You can only avoid these fees by using Shopify’s direct payment gateway, known as Shopify Payments.

On the other hand, Magento developers also have access to multiple payment options. Magento supports about 150 payment options, but they require a bit more work to implement. Shopify supports over 70 payment gateways.

Verdict

Magento has better payment processor options than Shopify.

So, Which E-Commerce Platform Is Best For You?

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The answer to the above question depends on a lot of factors. If you are a small business looking to expand your visibility online, then Shopify is the best option for you. With its ease of use and powerful capabilities, you will be able to set up your online store in no time.

In contrast, if you would like to develop your business to be a global brand, you should pick Magento. Magento 2 is best suited for enterprise businesses with unlimited features, the scope for scalability and customisation. However, in the case of Magento, technical knowledge or access to a developer is needed.