Magento vs Shopify In 2026: Adobe Commerce, Total Cost And When To Migrate
Daria Pohrebniak
Marketing Director - Reverb
10.18.2026
Magento and Shopify represent the two classic philosophies in ecommerce. Magento (now sold by Adobe as Adobe Commerce, with a free Magento Open Source edition) is a deeply customizable platform you host, extend and shape to any business model. Shopify is a fully hosted SaaS platform that trades some flexibility for speed, simplicity and a vast app ecosystem.
For years the default answer was “Magento for complex enterprises, Shopify for everyone else.” That line has moved. Shopify Plus now runs very large brands and includes native B2B, while Adobe has launched a SaaS version of Adobe Commerce to reduce Magento’s maintenance burden. Meanwhile a steady stream of merchants are migrating from Magento to Shopify to cut costs. This guide explains where each platform genuinely wins in 2026, what each costs, and how to plan a move if you decide to switch.
Short answer: choose Shopify (or Shopify Plus) if you want lower total cost, faster launches and less technical overhead, which fits most DTC and mid-market brands; choose Magento or Adobe Commerce if you have truly complex B2B, multi-brand or catalogue requirements, an in-house or agency development team, and a need to own and customize every layer of your stack.
Open Source (self-hosted), Adobe Commerce on-premises, cloud (PaaS) or SaaS
Fully hosted SaaS
Licence cost
Open Source free; Adobe Commerce quote-based, tied to GMV
Plans from $29/mo (annual); Plus from $2,300/mo
Hosting and security
You or your host manage it (except Adobe cloud and SaaS)
Included and managed by Shopify
Customization
Unlimited: full source code access
Themes, apps, APIs and Functions within platform limits
B2B
Very strong in Adobe Commerce
Native B2B on Shopify Plus
Multi-store
Multiple websites and store views from one install
Shopify Markets and Plus expansion stores
Upgrades
Manual version upgrades and patches (SaaS excepted)
Automatic
Typical time to launch
Months
Weeks
Best for
Complex B2B, custom logic, enterprises with dev teams
DTC, mid-market and fast-growing brands
Shopify prices are from its US pricing page as of October 2026. Adobe does not publish Adobe Commerce pricing.
What Is The Difference Between Magento And Shopify?
The core difference is ownership. With Magento you own (or license) the application code and decide where and how it runs. Developers can change checkout logic, pricing rules, data models, integrations and the admin itself. That freedom is why large, complex businesses have chosen Magento for more than 15 years, and it is also why Magento projects need skilled PHP developers, robust hosting and ongoing maintenance.
Shopify is a closed SaaS platform. You cannot edit its core code, but you never have to host, patch or upgrade it either. You customize through themes (Liquid), the App Store, APIs and Shopify Functions, which let developers change specific behaviours like discounts, shipping and payment rules. For the vast majority of stores, that is enough, and it removes an entire category of cost and risk.
Put simply: Magento is a framework for building an ecommerce system; Shopify is an ecommerce system you configure. Which is better depends on whether your business genuinely needs the former.
Adobe Commerce vs Magento Open Source
“Magento” today means two products, and the difference matters for any comparison with Shopify.
Magento Open Source is the free, community edition. There is no licence fee, but you provide hosting, security, search infrastructure, extensions and development. It is powerful and widely used by small and mid-sized merchants with technical partners.
Adobe Commerce is the paid edition (formerly Magento Commerce or Magento Enterprise). It adds native B2B features (company accounts, quotes, purchase orders, requisition lists), customer segmentation, content staging and scheduling, Adobe’s AI-powered Live Search and Product Recommendations, and official Adobe support. It is available three ways:
On-premises: you license the software and host it yourself.
Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure (PaaS): Adobe provides managed, single-tenant hosting, but you still manage code, extensions and version upgrades.
Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service (SaaS): launched in 2025, a multi-tenant, auto-scaling version with versionless automatic updates and core B2B features pre-installed.
The SaaS option narrows the gap with Shopify on maintenance, but with a trade-off. According to Adobe’s own feature comparison, the SaaS edition limits extensibility to out-of-process methods (APIs, events and App Builder) rather than traditional in-process PHP customization, and uses a new storefront architecture. In other words, it gives up some of the deep customization that made Magento attractive in the first place.
Version Support Matters
Self-managed Magento stores must keep upgrading. Adobe’s lifecycle policy gives each Adobe Commerce release three years of standard support from general availability. Version 2.4.6 reached the end of standard support on 11 August 2026 (with extended support to 31 August 2027), 2.4.7 runs to 31 May 2027 and 2.4.8 to 31 May 2028. If you are on an older release, an upgrade project is coming whether you stay on Magento or not, which is often the moment merchants reconsider their platform.
Magento vs Shopify Pricing And Total Cost Of Ownership
“Shopify vs Magento total cost of ownership” is one of the most searched questions in this space, and for good reason: licence fees are only a fraction of the real cost.
Shopify Pricing
According to the Shopify pricing page, US plans cost $29 (Basic), $79 (Grow) and $299 (Advanced) per month billed yearly, or $39, $105 and $399 billed monthly. Shopify Plus starts at $2,300 per month. Online card rates with Shopify Payments run from 2.9% + 30c on Basic down to 2.25% + 30c on Plus, and using a third-party payment gateway adds a fee of 2%, 1%, 0.6% or 0.2% depending on plan. Shopify Plus terms reported in October 2026 put the entry price at $2,300 per month on a three-year term or $2,500 on a one-year term, with a variable platform fee for some high-volume brands that Shopify does not publish.
Magento And Adobe Commerce Pricing
Magento Open Source has no licence fee. Adobe Commerce is quote-based and scales with gross merchandise value (GMV); Adobe does not publish a price list. Industry estimates published in 2026 put Adobe Commerce on-premises licences at roughly $22,000 a year for stores under $1 million GMV, rising past $125,000 a year above $25 million, with cloud editions costing more because hosting is included. Treat these as ballpark figures and get a quote.
Cost item
Magento Open Source
Adobe Commerce
Shopify / Shopify Plus
Licence or subscription
Free
Quote-based, scales with GMV
$29 to $299/mo; Plus from $2,300/mo
Hosting
You pay (managed Magento hosting recommended)
Included on cloud and SaaS; separate on-premises
Included
Security patches and upgrades
Developer time, several times a year
Developer time (PaaS, on-premises); automatic on SaaS
Included, automatic
Extensions and apps
Paid extensions, often one-off plus support fees
Fewer needed for B2B; others paid
Monthly app subscriptions
Build cost
High: custom development is common
High to very high
Lower: themes and apps cover most needs
Ongoing development
Retainer usually required
Retainer usually required
Optional; many stores run with light support
The pattern is consistent. Magento’s software can be free, but the people and infrastructure around it rarely are. A mid-market Magento store typically carries hosting, a development retainer, extension renewals and periodic upgrade projects. A comparable Shopify or Shopify Plus store pays a higher platform fee but much less for hosting, maintenance and upgrades. For most merchants under eight figures in revenue, Shopify ends up cheaper over three to five years; for very complex businesses, Magento’s flexibility can be worth the premium.
Flexibility, Customization And Extensions
This is Magento’s home ground. Because you control the code, almost anything is possible: bespoke pricing engines, configurators, complex tax and shipping logic, deep ERP and PIM integrations, unusual checkout flows and custom admin tools. The Adobe Commerce Marketplace and independent vendors offer thousands of extensions, and a large community of developers knows the platform well. Magento also supports multiple websites, stores and store views from a single installation, which suits multi-brand and multi-region businesses.
Shopify’s flexibility comes from its ecosystem rather than code access. The Shopify App Store is the largest in ecommerce, its APIs are mature, and Shopify Functions and checkout extensibility (on Plus) allow real customization of discounts, delivery, payments and checkout UI. Headless builds with Shopify’s Hydrogen framework or any front end are common. The limits are real, though: you cannot change Shopify’s core data model, some checkout behaviours remain fixed, and complex logic may need workarounds or several apps working together.
Our view: if you can describe your requirements in terms of standard ecommerce features plus a handful of integrations, Shopify will almost certainly cover them. If your competitive advantage lives in custom commerce logic, Magento gives you room to build it.
B2B And Complex Catalogues
Adobe Commerce is one of the strongest B2B platforms available. Company accounts with hierarchies and roles, negotiated quotes, purchase orders with approval rules, shared catalogues with custom pricing, requisition lists and quick order forms are all native. Manufacturers and distributors with tens of thousands of SKUs and customer-specific pricing often find it fits their processes without heavy compromise. Magento Open Source can achieve much of this with extensions and custom work.
Shopify has invested heavily here. Shopify Plus now includes native B2B with company profiles, catalogues with custom pricing, payment terms, quantity rules and a B2B checkout, and many wholesalers run successfully on it. It is still less configurable than Adobe Commerce for complex approval workflows and deep ERP-driven pricing, but the gap has narrowed. Shopify also raised its product variant limit to 2,048 per product in October 2025, removing an old obstacle for large catalogues.
Performance, Security And Maintenance
Shopify handles infrastructure end to end: global CDN, automatic scaling for flash sales, PCI compliance, SSL and platform security. You never schedule an upgrade. That reliability is one of the biggest reasons brands move off Magento.
Magento’s performance and security depend on your setup. A well-architected Magento store on quality hosting, with full-page caching, a CDN and a search engine properly configured, can be very fast and very secure. A neglected one, with old extensions and missed security patches, is a liability. Adobe releases regular security patches, and staying current requires planned developer time. Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure reduces the hosting burden, and the SaaS edition removes upgrades entirely, but most existing Magento stores are still self-managed.
Talent, Agencies And Day-To-Day Ownership
Platform choice is also a hiring decision. Magento development requires experienced PHP developers who understand its architecture, dependency injection, indexing and caching layers, and good Magento developers command premium rates. The pool is large and global, but it has been shrinking relative to Shopify’s as more merchants replatform. Shopify development relies on Liquid for themes and JavaScript or TypeScript for apps and headless front ends, and the pool of Shopify agencies and freelancers is now the largest in ecommerce.
Day-to-day ownership differs too. On Shopify, an ecommerce manager can launch products, campaigns, discounts and landing pages without developer help, and the admin is designed for non-technical staff. On Magento, the admin is powerful but complex, and many changes that touch layout, checkout or integrations require a developer. If your team is lean, that difference adds up to real cost and slower iteration.
SEO And Marketing
Both platforms support solid SEO. Magento gives granular control over URL structures, layered navigation, canonical tags and metadata, which is valuable for very large catalogues, though it needs careful configuration to avoid duplicate content from filters and store views. Our guide on preventing duplicate content in Magento 2 with canonical URLs covers one common issue.
Shopify handles technical SEO basics automatically but enforces fixed URL prefixes (such as /products/ and /collections/) and offers less control over some technical details. In exchange, its marketing integrations with Meta, Google, TikTok, email platforms and marketplaces are deeper and easier to set up. For brands that grow through paid acquisition and social, Shopify’s ecosystem is usually an advantage.
Migrating From Magento To Shopify
Magento to Shopify is one of the most common replatforming paths in ecommerce. Done well, it can cut running costs and free teams from upgrade cycles. Done badly, it can damage SEO and break operations. A typical migration follows these stages:
Audit: inventory every extension, integration, custom feature and store view, and decide what Shopify handles natively, what needs an app and what needs custom development.
Data mapping: map products, variants, attributes, customers, orders, reviews and content to Shopify’s data model. Configurable products and custom attributes need special care.
Design and build: build or adapt a Shopify theme, configure Markets, payments, shipping and taxes, and install the app stack.
Data migration: run test imports with a migration app or agency tooling, validate, then plan a final delta migration close to launch.
SEO protection: create 301 redirects from every old URL to its new Shopify equivalent, preserve metadata, and monitor rankings and crawl errors after launch.
Integrations and testing: reconnect ERP, PIM, OMS and marketing tools, test end to end, then launch with a rollback plan.
Customer passwords cannot be migrated between platforms, so plan an account reactivation campaign. Simple stores can migrate in a few weeks; complex B2B or multi-store setups typically take several months. Migration in the other direction, from Shopify to Magento, is rarer and usually driven by requirements Shopify cannot meet.
One practical tip: freeze non-essential feature work on Magento once the migration starts, and keep a short list of must-match behaviours (pricing rules, shipping logic, B2B approvals) that the new store must reproduce exactly before launch.
Which Should You Choose?
Choose Shopify If…
You want the lowest total cost of ownership and predictable monthly fees.
You do not have, or do not want, an in-house development team.
Your growth depends on marketing, conversion rate and speed of launching campaigns.
Your B2B needs are covered by Shopify Plus’s native B2B features.
You are on an aging Magento version facing an expensive upgrade.
Choose Magento Or Adobe Commerce If…
Your business model depends on custom commerce logic that a SaaS platform cannot support.
You run complex B2B with approval workflows, negotiated quotes and ERP-driven pricing.
You manage many brands, regions or store views from one back end.
You have a capable development team or long-term agency partner.
You need full control over hosting, data location or the codebase.
When Neither Fits
If you want open-source flexibility with a lighter footprint, WooCommerce may suit content-led brands; see our WooCommerce vs Shopify comparison. If you want hosted SaaS with stronger native B2B below enterprise pricing, BigCommerce is worth a look. And enterprises deep in the Salesforce ecosystem often evaluate Salesforce Commerce Cloud alongside both.
Who To Hire For Magento Or Shopify
On both platforms, the quality of your agency often matters more than the platform itself. These ReVerb lists cover vetted partners for building, supporting and migrating:
For most DTC and mid-market brands, yes: Shopify is cheaper to run, faster to launch and requires far less technical upkeep. Magento is better for businesses whose requirements genuinely need custom code, complex B2B workflows or full control over hosting and data.
Is Magento still free?
Magento Open Source is free to download and use. You still pay for hosting, extensions, development and maintenance. Adobe Commerce, the paid edition, requires a licence priced on gross merchandise value.
What is the difference between Adobe Commerce and Magento?
Adobe Commerce is the paid, enterprise edition of Magento, with native B2B, customer segmentation, content staging, AI-powered search and recommendations, official support and Adobe-hosted options. Magento Open Source is the free edition with the same core platform but without those enterprise features.
How do Shopify Plus and Adobe Commerce compare?
Shopify Plus is a fully hosted enterprise SaaS starting at $2,300 per month, with native B2B, automatic upgrades and the largest app ecosystem. Adobe Commerce offers deeper customization and more mature B2B tools, but usually costs more once licence, hosting and development are included.
How much does a Magento to Shopify migration cost?
It depends on catalogue size, integrations and custom features. A simple store using a migration app and an off-the-shelf theme costs far less than a complex B2B or multi-store migration with custom development and ERP integration. Get scoped quotes from specialist migration agencies.
Will I lose SEO rankings moving from Magento to Shopify?
Not if the migration is handled properly. Map 301 redirects for every product, category and content URL, preserve titles and meta descriptions, and monitor Google Search Console closely after launch. Short-term fluctuation is normal; lasting losses usually come from missing redirects.
How do Magento, Shopify and BigCommerce compare?
Magento offers the most customization but the highest maintenance. Shopify offers the best ecosystem and lowest overhead for DTC brands. BigCommerce sits between them, with more built-in B2B and catalogue features than Shopify’s standard plans and less maintenance than Magento.
Conclusion
Magento vs Shopify is a choice between control and convenience. Magento and Adobe Commerce let you build exactly the commerce system your business needs, at the cost of hosting, development and constant upgrades. Shopify gives you a fast, secure, constantly improving platform with a vast ecosystem, at the cost of some flexibility. For most merchants in 2026, Shopify’s total cost and speed win. For complex B2B and highly customized operations, Magento still earns its place. If you are already on Magento and facing an upgrade, use that moment to model the full cost of both paths before you commit.
