Magento 2 Vs. Shopify – Comparative Study
With the release of Magento version 2.0, Magento has upgraded their technology base to be an ideal solution for all business sizes. On the other hand Shopify recorded their highest growth in the recent times. Shopify is an easy-to-use way for anyone to build a store. As it is a SaaS based model, customers have to pay a monthly fee to use it, and it’s capable of supporting both beginner and high-volume stores.
With the release of Magento version 2.0, Magento has upgraded their technology base to be an ideal solution for all business sizes. On the other hand Shopify recorded their highest growth in the recent times. Shopify is an easy-to-use way for anyone to build a store. As it is a SaaS based model, customers have to pay a monthly fee to use it, and it’s capable of supporting both beginner and high-volume stores.
For retail and ecommerce players, choosing the right online store platform is incredibly important. This sets the stage for a successful, or unsuccessful, ecommerce business. Shopify and Magento are often pitted head to head in the race for the best ecommerce platform, although they are really completely different. We’ll understand how Magento and Shopify are different by focusing on the new features of Magento 2.
Pros of Shopify
Shopify is a software-as-a-service (SAAS), meaning users pay a monthly subscription fee to access the Shopify software. 1) Basic $29/month 2) Pro $79/month3) Unlimited $179/month
By paying more per month, Shopify users are able to access more features like abandoned cart recovery, gift cards, and advanced reporting.
Companies that are using shopify can engage an agency for the full blown activities right from idea to development to marketing as the development efforts are less when you compare with Magento
Shopify platform is known for its speed and scalability on products
Pros – Magento 2
Magento is the most commonly used ecommerce platform. As per google analytics, they claim 14% of the top million sites
Magento uses PHP and it is an open source platform. Open source means the source code is freely available and can be modified. With Magento, template code can be altered to suit specific store needs, while with Shopify, it cannot.
Magento has over 5,000 add-on extensions (free and paid) which gives the advantage when it comes to capabilities.
The Magento 2 upgrade in theme development has drag and drop visual editing. This allows non-coders and coders alike to create colorful sites in no time.
Cons of Magento 2
With Magento 2 at the helm, Magento users may definitely need to enlist full-time services of a developer to set up and manage the store, so this must be factored into potential costs.
With the release of Magento 2, it’s not as clear if the speed of the platform is increased.
You have the cut-off timeline of June 30th to upgrade it to Magento 2. With the distress times, many users may not afford to purchase Magento 2 licenses or hire developers to upgrade it to Magento 2. Even for open source community, it will be a costly affair
Cons of Shopify
Shopify uses Liquid as the coding language. This makes Shopify a fine solution for simple stores, but not ideal for more complex ones with specific advanced functions that require changing the source code.
Shopify charges transaction fees for payments made through external payment gateways like PayPal, Braintree, and Authorize.net.
Shopify has the limited community contribution and it is still evolving
Conclusion
Are you planning to create a quick store to handle 100 products? Or do you want to migrate your Magento 1 to 2 for 100 products? Shopify may best suit your needs. If you’re looking to develop an online store with unlimited potential with omnichannel, PWA and others, then Magento is likely better.
