One very common query in 2025 that many online businesses often come across is “What is the best e-commerce solution for their business?”.
The best choice depends on various factors such as your business size, revenue, the features you require, and mode of operation, among others.
Today we will be covering two of our current top favorite e-commerce platforms: Adobe Commerce vs. Shopify. Both of these e-commerce platforms cater to very different business requirements.
Let’s dive right into it!
# Quick TLDR
Shopify is an easy-to-use, low-maintenance solution to get your business online, particularly if you want to scale your store and build your inventory.
On the other hand, Adobe Commerce is an open-source platform, like WordPress – it’s complex for beginners, includes additional costs, and is better suited to enterprise-level businesses looking for more control over platform and customizations than Shopify, managing high workloads.
The price of a basic Shopify store for a small business starts at $29 per month (hosting and domain included). While for Adobe Commerce, you would need a custom quote from them. Adobe Commerce doesn’t also consider hosting, domain, and other charges, which you would need to pay separately.
Adobe Commerce (Magetno)
Adobe Commerce, formerly known as Magento, is an enterprise-level headless e-commerce solution built to uplift customers’ shopping experience. With Adobe Commerce, businesses can manage various online marketplace operations such as lead generation to sales and customer support.
One thing that makes Adobe Commerce stand out from other e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, is that it offers both B2B and B2C management surfaces, developed on a single integrated platform. Adobe Commerce’s cloud-based infrastructure is very powerful in handling the high-traffic needs of big businesses.
Since Adobe Commerce is built on an open-source platform, it opens a wide playfield for skilled developers to create customized user interfaces for a unique user experience.
Adobe Commerce also offers AI tools that businesses can use to create personalized user experiences based on user behavior analysis. It’s claimed to have an increase in conversions by 10 times and average order values by at least 9 times.
To know more about Adobe Commerce (Magento) features in detail, check out our extensive blog covering all about “What is Adobe Commerce”.
Tech Stack Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento)
| Layer | Technology | Details |
| Programming Language | PHP | Core backend development language. |
| Framework | Laminas (formerly Zend Framework) | MVC framework used for structuring the application. |
| Database | MySQL/MariaDB | Relational database for storing application data. |
| Caching | Redis | In-memory caching system to improve performance. |
| Varnish | HTTP accelerator for faster page load times. | |
| Search Engine | Elasticsearch / OpenSearch | Used for advanced catalog search and indexing. |
| Frontend | HTML, CSS, JavaScript | Standard frontend technologies. |
| Knockout.js | JS library for creating dynamic UI components. | |
| Templating Engine | PHTML | Used for rendering templates. |
| Web Server | Apache or Nginx | Server software for hosting and serving the application. |
| Message Queuing | RabbitMQ (optional) | Supports asynchronous communication and order processing. |
| DevOps/Hosting | Docker (optional), Kubernetes (optional) | Used for containerization and scaling. |
| Cloud Infrastructure (Adobe Commerce Cloud, AWS, Azure, etc.) | Flexible hosting options based on Adobe Commerce or third-party services. | |
| APIs | REST, GraphQL | For third-party integrations and frontend-backend communication. |
| Version Control | Git | Source code versioning and collaboration. |
| Security | Composer Dependency Manager | For managing secure PHP dependencies. |
| Built-in Content Security Policies (CSP) | Mitigates cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. |
Shopify
Shopify is a successful B2C e-commerce platform that helps online businesses build shopping websites with integrated payment portals to process customer payments. What makes it stand out is that it supports selling through other marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, and Instagram as well.
Tech Stack Table Shopify
| Layer | Technology | Details |
| Programming Language | Ruby | Core backend development language. |
| JavaScript | Frontend and app development language. | |
| Framework | Ruby on Rails | Backend framework used for structuring the application. |
| Database | MySQL | Relational database for structured data. |
| Redis | In-memory data store for caching and session management. | |
| Search Engine | Elasticsearch | Used for advanced catalog search and indexing. |
| Frontend | HTML, CSS, JavaScript | Standard technologies for themes and storefronts. |
| Liquid | Shopify’s proprietary templating language for themes. | |
| Web Server | Nginx | Handles HTTP requests and serves static/dynamic content. |
| Hosting | Shopify’s proprietary cloud platform | Fully managed hosting with automatic scaling. |
| Caching | Fastly CDN | Content delivery network for faster page load times. |
| APIs | GraphQL, REST | For integrating third-party apps and custom storefronts. |
| DevOps/CI/CD | Shopify CLI | Used for app/theme development and deployment workflows. |
| Security | Shopify’s proprietary security systems | Includes SSL encryption, PCI compliance, and fraud detection. |
| Extensions | Shopify App Store | Allows third-party apps for extended functionality. |
| Payment Gateway | Shopify Payments | Built-in payment gateway (supports additional gateways too). |
| Ecosystem Tools | Polaris Design System | Design framework for creating consistent user experiences. |
| Shopify App Bridge | SDK for integrating apps into the Shopify admin and POS. |
Pros and Cons: Adobe Commerce (Magento) vs.Shopify
Customization
Since Adobe Commerce, is based on open-source (Magento Open Source), it’s a highly flexible e-commerce platform offering extensive customization capabilities for developers. But this thing also backfires for businesses that don’t have a dedicated developer team, as it may get too technical as the functionalities are added in the Magento store. Also, it requires technical expertise for day-to-day customizations, which could create a bottleneck for small businesses.
If you want to get affordable Magento Commerce development services, connect with Octal Digital, the top Magento eCommerce development company in the USA. We will help you in developing an amazing e-commerce Store and launching that. The ongoing maintenance makes our company the most reliable team of top US-based Magento developers.
Whereas, Shopify claims that setting up a Shopify store is 40% faster than creating an Adobe Commerce store. Shopify offers a user-friendly template/theme-based drag-and-drop store setup screen, which comes in handy for a not-so-technical person. But this also adds up to limited flexibility compared to Adobe Commerce for advanced customizations. One can easily set up a store without much prior coding knowledge, while it gets complex to set up an Adobe Commerce store.
Scalability
Adobe Commerce is suited excellently for large enterprises and complex eCommerce operations. Since again it’s open source, a business has to bear the hosting and server fees separately. This, the server, and management must be handled independently, requiring resources.
However, Shopify is fully managed cloud hosting meaning you wouldn’t need to buy separate hosting and domains for your Shopify store. This is really cost-effective compared to Adobe Commerce. Shopify’s cloud space also offers automatic scaling for traffic spikes, however since Shopify controls the hosting (by default), scaling can become costly for high-volume stores. This means it’s ideal for small to mid-sized businesses.
Ease of Use
Adobe Commerce, no doubt, is complex as it requires hardcore coding skills to update or add any new functionality to the store. But this also holds a fexibity for developers to equip the store with advanced features, and extensive options for power users. The developers get the freedom to decide how the store should function. Thus, a background in coding is a must initially to set up a functional Magento store. Thus, we may conclude that Adobe Commerce comes with a steep learning curve for beginners, in order to make the maximum use of it being an open-source project.
Shopify requires nothing in terms of skills. It offers a very Intuitive drag-and-drop template-based interface, which is specifically designed for non-technical users. But since it’s a template-based platform, the customization is limited, and somewhat offers less control over backend development compared to Magento.
Features
Adobe Commerce (Magento) is a rich built-in functionality platform, for both B2B and B2C operations, offering features like an AI recommendation engine to boost sales, multi-store setup, and advanced catalog management. Feature-richness can be overwhelming for small businesses.
Ultimately, businesses can now provide outstanding digital experiences to their customers, that too at a single platform with Adobe Commerce’s headless architecture. To learn more about Adobe Commerce and discuss how it can help you unlock your online store, get a quote from our top Magento developer experts today!
Coming to Shopify, store owners can with a few clicks choose from 1000s of extensions from Shopify’s official App store for extending features easily, or strong multichannel selling support. Again, features are rich in both Shopify and Adobe Commerce, but Adobe Commerce is more powerful in features compared to Shopify, being an open-source project for years.
Performance
With Adobe Commerce, business owners can be worry-free, since Magento’s stores are prebuilt and well-optimized for high-traffic and complex products. However, the performance also depends on the hosting provider and configuration, which you have to choose for your scalability needs.
Shopify is also known to be fast and reliable in terms of performance. It’s a built-in CDN out of the box. Normally, businesses won’t feel any performance issues, but since Shipy is a template-based solution, you will have limited control over backend performance tuning. On many occasions, businesses have to hire freelancers to handle performance issues in large Shopify stores.
Security
Both Shopify and Adobe Commerce are very secure and reliable platforms.
Adobe is no doubt fully secure and gives the developers full control over security, supporting custom measures. Just like every other store management task, security patches need to be applied manually.
Shopify is inbuilt PCI-DSS compliant, including SSL, and robust fraud detection tools. Businesses won’t need to perform any specific security measures, as all these measures are built-in. However, limited flexibility in implementing custom security measures, for example, RBAC, VPN proxy, etc.
Recommended Read: How To Improve the Shopify Website Security?
Third-Party Integrations
For Adobe Commerce, you get extensive integration options for ERP, CRM, and other systems. Being an open-source, Adobe Commerce offers endless 3 party integration support, making it a heaven for developers.
While Shopify delivers a seamless integration experience with many third-party apps via API and the Shopify App Store. But again, unlike Adobe Commerce, Shopify makes businesses dependent on Shopify’s ecosystem for integrations.
SEO Capabilities
You get advanced SEO options, and granular control over meta tags, URLs, etc. with Adobe Commerce, which requires manual effort for optimization. In comparison, Shopify, has strong SEO out-of-the-box, mobile-optimized themes.
Support
Adobe Commerce offers dedicated support for enterprise customers, while you have a large Magento Community support from open-source. Sometimes, paid support can be costlier too.
Shopify offers 24/7 support included in all plans, making it really comfortable for debugging any bug, or quick resolutions. Support quality can vary, especially depending on the technical issues.
Cost Analysis: Adobe Commerce vs. Shopify
Shopify claims to offer one of the lowest platform costs on average, with Adobe Commerce users experiencing 42% higher costs on average due to less flexible pricing.
Adobe Commerce Plans
Although the pricing of Adobe Commerce is not shared directly on their official website, a store’s total cost quote may vary due to many factors, such as:
- Adobe/Magento edition,
- Hosting,
- Web store customization,
- Extensions
- Add-ons,
- Payment service fees,
- Digital marketing efforts,
- Post-deployment maintenance
For a mid-to-large scale company, it may cost anywhere around $5,000 for a basic online store based on the Magento Open Source edition, while a more complex Adobe Commerce Cloud store can easily cost you at least $50,000.
Shopify’s Plans
Shopify offers a subscription-type price model which starts at $29 per month and can easily go up to $299 per month (billed annually). Not to mention, it offers a 3-day free trial, and then $1 for the next month as a starting offer.
There are many other ways businesses can spend on Shopify, including 3-party plugin integrations. Now these plugins (available at the Shopify store) may charge one-time integration fees or subscription models, depending on your requirements. It was necessary to mention because a substantial amount is spent on Shopfy plugin integrations, to make the user experience more delightful.
For enterprise-level businesses, Shopify Plus offers customizable solutions and support, with pricing starting from $2,300 per month.
Which Companies Use Adobe Commerce
Many big brands have recently migrated 100% to Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento) due to its flexibility and scalability scopes. The powerful Adobe Commerce editor makes it ideal for large enterprises with the resources and budget to work on the site. For example, Canon and Coca-Cola use Adobe Commerce for their business websites because of the flexibility and scalability granted by the platform.
Other prominent companies/brands functioning on Adobe Commerce include:
- HP
- LIEBHERR
- Shoebacca
- Rossignol
- Helly Hansen
- SCUF Gaming
- SalonCentric
- Lovesac
- Marc Fisher
- Lafayette148
- Killer Ink
- Alshaya Group
- Shinola
Which Companies Use Shopify
Here are some top-known brands, powered by Shopify’s e-commerce ecosystem:
- Gymshark
- Heinz
- Red Bull
- Kylie Cosmetics
- Penguin Books
- Allbirds
- Staples
- Herschel Supply Co.
- Nestlé
- Victoria Beckham Beauty
When to Choose Adobe Commerce:
We advise you to choose Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento) for:
- Large or complex businesses needing extensive customization.
- Enterprises with specific requirements for multi-store or B2B eCommerce.
- Businesses with a dedicated technical team for development and maintenance.
When to Choose Shopify:
We advise you to choose Shopify for:
- Small-to-medium businesses looking for simplicity and speed to market.
- Non-technical users who prefer a fully managed, all-in-one solution.
- Brands focusing on multichannel selling and fast scalability.
Conclusion
Both Adobe Commerce and Shopify come with their own benefits and costs. At the end of the day, it comes down to what is the level of your business requirements. Adobe Commerce setup takes technical knowledge and time, while Shopify allows you to quickly launch your e-commerce store with its 200+ available templates.
FAQs
Which one is better, Magento or Shopify?
Shopify is an easy-to-use, low-maintenance solution to get your business online, particularly if you want to scale your store and build your inventory. On the other hand, Adobe Commerce is an open-source platform, it’s complex for beginners, an requires technical expertise. It also includes additional costs and is better suited to enterprise-level businesses.
Which is better in terms of Pricing, Shopify or Adobe Commerce?
The price of a basic Shopify store for a small business starts at $29 per month hosting, and domain included. While for Adobe Commerce, you would need a custom quote from them. Adobe Commerce doesn’t also consider hosting, domain, and other charges, which you would need to pay separately.
Why is Adobe Commerce (Magento) so expensive?
Adobe Commerce’s cost reflects its complexity, scalability, and features. Being an open source, additional expenses come from hosting, development, extensions, and potential managed services.
