Shopify and Magento suit different kinds of business: Magento suits teams that want to own and modify every layer of the platform, and Shopify suits teams that want to sell without running the platform. Both can power large, complex stores. The deciding question is who carries the hosting, security and upgrade work.
What is the main difference between Shopify and Magento?
The main difference between Shopify and Magento is who runs the platform. Magento Open Source is software you install and host yourself, so your team or agency owns the servers, security patches, extensions and version upgrades. Shopify is a hosted platform, so Shopify runs the infrastructure and the merchant configures and sells.
Magento is also sold as Adobe Commerce, Adobe’s paid edition. Adobe describes Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure as a self-service platform for building, deploying and managing the application on infrastructure Adobe provisions (Adobe Experience League). Even on that cloud, the application, extensions and deployments remain the merchant’s responsibility.
How do Shopify and Magento compare feature by feature?
Shopify and Magento compare most clearly on operations rather than storefront features:
| Shopify (incl. Plus) | Magento Open Source | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Managed by Shopify | Self-hosted |
| Security and core updates | Handled by Shopify | Merchant or agency |
| Customisation | Themes, apps, metafields, Shopify Functions | Full code access |
| Catalogue model | Products with variants and metafields | Configurable, simple and bundle products with attributes |
| B2B | Native B2B on supported plans | Via extensions, or Adobe Commerce |
| Typical team | Small in-house team or agency | Dedicated developers |
When is Magento the better choice than Shopify?
Magento is the better choice when your business genuinely needs to change how the commerce engine works, not just how the store looks. Typical cases:
- Pricing, quoting or fulfilment logic that cannot be expressed in apps or Shopify Functions
- An existing development team already skilled in Magento
- A requirement to host the platform and data on your own infrastructure
- Deep integration with other Adobe products
When is Shopify the better choice than Magento?
Shopify is the better choice when the customisation you need fits within themes, apps, metafields and checkout extensions, which covers most retail and many B2B stores. Typical cases:
- You want enterprise scale without an infrastructure or platform-ops team
- You want predictable running costs instead of open-ended maintenance
- You want to launch and change the store faster
- You need custom checkout logic that Shopify Functions can handle
What does Magento really cost compared with Shopify?
Magento’s real cost is people and hosting, not the licence. Magento Open Source is free to download, but every Magento store needs hosting, security monitoring, extension updates and periodic major upgrades, and each upgrade can break custom code and third-party extensions. Adobe supports each Adobe Commerce version for a fixed window — three years of standard support from general availability (Adobe lifecycle policy) — so upgrades are a recurring project, not a one-off.
Shopify’s cost is a subscription plus apps and payment fees. Platform upgrades happen without a migration project on the merchant’s side.
How does Mooshfy decide between Shopify and Magento for a client?
Mooshfy decides between Shopify and Magento by listing the requirements a store genuinely has, then checking each one against Shopify’s standard features, apps and Shopify Functions. If every requirement fits, Shopify is usually the better business decision because it removes the maintenance burden. If a requirement only works by changing the commerce engine itself, Magento or Adobe Commerce may justify its overhead — and we say so.
What should you do next if you are on Magento today?
If you are on Magento today, start with an audit of your extensions and custom code: list what each one does and whether Shopify covers it natively, with an app, or not at all. That list tells you how complex a migration would be and whether the move is worth it. Our Magento to Shopify migration guide covers the redirect and data steps.
Frequently asked questions
Is Magento the same as Adobe Commerce?
Magento Open Source is the free, self-hosted edition. Adobe Commerce is the paid edition sold by Adobe, available self-hosted or on Adobe’s cloud infrastructure, with extra B2B and merchandising features.
Is Shopify cheaper than Magento?
Shopify is usually cheaper to run once hosting, security, upgrades and developer time are counted, even though Magento Open Source has no licence fee. The exact comparison depends on how custom your Magento build is and who maintains it.
Can Shopify handle a large Magento-sized catalogue?
Yes. Shopify handles large catalogues, variants, multiple markets and B2B. The work in a migration is mapping Magento’s attributes and configurable products onto Shopify variants and metafields, not fitting the catalogue in.
Will I lose SEO moving from Magento to Shopify?
Not if every old URL gets a permanent redirect to its new equivalent. Google recommends 301 or 308 redirects for site moves and keeping them for at least a year, and expects some temporary ranking fluctuation while it recrawls.