Setting up e-commerce stores can be a highly challenging task if you don’t find the most suitable platform for your requirements. Magento and Shopify are two of the most popular e-commerce platforms that are used by several people around the globe to build and run their online stores. Both Magento and Shopify have their set of pros and cons that make them a good choice for some and an incompetent choice for others.

In this article, we will discuss the pros and cons of Magento and Shopify to help users find the right choice for them by evaluating the positives and negatives of each platform.

MAGENTO

Magento offers several pros and cons that users must know about before opting for it.

Pros

  1. SEO-Friendly

Magento is very SEO friendly in terms of its customizable features and web architecture. By allowing such flexible features to the users it helps them to achieve optimal search engine positioning which is very important for e-commerce websites.

  1. Scalability

Magento encourages scalability with the help of its features and plan designs. It is designed to become more and more ambitious as the business grows so that all customer needs are met.

  1. Customizable

Magento offers multiple customization options, with more than 4000 extensions that allow users to add new features. It enables professional as well as amateur users to achieve outstanding results.

  1. Community

Magento is an open source platform that is supported by a large number of professionals and developers. The Magento Community’s official page offers forums, FAQs, documents and other useful content to their users that has been developed by the platform’s team as well as the community members.

Cons

  1. Expensive

    Magento is an expensive platform. It has several versions, and even though the community version if free, the enterprise version costing starts from $22,000 per year. Also, some extensions cost up to $500 and certain themes cost up to $200.

 

  1. Few Experienced Developers

The large community of Magento is definitely a pro. However, since there are a number of developers in the community, finding authentic Magento developers becomes a difficult task.

  1. Time Consuming

Magento offers several customizations, however, they are difficult to implement as Magento has a slow loading time and imports data at slow rates. The enterprise and premium enterprise versions are comparatively faster, but the community version takes a lot of time to set up.

  1. Hosting Issues

Magento provides its users with basic software. It does not take any responsibility for the technical details. But, not all users are proficient in dealing with domains, hosting, coding, etc. Hence, it becomes a significant hurdle for users who don’t belong to a highly technical background.

SHOPIFY

Shopify has multiple pros and cons which users must take into account before leveraging this platform.

Pros

  1. Built-In Tools

Shopify has several in-built tools pertaining to organizing and filtering products, marketing insights, sales, inventory management, customer information, customer and order tracking, etc. With the help of a clear, easy-to-use, and concise user interface, all these tools can be managed via the control panel.

  1. Customizations and Integrations

Shopify offers a customizable website builder that allows users to customize even their downloaded themes to make their website look exactly like they want it. Depending on the downloaded theme, Shopify allows users to add, move or edit content as well as install custom templates from different sections. It also allows third-party integrations to add further customizations. Shopify’s app store offers free as well as premium apps for integrations.

  1. Fully Hosted Platform

With Shopify, users don’t have to pay extra for leveraging server maintenance and hosting services. It is a fully hosted platform and doesn’t rely on any external host.

  1. 24/7 Support

Shopify offers support via a community as well as their own support team. With 24/7 available support, it helps users via email, live chats, and a hotline. It also has help forums where users can help each other.

Cons

  1. Limited Development

Development on Shopify is limited to using its Slate toolkit or the built-in editor. Also, building right from the scratch or upon an existing theme is extremely labor-intensive.

  1. App IntegrationIssues

All app integrations are built differently. If an integration creates additional files and adds them to the theme’s files, potential issues can surface for the users later, especially if they’re using the Slate toolkit to modify their theme as debugging them will become a tough task.

  1. Customization Limitations

Shopify is exceptionally customizable as compared to other platforms, but it also has some limitations pertaining to certain additional features that cannot be unlocked because of its code setup.

For users who have just started out in e-commerce, want to set up and run their store quickly while having 24/7 access to a support team, Shopify is the ideal solution. However, for users who have coding skills, want total creative freedom, have a global audience, are aiming to create a big brand, have significant monetary resources & time availability or want to build a store for medium or large businesses, Magento is the ideal platform.

Though Shopify is a much more user-friendly platform than Magento, the latter is more of a project that is reliable for large organizations that are proficient in technical know-how.

It is essential that users refer to their priorities, evaluate these platforms against them and then make the final decision. By contrasting the pros and cons of Shopify and Magento, users can find the option that is most suitable for their e-commerce business.