Mar 01, 2023

Tamara J. & Jordana A.

15min Read

Magento vs Shopify: Which One Is Ideal for Your Online Store?

eCommerce is one of the most popular ways to make money online. In 2021, the global online retail market was worth around $5.2 trillion. Statista forecasts the figure to grow by 56% over the next few years, reaching $8.1 trillion by 2026.

Before jumping into the eCommerce world, you’ll need to build an online store to run your business. When looking for the best eCommerce platform, Magento and Shopify are two popular choices. Both eCommerce platforms have similar functionality, yet their features and target audiences are vastly different.

This article will explore the differences between Magento vs Shopify and discuss how each eCommerce platform can help you start selling online. We’ll break down our analysis of Magento vs Shopify based on various key factors, including ease of use, customizability, marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and pricing.

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What’s the Difference Between Magento and Shopify?

The main difference between Magento and Shopify is their target user base and level of customization. Magento is an open-source platform that is highly customizable and geared towards large enterprises with complex needs. Shopify, on the other hand, is a hosted platform that is more user-friendly and geared towards small to medium-sized businesses.

What Is Magento?

Magento Open Source is a self-hosted eCommerce platform with robust tools for starting an online business. It’s ideal for enterprise-level companies and users who want complete control and customizability for their websites.

The platform has a module-based architecture to expand eCommerce stores’ functionalities. Site owners can launch online stores and add a broad range of eCommerce features by coding or choosing from the thousands of Magento extensions available on the marketplace.

Magento comes in two versions ‒ Magento 1 and Magento 2. Since the eCommerce platform stopped releasing updates for Magento 1, this article will focus on Magento 2, specifically the Open Source version.

As of 2022, Magento powers over 267,000 active online stores. Land Rover, Liverpool, Ford, and Nespresso are a few big brands that use Magento.

What Is Shopify?

Shopify is a highly popular eCommerce platform that caters to all kinds of businesses, including offline and online stores. Its point-of-sale functionality is a versatile solution to support offline transactions in brick-and-mortar stores and pop-up shops.

This platform offers extensive features to build a full-fledged online business capable of handling online transactions and branding and marketing campaigns. Shopify users can also easily scale their online store by installing plugins from the Shopify App Store.

The eCommerce platform powers over 700,000 online stores worldwide, with a market share of around 10%. Big brands like Sephora, Gymshark, and Penguin Books are among Shopify’s most notable customers.

Magento vs Shopify: Which Is Easier to Use

Ease of use is an essential factor to consider when choosing a new platform, particularly if this is your first time building an eCommerce store or you plan to run the site independently. Otherwise, site owners must consider the extra cost of hiring a developer to maintain their website.

Shopify

To start a Shopify account, simply sign up on the official website by choosing a name for your store and filling in the required business details. From this point forward, you’ll be running on a three-day free trial.

The platform will redirect you to the dashboard of a demo store using a default theme and placeholder products. Here, you can start configuring your Shopify store while learning how the platform works.

Shopify’s user interface is intuitive, so navigating the relevant tabs to set up your Shopify plan, payments, and other store settings is easy, even without coding knowledge.

Changing the look of your eCommerce store simply requires you to install another theme. You can get one from Shopify’s theme collection or a third-party marketplace like ThemeForest and Creative Market.

Adding products is also straightforward. On your Shopify dashboard, navigate to the Products tab and click Add product. Configure each item’s details on the next screen, such as the product title, description, images, and pricing.

Pro Tip

There are other ways how you can launch an online store without coding. Hostinger’s eCommerce website builder is a beginner-friendly tool that lets you build a store online using intuitive drag-and-drop interface.

Magento

Since Magento is a self-hosted platform, its start-up process is more involved than Shopify. After securing a domain name and a web hosting plan that supports this eCommerce solution, the next step is downloading Magento Open Source.

Depending on your hosting provider, there are multiple ways to install Magento. On Hostinger, you can set up Magento manually or use our auto-installer.

After completing the installation, you’ll have access to the Magento dashboard. Here, you can set up the online shop, monitor sales, view recent orders, and check the view count of each item.

Unlike Shopify, your Magento store will look pretty bare to begin with. Fix this by installing a theme from the Magento Themes Marketplace or uploading a custom theme from a third-party website. To add products, navigate to Catalog → Products and click the Add Product button.

Magento vs Shopify: Which Has Better Store Management

Both Magento and Shopify have a robust store management system to support all business types and sizes. However, the two platforms offer different types of tools to run your online shop.

Shopify

Shopify offers all the necessary features to manage your store through the admin dashboard. Here, you can set up a custom domain, configure shipping and tax rates, and enable various payment methods.

This eCommerce platform has an in-house payment gateway called Shopify Payments. You can start accepting online payments after filling in your account details, such as the store currency, bank account, and tax information.

Installing a Shopify app also only takes a few clicks. Navigate to the Shopify App Store and select Add app to integrate the chosen extension into your admin dashboard. A demo video is included on each app’s listing page, helping you determine whether it suits your eCommerce needs.

Magento

Like Shopify, Magento users can manage their store via the admin dashboard. Since Magento is a content management system (CMS), you can easily create and customize product catalogs and pages from here.

Adding products, external payment gateways, and delivery methods are also straightforward. Navigate to Store → Configuration → Sales from your admin account to set up payment processors and shipping rates.

The key difference here is that installing Magento modules is slightly more complex than Shopify apps. There are two ways to do it ‒ via Composer or manually using the Magento configuration. Although there are tutorials to guide you through the installation process, it can be daunting for users without technical knowledge.

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