Shopify Plus vs. Magento 2 – Which One Should You Use in 2021?
Magento 2 and Shopify Plus are the two most notable ecommerce platforms. Each brings a different bundle of features and propositions for the brands. Whether they are launching a brand new website or switching from one platform to another – these two options always top the list in terms of viability.
Let us unfold from the basics.
Why Are eCommerce Platforms Vital?
An eCommerce platform is a digital application aiming to manage online sales operations. Essentially, these are the virtual storefronts where consumers can scan and purchase the products/services online.
Using these platforms, the virtual merchant can design and host their website. They can also manage prices, promotions, products and choose to personalize their sales or services. When their business eventually expands, there are higher volumes that require management. It compels them to opt for an eCommerce strategy with a robust platform.
Quick Read: Magento 2 vs. WooCommerce – Which One Should You Use?
As mentioned earlier, the most commonly used platforms are Shopify Plus and Magento 2.
What is Shopify Plus?
Shopify Plus is a platform that is specially designed with high volume, enterprise-brands as a target. Even though the core features of this system are similar to the other eCommerce platforms, it has some significant features, such as:
- Enhanced automation capabilities
- Faster speed
- Better customization and control
- Reliable handling of vast amounts of data
Kelly Brown, the COO of The Working Party, stated about the platform:
“With Plus, you can get to market quicker, integrate your existing business functions and focus your budgets on driving traffic.”Since its launch in 2014, Shopify Plus has garnered the attention of many virtual entities. It is a cloud-based (SaaS) enterprise eCommerce platform that provides a fully supportive service. Some of the most reputable brands worldwide, such as PepsiCo, Lindt, and Heinz, have chosen Shopify to maintain their digital marketplace presence.
As of 2020, there were 5697 live websites on Shopify Plus, with 2862 positioned in Top 1M.
What is Magento 2?
Magento 2 is the latest version of the leading enterprise-class eCommerce platform. Over 200 000 eCommerce retailers are using this forum to pursue their digital ambitions. It offers incredible flexibility to the entrepreneurs and makes it manageable to provide a delightful customer experience.
The slogan of this platform speaks of its devotion to the entrepreneurs in the virtual world. It says:
Designed to grow, built for flexibility.
It was officially launched in 2007. And ever since that, the platform is in rage amongst some of the influential organizations. Companies like Ford, Coca-Cola, and Olympus are some of the names that have acknowledged and utilized this platform.
As of 2020, there were 6,309 live websites on Magento Enterprise, while 1,691 were in the Top 1M.
Shopify Vs. Magento 2 – A detailed comparison
In case you are fuzzed upon which platform to adopt, we have broken down a few differences between the two. Let us scan them together:
Customization
Magento 2 is an open-source platform. This means that the clients can make changes and modify their core modules. Such a level of access provides freedom when working on the design and development of the website.
As Magento websites run on private servers, you have to manage and support your own customizations. This creates risk and increases dependency on QA and load testing.
On the contrary, creating a customized enterprise on Shopify Plus is relatively more comfortable. It only asks for thorough knowledge about CSS, HTML, and Liquid. The platform offers an enormous library of themes that can weed out the need to develop pages manually.
Along with the full front-end control, the Shopify Scripts allow servers to create their own shopping carts. It brings advanced functionality and the ability to stabilize your domain.
Scalability
Magento 2 is designed particularly with scalability as a target. However, this scalability tags along with a cost. Management and hosting services ask for a great deal of attentiveness. Magento does not include hosting services with its license.
The clients have to pay a reliable provider to host and manage the peak traffic. Simultaneously, the platform also asks for a great deal of setup and configuration.
Shopify Plus, on the other hand, benefits the clients from its in-built architecture. It provides increasing growth, reliability, flexibility, and scalability. When you switch to Shopify Plus, you don’t have to fret over hosting, infrastructure, networking, or repeatedly testing the load.
Security
PCI Compliance is the industrial way to ensure that the platforms are maintaining security standards. Magento 2.0 provides the ability to use PCI Compliant storefront. However, as a vendor, you have to make sure that security standards are being maintained throughout.
Ensuring PCI Compliance can be time-consuming and expensive. It may consume you so much that you won’t be able to focus on more critical tasks.
With Shopify Plus, your website is protected and fully complies with Level 1 PCI DSS. It covers the following:
- Maintains a secure network
- Protected cardholder data
- Regular monitoring and testing of the networks
- Implementing strong access control
Cost
Cost is an important factor to consider because you would want to pay less for more.
Shopify Plus starts at $2,000 USD a month for standard setups and integrations. However, this changes into a revenue-based model if your sales reach $800,000 per month after which you have to pay $0.25% of your monthly revenue but no more than $40,000.
The default payment method on Shopify is Shopify Payment which charges 2.15% plus $0.30 for each transaction on domestic Visa and MasterCard. If you use a third party payment gateway like PayPal, Skrill, or 2Checkout, there is an additional 0.15% fee per transaction.
The license for Magento Commerce starts at about $22,000 a year for up to $1M USD revenue per year. It’s an up-front fee. On top of this, you also have to pay for hosting services that will cost you about $1,000 per month. Additionally, the development cost for Magento is more expensive that Shopify Plus.
SEO
Online merchants are particularly interested in an SEO friendly ecommerce platform so that they could rank their store with minimum efforts.
When it comes to SEO, Magento has an absolute advantage over Shopify Plus.
Magento comes with a lot of built-in SEO configuration options, both on page and technical SEO. Things like Metas, SEO friendly URLs, URL rewrites, redirections, canonical tags make your SEO work a lot easy.
Shopify Plus, on the other hand, comes with a very basic set of SEO options. You cannot modify things like URL structure and hierarchy and caching headers, or implement certain technical SEO components easily.
Parting Notes
Since both the platforms are good in their own way, but Magento takes a slight lead as its offering exceptional support and services to Magento-family. Like, using Magento you can fully control how you deliver your customer experience without any limits. Also, it keeps on evolving as per the need of business over time, which includes, managing of multiple stores, transactions across multiple countries, language and currency independence, and shipments as well. It has a large marketplace with a lot of vendors having the solution for everything too BIG or small (e.g ERP, CRM).
We hope our blog will help you to make an informed decision.
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