Magento vs Shopify vs BigCommerce: Which Ecommerce Platform Wins In 2026?

Magento, Shopify and BigCommerce are the three platforms most growing merchants end up comparing once they outgrow a starter store. They overlap on features, but they are built on different ideas. Magento is open, self-hosted software you can change at the code level. Shopify is a hosted product with the largest app ecosystem in ecommerce. BigCommerce is also hosted, but it leans harder on built-in features, open APIs and headless flexibility.

All three changed in meaningful ways over the past year. BigCommerce renamed every plan and introduced a fee on non-embedded payment providers in June 2026, and its parent company now operates as Commerce.com. Shopify opened core B2B features to its non-Plus plans in April 2026 and retired Shopify Scripts. Magento shipped 2.4.9 in May 2026, and Adobe added a SaaS edition of Adobe Commerce.

This Magento vs Shopify vs BigCommerce comparison puts the three side by side on price, hosting, customization, B2B, SEO, performance and talent, with current figures checked against each vendor in October 2026. Where we have already covered a two-way matchup in depth, we link to it rather than repeat it.

Magento vs Shopify vs BigCommerce At A Glance

Factor	Magento (Open Source / Adobe Commerce)	Shopify	BigCommerce
Delivery model	Self-hosted open source; Adobe Commerce on-prem, PaaS or SaaS	SaaS only	SaaS only
Entry price	Open Source is free; Adobe Commerce is quote-based	Basic $29/mo billed yearly ($39 monthly)	Core $29/mo billed yearly ($39 monthly)
Mid-tier price	Hosting and development costs only (Open Source)	Grow $79/mo yearly; Advanced $299/mo yearly	Growth $79/mo yearly; Scale $299/mo yearly
Enterprise tier	Adobe Commerce, quote-based	Shopify Plus from $2,300/mo	Performance from $1,499/mo, contract
Third-party payment fees	None from the platform	2% / 1% / 0.6% on Basic, Grow, Advanced; 0.2% on Plus	2% / 1% / 0.6% on Core, Growth, Scale for non-embedded providers; none on Performance
Sales limits	None	None	GMV thresholds per plan with auto-upgrades
Hosting and security	Your responsibility (Open Source)	Included	Included
Code-level customization	Full PHP source	Themes, apps, Functions; no core access	Themes, apps, APIs, headless; no core access
Native B2B	Adobe Commerce only (B2B module)	Basic B2B on all plans; advanced on Plus	B2B Edition with Performance contracts
Multi-storefront	Native websites, stores and store views	Plus includes 9 expansion stores	Add-on on self-serve plans; custom on Performance
Best for	Complex catalogs, custom logic, in-house dev teams	D2C brands that want speed and apps	Mid-market and B2B sellers wanting built-in features and open APIs

The Core Difference Between The Three

The fastest way to separate these platforms is to ask who runs the software. With Magento Open Source, you do: you install it, host it, secure it, patch it and extend it. That gives you complete control and no license fee, but it makes Magento an engineering commitment rather than a subscription. Adobe Commerce, the paid edition, adds B2B features, Adobe’s cloud hosting options and support, and since 2025 a fully managed SaaS version.

Shopify and BigCommerce both run the software for you. The difference is philosophy. Shopify keeps the core lean and expects you to add capability through its very large app ecosystem, while tightly controlling checkout. BigCommerce puts more features into the base plans, exposes much of the platform through APIs, and positions itself as a strong option for headless and B2B builds.

For a deeper two-way look, see Magento vs Shopify and Shopify vs BigCommerce.

Pricing And Total Cost

Magento Pricing

Magento Open Source is free to download. Your costs are hosting, development, extensions, security monitoring and upgrades, and for a serious store those add up quickly. Adobe Commerce is licensed on a quote basis, usually tied to GMV and order profile, and Adobe does not publish a price list. Our Adobe Commerce vs Magento Open Source guide breaks down what the license buys.

Shopify Pricing

Shopify lists four main plans in the US: Basic at $29 per month billed yearly ($39 monthly), Grow at $79 ($105 monthly), Advanced at $299 ($399 monthly), and Plus from $2,300 per month on a three-year term. Online card rates through Shopify Payments run from 2.9% plus 30 cents on Basic down to 2.25% plus 30 cents on Plus. If you use a third-party gateway, Shopify adds a fee of 2%, 1% or 0.6% depending on plan, or 0.2% on Plus.

BigCommerce Pricing

On June 1, 2026, BigCommerce renamed its plans: Standard became Core, Plus became Growth, Pro became Scale and Enterprise became Performance. List prices for the first three did not change: Core is $29 per month billed annually ($39 monthly), Growth is $79 ($105 monthly), and Scale is $299 ($399 monthly). Performance starts at $1,499 per month on an annual contract.

Two details matter for budgeting. First, each self-serve plan has a sales threshold: Core covers up to $30,000 in trailing twelve-month GMV and Growth up to $100,000, with automatic upgrades above those levels. Scale includes $33,333 per month in GMV and charges 0.9% on sales above that, and Scale stores move to Performance once trailing GMV reaches $2 million. Second, BigCommerce now charges an Open Payment Provider fee (2% on Core, 1% on Growth, 0.6% on Scale) on orders processed by providers outside its embedded list. Performance contracts are exempt.

Which Is Cheapest Overall

At small and mid-sized volumes, Shopify and BigCommerce cost about the same in subscription fees, and both are usually cheaper to run than a professionally hosted and maintained Magento store. Magento Open Source can win on cost when you already have developers and very high volume, because there is no revenue-linked platform fee. BigCommerce’s GMV thresholds mean fast-growing stores should model their plan path carefully, while Shopify’s costs grow mainly through apps.

Cost item	Magento Open Source	Shopify	BigCommerce
Platform fee	None	Monthly plan	Monthly plan, tied to GMV
Hosting	Paid separately	Included	Included
Security and patching	Your team or agency	Included	Included
Extensions or apps	Often one-time license plus dev time	Often monthly subscriptions	Mix of built-in features and apps
Upgrades	Regular version upgrades required	None	None

Hosting, Maintenance And Platform Status

Magento Release And Support Status

The current release is Magento 2.4.9, released May 12, 2026, for both Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce. It adds PHP 8.5 support, drops PHP 8.2, and replaces several older framework components, including Laminas MVC and the TinyMCE editor. Adobe’s published lifecycle gives each 2.4.x release three years of standard support: 2.4.9 runs to May 31, 2029, 2.4.8 to May 31, 2028 and 2.4.7 to May 31, 2027. Standard support for 2.4.6 ended August 11, 2026. Extended support periods apply to Adobe Commerce customers, not to the Open Source code base.

Running Magento means choosing a host, configuring caching and search, and keeping up with security patches. Our Magento hosting guide covers what that takes. Adobe Commerce customers can hand much of this off to Adobe Commerce on Cloud, or move to Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service, a SaaS edition with continuous updates and a headless storefront.

Shopify And BigCommerce

Both are fully hosted. Uptime, scaling, CDN, SSL and checkout PCI compliance are handled by the vendor, and there are no versions to upgrade. Your maintenance work is limited to themes, apps and integrations.

BigCommerce’s corporate parent renamed itself from BigCommerce Holdings to Commerce.com in mid-2025 and now trades on Nasdaq as CMRC. BigCommerce remains the name of the ecommerce platform, alongside sister brands Feedonomics and Makeswift, so merchants on the platform did not see a product rename.

Customization And Extensions

Magento

Magento is the most customizable of the three by a wide margin. Developers can modify pricing logic, checkout, catalog behavior and the admin through modules, plugins and themes. Front-end performance has improved with Hyvä, which became free and open source in November 2025, giving Magento stores a lighter alternative to the default Luma theme. The cost of that flexibility is maintenance: heavily customized stores take longer to upgrade.

Shopify

Shopify offers no core access. You customize through themes (Liquid or the Hydrogen headless framework), apps and Shopify Functions. Checkout is locked down to checkout UI extensions and Functions, and Shopify Scripts stopped running on June 30, 2026. For most D2C needs the app ecosystem fills the gaps, but unusual business logic can hit hard limits.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce also keeps the core closed but exposes a broad set of REST and GraphQL APIs. Catalyst, its storefront framework built on Next.js, lets teams own their front-end code while BigCommerce handles the back end, and checkout redirects to BigCommerce’s own checkout by default. BigCommerce also includes more native features on its plans, such as product filtering on Scale and above, which can mean fewer paid apps than an equivalent Shopify store.

B2B Ecommerce

B2B is where the three diverge most:

• Magento: Magento Open Source has no native B2B suite, so merchants add extensions. Adobe Commerce includes a mature B2B module with company accounts and hierarchies, shared catalogs, negotiable quotes, purchase order approvals, requisition lists and pay-on-account.
• Shopify: since April 2, 2026, Basic, Grow and Advanced include company profiles, payment terms, volume pricing and up to three B2B catalogs. Plus adds unlimited catalogs, direct catalog assignment to companies and locations, deposits and partial payments.
• BigCommerce: B2B Edition is sold with Performance contracts and adds company accounts with multi-level hierarchies, quotes, shared shopping lists, purchase orders, net terms with spend limits, an invoice portal and a buyer portal. Self-serve plans offer customer groups but not the full B2B Edition.

For complex manufacturing and distribution B2B, Adobe Commerce and BigCommerce’s B2B Edition are the stronger native options. For a wholesale channel alongside D2C, Shopify is now viable even below Plus. For more on enterprise-tier trade-offs, see our Shopify Plus vs Adobe Commerce comparison.

Multi-Store And International

Magento’s website, store and store view structure makes it natural to run several brands, regions or languages from one installation. Shopify handles international selling mainly through Shopify Markets in a single store, and Plus includes nine expansion stores for cases where operations must stay separate. BigCommerce offers Multi-Storefront as a paid add-on on self-serve plans (up to three storefronts on Core, five on Growth and eight on Scale), with custom terms on Performance.

SEO And Performance

All three platforms cover the SEO basics: editable titles and meta descriptions, clean URLs, canonical tags, XML sitemaps and 301 redirects. Magento offers the most control, including fully custom URL structures and layered navigation, but that control requires care to avoid duplicate content. Our Magento SEO guide covers the common fixes.

Shopify enforces fixed URL paths such as /products/ and /collections/, which some SEO teams dislike but which are hard to break. BigCommerce allows more flexible URL structures than Shopify. On performance, Shopify and BigCommerce manage infrastructure and CDN for you, while Magento speed depends on your hosting, caching setup and front-end choice.

Security And Compliance

Shopify and BigCommerce handle hosting security, platform patching and PCI compliance for their checkouts. With Magento Open Source, security is your job: you need to apply patches as Adobe releases them, monitor extensions and harden the server. Adobe Commerce on Cloud shares some of that work with Adobe, and the SaaS edition hands patching to Adobe entirely.

Talent And Agency Ecosystem

Shopify has the largest pool of freelancers and agencies, and its skill set (Liquid, apps, Functions) is easier to hire for. BigCommerce’s partner network is smaller but includes agencies that focus on headless and B2B builds. Magento talent is the most specialized: PHP developers who know Magento’s architecture and DevOps engineers who can run it in production. Rates tend to be higher, but experienced Magento agencies are often the best equipped for complex integrations.

Migration Considerations

Merchants most often move from Magento to Shopify or BigCommerce to reduce hosting and upgrade costs, especially when facing an older 2.4.x release that has left standard support. The key migration tasks are the same across both targets: products and variants, customers, order history, URL redirects, content and integrations. The hardest part is usually custom Magento logic that must be rebuilt as apps, Functions or API services. Moves from Shopify or BigCommerce to Magento usually happen when a merchant needs code-level control the hosted platforms will not allow.

Which Should You Choose

Choose Magento If…

• You need full control over code, data and hosting.
• Your catalog, pricing or B2B logic is too complex for app-based platforms.
• You have, or will fund, an experienced development team or agency.
• You want to avoid revenue-linked platform fees at high volume (Open Source).

Choose Shopify If…

• You sell mainly D2C and want to launch quickly.
• You want the largest app ecosystem and hiring pool.
• You prefer predictable plans and no infrastructure work.

Choose BigCommerce If…

• You want more built-in features and fewer paid apps.
• You plan a headless build and want strong APIs and a Next.js storefront framework.
• You sell B2B and can justify a Performance contract with B2B Edition.

Merchants searching “shopify vs bigcommerce vs magento” usually already know which one they lean toward. The useful question is which limitation you can accept: Magento’s operating burden, Shopify’s customization ceiling, or BigCommerce’s GMV-based plan thresholds.

Who To Hire For Your Platform

If you are going with Magento or Adobe Commerce, start with our list of top Magento development companies and experts. For a BigCommerce build, see our roundup of BigCommerce developers. If you are leaning toward Shopify Plus, the hiring section of our Shopify Plus vs Adobe Commerce comparison points to enterprise Shopify partners and migration specialists.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is BigCommerce Better Than Magento?

It depends on your team. BigCommerce vs Magento comes down to hosted convenience against full control. BigCommerce removes hosting, security and upgrade work and offers strong APIs. Magento offers deeper customization and no platform fee on Open Source, but needs ongoing development and hosting investment.

Did BigCommerce Change Its Name?

Its parent company did. BigCommerce Holdings became Commerce.com, Inc. in 2025 and trades as CMRC. BigCommerce is still the name of the ecommerce platform. Separately, its plans were renamed Core, Growth, Scale and Performance on June 1, 2026.

What Is The Latest Version Of Magento?

Magento 2.4.9, released May 12, 2026, is the latest general release, with standard support through May 31, 2029. An alpha of 2.4.10 was published in October 2026.

Which Platform Is Best For B2B?

For complex B2B with quotes, approvals and company hierarchies, Adobe Commerce and BigCommerce B2B Edition are the strongest native options. Shopify now offers core B2B features on all plans and advanced ones on Plus, which suits wholesale alongside D2C.

Is Magento vs BigCommerce Cheaper To Run?

For most small and mid-sized stores, BigCommerce is cheaper overall because hosting, security and upgrades are included. Magento vs BigCommerce costs can flip at high volume if you already employ developers, since Magento Open Source has no license fee and no GMV-based plan thresholds.

Can I Use Shopify, BigCommerce Or Magento Headless?

Yes. Shopify offers Hydrogen, BigCommerce offers Catalyst on Next.js, and Magento exposes GraphQL APIs, with Adobe’s SaaS edition using a headless Edge Delivery storefront by default.

Conclusion

Shopify is the default choice for D2C brands that value speed and a large app ecosystem. BigCommerce suits merchants who want more built-in functionality, open APIs and a credible B2B path without self-hosting, as long as they plan around its GMV thresholds. Magento remains the platform for merchants who need full control and have the engineering resources to support it, with Adobe Commerce adding B2B depth and managed hosting options. Price out each one at your expected volume over three years, including apps, development and payment fees, before you commit.