Magento vs Shopify: The Complete Ecommerce Comparison Guide (2020)

Magento and Shopify are only similar in that they are both eCommerce platforms for managing your web store. They are also very different from each other. The main difference between the two platforms is the freedom that is offered.

If you are looking for an eCommerce platform that offers space for freedom, you will want to make the right choice as soon as possible. The last thing you want is to migrate from one platform to another.

Similarities

While there are many differences between Magento and Shopify, they also offer some similarities.

Although both platforms have a wide variety of functionalities and facilities, they both ensure a smooth flow of your online trading activities.

Both platforms have a carefully designed and user-friendly interface. Both Magento and Shopify support you in the growth of your company.

How can we make a choice? Magento and Shopify are good in different areas, which means they can lead on different routes.

Which of the two gives more space and thus offers more freedom?

SaaS vs. Easter

SaaS stands for ‘Software as a Service’, while PaaS stands for ‘Platform as a Service’. Saas is basically a cloud-based platform, while PaaS is open-source software.

Magento is PaaS, completely open-source, and requires more ICT knowledge and expertise to design its own web store. Although this offers more freedom over the platform, the costs are higher for hiring these experts.

Everything on Magento is crowd-sourced, with a continuous supply of improvements, modernizations and updates.

Shopify functions as a SaaS platform and is a cloud-based eCommerce platform. It focuses on the small and medium-sized enterprises sector.

Currently, Shopify offers two options: taking out a subscription or just a service of trading solutions. With regard to a subscription, Shopify is a SaaS with a high profitability. Shopify’s trading solutions are, in fact, transactional payment processing. That means Shopify’s customers have to pay extra for every transaction made on the web store. Currently, there is greater growth in trading solution service than subscriptions.

Trading solutions are not SaaS, and it looks like Shopify is moving away from this system more and more.

At the moment, Shopify is still largely based on the use of ready-made examples, even though it gives more and more space for freedom.

Magento is still the better solution in terms of functionality and aesthetic design of the webshops.

Easy to use

The term user-friendliness is not often directly linked to the user’s freedom. However, limited ease of use can compromise the complete experience of the platform. Hence, ease of use is a decisive factor in the freedom of the user.

Regardless of whether you are a beginner or an experienced user, it is difficult to bring your company online. You will therefore probably want to choose an easy-to-use platform that you can teach yourself quickly.

Shopify responds to this. As mentioned, Magento is open source and so much more complicated. It is virtually impossible to fully master Magento in a few days. Shopify is a much simpler website designer that offers a list of custom options that allow you to do everything.

In this design, you can move elements on pages to build your online store. On this platform you can use themes, enter and edit your own photos, add products, set up payments, but also adjust the entire appearance and feel of the website.

Magento is a CMS – Content Management System. It is noticeably more advanced and certainly will not be something for an untrained user. Using Magento is a bit like a programming system – you will likely need to bring in ICT expertise to set up the system.

Even though Magento offers more freedom, functionality and flexibility, when it comes to ease of use, Shopify is the winner.

So is ease of use more freedom? The amount of freedom that Magent can offer depends on your ICT skills. If you don’t know it and hiring an expert is too expensive for you, then the freedom you get at Magento is not usable.

Themes

If we want to see who offers more freedom at Magento and Shopify, we have to consider the topic “themes”.

Developing an online store is a customer-oriented task. It means that the theme of the web store must fit in seamlessly with the taste of your customers.

The graphic design of your online store can make a customer decide whether or not to make a purchase.

Shopify has over 60 beautiful, professional and customizable themes. This is normally enough for most entrepreneurs and should be enough for you.

In contrast, Magento only offers 16 ready-made, customizable themes, which isn’t a huge offering. So does Shopify offer more freedom in this area?

Remember that Magento is fully customizable and all it takes to create what you want is expertise; yours or another person’s.

Sellers want to be able to design their own theme, as they have in mind.

In short, if you want to give your original web shop its own design, Magento gives you much more freedom. However, if you’re happy with a choice of 60 professional-looking themes, Shopify might be a better choice.

So, Which Is Better

Theoretically, Magento offers much more flexibility than Shopify. However, in a less literal sense of the word “freedom,” Shopify is at the forefront of delivering the desired results. If you have an ICT team or have some ICT knowledge yourself, Magento gives you much more freedom of choice. If you don’t have that, Shopify is the way to go.