Choosing the right platform to start your online business has never been easier, especially if you're new to eCommerce. The most common questions might include the best choice between open-source platforms and hosted carts.

Currently, Magento and Shopify are the two best-in-class platforms that several thousands of online merchants use. Despite some drawbacks, both platforms are rated high and provides superior functionality.

If you are still perplexed and unsure of what you should choose, you can stop the search as you are in the right place. In this article, we will be writing on the comprehensive Magento vs. Shopify comparison that will help you determine the most suitable for your business.

What is Magento Development?

Magento is a PHP-powered platform and Adobe product that accounts for about 30% of all eCommerce websites, and it was created in 2008. Because of its advantage as an open-source product, Magento is popular and successful as it has a large community of contributors.

The best part of Magento development is the customization options. A talented creative developer can do many things with Magento to provide a customer experience that is different and exceptional from the rest.

Magento is a customized solution that start-ups and companies can use. If you are a beginner, Magento's open-source solution is your best bet. However, if you are a medium or large company, consider Magento Commerce and Magento Commerce Cloud.

What is Shopify Development?

Shopify is popular as a hosted e-commerce platform, and it eases the burden of managing the technical aspect for you. The Shopify development team was established in 2004 to develop products for personal reasons and now provides services to more than one million companies globally.

This is a plug-and-play platform with 24/7 support. The friendly user interface also brings a pleasant experience to your customers.

Shopify is a standard solution with plans suitable for start-ups and established businesses. If you are just starting, the basic version of Shopify is for you. It is easy to use and offers a professional experience, but, unlike Magento, it is not free. On the other hand, Shopify has standard and advanced versions that can be customized to meet business needs.

Pricing

The advantage of developing Magento is the free basic version, with which you can start your e-commerce business. The Magento open-source version of the software is free (not including hosting, themes, add-ons, domain names, SSL certificates).

In addition, the e-commerce platform supports two premium paid versions to expand your e-commerce business, namely Magento Commerce and Magento Commerce Cloud. There is no fixed price for these two versions; it depends on how you customize your store.

While Shopify offers a free trial period of 14 days, from which fees apply. It is a plug-and-play solution without the external costs of outsourcing or internal management by developers. Costs vary from plan to plan.

You can find almost everything here - online storage functions, navigation, payment gateway integration, advanced POS applications, and functions.

Payment

Shopify has over 100 payment gateways to choose from; however, you must pay a transaction fee. To save the e-merchants cost, Shopify also has an easy-to-use payment processor, called Shopify Payments, which is free. This is an advanced function of this website builder.

Magento has no payment. Meaning, you have to download the payment processor extension from the Magento marketplace and then pay a transaction fee. Magento currently has 349 options for store owners to select.

Besides, Magento payment applications support many languages. Therefore, if you want to outperform the global eCommerce business, multilingual support is very important.

Help and Support

What is impressive is that Shopify outperforms other competitors by providing committed help and support. A professional team is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for telephone, email, and live chat to resolve customer issues in minutes. Also, Shopify users can browse community forums, the Help Center, API documentation, and many video tutorials.

Alternatively, you can hire professional and certified Shopify experts to ensure the problem is solved completely and encourage seamless business operation. As a self-hosted solution, Magento does not support live chat, phone, or email on the go unless you sign up for your Magento Commerce Cloud B2B plan.

On the contrary, Magento users can take advantage of an excellent user community. Here, you can get advice from Magento experts around the world. There is also an active help center that provides continuous support.

Extensions and add-ons

With Magento and Shopify, you need to consider the cost of add-ons. The basic software may not be enough to create the required online store, so it is expected that the price will be higher.

Shopify users can access other features by paying more monthly, such as abandoned cart recovery, gift cards, and advanced reports. However, Magento users can get these resources at a lower price every year.

For instance, CreativeMinds can offer paid Magento extensions with a one-time purchase, including a year of support and updates.

Ease of Use

Shopify and Magento are the two most known e-commerce platforms globally, competing with other big companies like BigCommerce and OpenCart.

However, the main difference between the two platforms is:

Shopify is a complete, hosted e-commerce platform. That is, you don't have to worry about hosting, website security, or the hassle of updating software. All these have been sorted out for you.

Magento is an open-source eCommerce platform, which means you can download and use it freely. However, sorting out the server and web hosting, registering your domain name, correcting errors, and keeping your website up to date and secure is completely your responsibility.

This makes Shopify much easier to use. You do not need extensive technical knowledge to use it. All you have to do to set up your online store is sign in with a Shopify account.

Adding products is also very simple for Shopify users.

Another thing: managing your orders is easy and intuitive. All aspects of the Shopify dashboard are simplified so that all team members (irrespective of their technical abilities) can use it safely and competently, without wasting time on things that should be easy to do.

Hire the top 1% tech freelance shopify talent through Upstack.