If you’re planning to set up an online shop or move your current one to another platform, you might want to think about your options.
Shopify and the Magento Open Source are two platforms widely known and used today for creating and managing online shops.
However, there are some fundamental differences between these platforms that you should be aware of before you carry out a comparative evaluation of the two:
- Shopify is a commercial product (which you have to pay for) while Magento Open Source is free and open-source software.
- Shopify is a hosted solution (where they host your shop), while Magento requires you to provide your own hosting, install, set up, and configure everything before you can really start building your shop. This requires a medium to a high level of web development and programming skills.
- Shopify is good for beginners, with a simple user interface, while Magento contains many features, but is more suitable for experienced developers.
Magento has a paid version, but it is getting extremely expensive and is only for large businesses that can spend thousands of dollars per month on a website.
We won’t consider the paid version, as most startups and small businesses don’t have enough money.
Most small businesses should consider the open-source version of Magento if you have an experienced developer in your team or you have development skills yourself.
Magento vs Shopify: Pros and Cons
Let’s start with a summary of what you can expect from each solution in terms of pros and cons. Both Magento and Shopify have a number of advantages, but they also have places where they can fall short for your e-commerce site as well.
Shopify Pros 👍
- Tons of beautiful adaptive shop themes to choose from
- Comprehensive eCommerce builder
- Great app shop to extend the functionality of your site
- Pretty good customer support
- Easy to use
- Lots of payment and payment options
Shopify Cons 👎
- Most themes have a price tag
- Integrating apps into your shop makes it more complicated
- There’s a fee per transaction (unless you use Shopify payments)
Magento Pros 👍
- Great community with huge user support
- Flexible platform with lots of customization
- A lot of themes to choose from
- Phone support
- No real programming knowledge is required for Magento trading
- Magento is open-source and free to use
Magento Cons 👎
- Quite difficult for beginners
- Requires a lot of time to set up
- Lots of costs associated with setting up your shop
Magento vs Shopify: Functionality
Basic Online Shop Features.
Both Shopify and Magento offer basic online shop functionality. Shopify is easier to set up and use.
Basic features such as shopping carts, checkout modules, collections, and product pages are included in both versions.
The main difference between the two is that Magento has a lot more intermediate and advanced features, that allow you to customize your shop in many ways.
With Shopify, you often have to get an application for advanced functionality.
Shipping Costs Calculation.
Both platforms provide flexible and powerful options for calculating shipping costs, which is one of the most basic and important aspects of selling physical goods through an online shop.
Templates and Themes.
Both e-commerce platforms have a huge collection of designs and templates.
You can use them to make your online store attractive and provide customers with a user-friendly site.
The main difference between Magento and Shopify is that Shopify only provides a few free themes.
While the Magento community has more free options. However, Shopify’s free themes are more modern than MC’s ones.
If you want to compare Magneto and Shopify, note that both platforms have paid themes.
The price for Shopify’s premium themes starts at $80, which is a big disadvantage.
At the same time, you can buy a Magento theme for $1.
Keep in mind that mobile commerce (shopping online through a mobile device) is the current trend in the e-commerce world.
For your customers to shop this way, your online store must be adaptive. Both Magento and Shopify offer free and paid adaptive templates.
Blogging.
Easy blogging functionality is available as an integrated feature on Shopify. This can be achieved with Magento.
As long as you have a developer, your Magento blog will be much more customizable than one on Shopify.
Magento vs Shopify: Which one is better for your online shop?
Both Shopify and Magento are powerful e-commerce platforms.
However, keep in mind that Shopify is much easier, especially for newcomers to online commerce.
In addition, the platform is a complete solution.
But remember that Magento is much more customizable, that`s why it is the choice of an advanced online shops.
While Magento is a free platform, users have to buy hosting, set up and install the system.
This is a daunting task for those without technical knowledge. That’s why our team offers magento development services.
We make all the changes and settings, and our customers get a ready-made online shop.
Have a look at
