Magento Vs Shopify

Here we arrive at the very first in our informative new series of ‘vs’ articles, where we compare a few different eCommerce options. Today we jump back to the old question of Shopify versus Magento (Community Edition).

It’s worth saying at the outset that both Magento and Shopify are tried and tested contenders and if you’re starting out either will do a basically good job of hosting your eCommerce site. But let’s dig a bit further into the pros and cons of flexibility, design and scale.

Open source software is great for the industry. It gets eCommerce experts all over the world contributing and improving what’s currently available while offering patches and updates to tighten up the platform, as well as closing any loop holes. Magento is open source software. In real terms that means that when you have some feature or other that seemed to be missing, there’s probably a fix or a plug-in available somewhere, and if not, there probably soon will be., so it’s a definite pro.

Shopify is a paid-for platform. It’s more straightforward to setup without help, and manages to do simple things well, but you do have certain constraints, such as a limit of 25 product items at the entry level. Shopify’s available themes and templates are adequate for many online stores. However, you may not have the flexibility you need if there are particular features you’re after. Magento offers additional customisation options. In Shopify’s favour though, they offer a wide range of payment options as standard. With Magento, many of these have to be added manually.

Both Shopify and Magento are great for calculating the charge for shipping and delivery, so that’s not going to be a deal breaker when you’re comparing the two. However, if your mind is set on providing special discounts and money-off facilities, the starter level of Shopify does not have this facility, whereas Magento does.

Subsequent levels of Shopify offer additional options, for a fee, but there still isn’t the flexibility or upscaling potential that’s available with Magento, especially if you have professional assistance and support. For larger stores looking for serious versatility and scope, Magento is likely to be the way to go.

If you would like some more information on the UK Magento hosting available, then why not contact us here at Media Lounge and speak to one of our experts who will be happy to talk things through with you?