Magento vs. Shopify
Brief summary
Magento is better suited for large stores, as it is more technically complex solution, but it provides more opportunities for growth, in turn Shopify is better suited for small and medium-sized businesses because of the built-in features that facilitate the process of creating a store.
Shopify features
Short overview
Pros
- All-in-one hosted solution
- Doesn’t require any technical skills
- App Store with over 3,200 apps
- 24/7 support
Cons
- Fee for every transaction
- Сustom functions complicate a website
- No access to server settings
- Doesn’t support international features out-of-box
Pros
The main advantage of Shopify is that it is easy to use. The platform is a hosted solution for an online business that doesn’t require any technical knowledge and skills. It has a user-friendly interface, multiple themes for your storefronts, and App Store with over 3,200 apps to customize your website. This is an all-in-one solution with 24/7 support.
Cons
First of all, Shopify works by subscription and charges fees for every transaction made in your store.
If you need a lot of customization and install too many applications, they can make your store complex and decrease performance. Since Shopify is a hosted solution, you cannot control and set up server settings of your website, and if you got loading speed issues, you need to contact the support team to fix them.
Finally, vanilla Shopify doesn’t have multi-language capabilities, and to launch an international business, you’ll need to set up multiple apps and add-ons.
Magento 2 features
Short Overview
Pros
- Free
- Open-source
- Over 5000 plugins with custom features
- Built-in functionality for international stores
- Access to server settings
- Strong brand community
Cons
- Requires technical knowledge or professional developer
Pros
Magento 2 is a free open source platform that is highly customizable via both ready-made extension and coding. It gives you a full control over customer experience with over 5000 plugins.
It is suitable for large and fast-growing international businesses. Versus Shopify, Magento 2 has built-in functionality for multiple stores, languages, currencies, and worldwide shipping carriers. It has a big supportive community.
Also, Magento is a self-hosted platform, so you can choose any server and make the needed changes to improve website performance.
Cons
On the other hand, Magento requires some technical knowledge and skills. So you’ll need to understand the technical part or hire a professional developer/agency when you need customization.
Magento vs. Shopify: final verdict
Magento is an efficient solution that can handle high traffic, supports a wide range of different products and provides the flexibility to customize your store. It allows you to scale up quickly and would be the best choice for large-scale stores.
Shopify is a user-friendly platform that makes it easy to create a simple store using a drag-and-drop builder and offers many built-in features to meet all the needs of small and medium-sized stores.