Shopify or Magento: Which one is better?

If you are contemplating launching an e-commerce store, Shopify vs. Magento is a standard battle you must have come across. E-commerce is a highly lucrative business idea if you do the things right, and when it comes to taking the correct steps, it starts with choosing an adequate platform. Both Magento and Shopify are best-in-class e-commerce development platforms, but differ a lot in terms of models, pricing, functionality, and programming languages.

Here is a quick comparison between these two platforms to help you pick the best one for your online business.

Shopify

Let’s talk about Shopify first. It is a hosted e-commerce platform, so you will not need to handle the cost of hosting and technicalities. If you are just starting with a small store or dropshipping business, Shopify can be an ideal pick. Even if you don’t want to take a lot of external help from a Shopify development company, you can DIY as Shopify is easy to use. With an intuitive dashboard, easy store building, and drop element functionality, you can build your store effortlessly.

A few hours invested well, and you will have your Shopify store up and running. If you have a small business and contemplate performing most of the day-to-day run and optimization, Shopify would be a great pick for you. However, if you are relying too much on SEO, Shopify theme development, and customization, Shopify might be the best option.

Let’s discuss some pros and cons of Shopify.

Pros

• Beginner-friendly: easy to set up, use, manage, and customize
• Fast load and response time
• Cheaply available Shopify customer support
• Seamless integration with platforms like Amazon

Cons

• The SEO functionality is not good
• Limited customization and Shopify website design options
• A small transaction fee is charged per sale

Magento

Magento is an open-source platform and helps you make powerful, customized, and unique stores. There is no limitation to what you can do as long as you have ample resources. Magento is a self-hosted platform and is widely used by popular brands across the globe. It offers excellent SEO capabilities but requires an understanding of how the platform works. Unless you have hundreds of products to sell, or you have enough skill and experience to work with Magento, stick to Shopify.

Here are a few pros and cons of Magento.

Pros

• Provides an array of features
• Has robust SEO functionalities
• Offers one-click selling
• No design limitation

Cons

• Hard to master, you will need some time to get used to it
• Additional costs of hosting, themes, extensions
• No in-built support

How to Choose the Best Platform?

Both Magento and Shopify have drawbacks and advantages, and it all boils down to what you are looking for. In general, here are a few things to consider before choosing the right e-commerce development platform.

• Load time
• Ease of use
• Developer friendliness
• Design flexibility and mobile-readiness
• SEO tools
• Up-selling & cross-selling
• Cost of the initial set up
• Marketing automation
• Robust content management system
• Presence of technical support
• Product options

Wrapping It Up

Both Magento and Shopify offer premium plans as well, with Shopify Plus costing $2k per month and Magento e-commerce and Magento Commerce Cloud costing at around $22k. Talking about the best platform, it all depends on what you are looking for. If you want a simple and easy-to-use platform where you can start a business, Shopify is your way to go. And, if you want a robust solution with excellent scaling and customization features, go for Magento.