Shopify and Magento are 2 of the best popular eCommerce platforms, both of which are fully trusted by millions of businesses all over the world. However, there are many people want to know which is the better choice. To make it clear, we have worked out a comprehensive comparison between the 2 programs.
Before writing this comparison, we have looked through a pile of reviews over the Internet to learn how people who have worked with both Shopify and Magento think of the 2 tools. In addition, we have carefully read the information about them on their official sites. Based on the information we have collected, we have developed the comparison from several aspects, including price, features and support. Proceed to the details.
Price
Shopify has released 4 different plans for business owners to choose the most suitable one to build an eCommerce website. The packages are called as Starter, Basic, Professional and Unlimited, priced at $14/mo, $29/mo, $79/mo and $179/mo. Each of the solutions comes with unlimited monthly data transfer, so that clients are able to run their websites smoothly and stably.
What's more, file storage included in Starter and basic is 1 GB, and that in Professional is 5 GB. Besides, Unlimited plan users are able to get unlimited file storage. Many similarities among the latter 3 plans are listed in below.
Free 14 days' trial & Shopify Card Reader.
The ability to sell unlimited products.
Discount code engine & no transaction fees.
Moreover, both Professional and Unlimited come with gift cards, professional reports and abandoned cart recovery. Furthermore, the latter one is featured with advanced report builder and real-time carrier shipping.
Magento, one of the most widely used eCommerce platforms in the industry, offers 1 free trial and 4 paid plans. Main features included in the free trial are 100 SKUs, 0% transaction fees, 0% setup fee, 3 admin logins, 200 MB storage, 4 GB monthly bandwidth and 1 language. Learn the prices and detailed feature information of the 4 paid solutions in the following table.
Feature
Get Going
Going Places
Go Beyond
Go Anywhere
SKUs
100
500
1,000
10,000
Transaction Fees
0%
0%
0%
0%
Setup Fee
0%
0%
0%
0%
Admin Logins
3
10
20
30
Language(s)
1
1
3
3
Storage
200 MB
500 MB
800 MB
5 GB
Bandwidth
4 GB
8 GB
16 GB
32 GB
Features
Shopify provides SSL to ensure the security of business data and buyers' information. Besides, they offer daily backups to help clients to back up all business information like customers, products, inventory and orders in the secure data centers, which protect any data loss caused by disaster, thief or other things. In addition, 99.94% hosting uptime is available for customers to run websites with less interruption. More highlights of Shopify are:
Storefront: 100+ professional themes, mobile commerce ready, full blogging platform, & custom domain name.
Shopping Cart: 70 payment gateways, free shipping, abandoned checkout recovery, automatic taxes & multiple payment methods.
Store Management: fulfillment centers, email templates, refunds, and customer profiles, groups & accounts.
Marketing & SEO: support for SEO practices, discount codes and coupons, email marketing & free Google and Facebook ad credits.
Products: product organization & variations, digital products, multiple images & SEO product tags.
Analytics: dashboard, product reports, export reports, Google analytics & traffic reports.
Magento is a flexible and robust online store for small businesses, with which you are able to use many useful tools and functionality to design a unique website and manage your website according to your own will. See the main features Magento offers in below.
Store Design: professional, upgradable and industry-specific themes, customizable layered navigation & custom logo and images.
Language & Currency: customizable shopping language and admin control panel, multiple currencies & the ability to set language-specific currencies.
Payments: 6 payment methods & 17 payment gateways.
Checkout & Shipping: One-page checkout, real-time rate calculations with major shipping providers.
SEO: search engine friendly, fully customizable URLs, Google site maps & automatically generated list of popular search terms.
Marketing & Promotions: newsletters subscriptions management, custom coupons and discounts & percent amount discount promotions.
Support
Technicians and engineers in Shopify and Magento have worked out a pile of helpful articles in their knowledgebase, from which customers can learn more about the 2 platforms and resolve common issues independently. From the articles, customers are capable of learning skills of configuration, building and expanding a store.
In addition, just like JustHost and WebHostingHub, Shopify offers 24x7 customer service via email, live chat and phone. Moreover, people stay with the free trial, Get Going plan and Going Places plan of Magento can contact the company via live chat and email. Additionally, people using Go Beyond plan or Go Anywhere plan can get help through email, live chat and phone call.
Conclusion
From the three factors we compared above, it can be concluded that both Shopify and Magento are user-friendly, search engine friendly and feature-rich eCommerce platforms. Besides, they both offer quality technical support and multiple hosting choices. However, to be specifically, Shopify is the better choice for business owners who have fewer than 100,000 customers, while people who want more features should go to Magento.
People who like Magento and want a cheaper hosting plan are able to download Magento eCommerce software and select a cost-effective hosting plan from famous hosting companies to build their online stores. After reviewing dozens of Magento hosting providers, we found that JustHost, WebHostingHub and HostMonster are best. Learn highlights of the 3 hosts' Magento hosting packages in the table below.Moreover, technicians in the 3 web hosts have worked out many methods to install a Magento theme.
#
Company
Highlights
Price
1
JustHost
A free domain for 1 year & $200 Adwords voucher
Unlimited disk space, bandwidth & email accounts
Offers 30 days full refund & anytime prorated refund
24x7 technical support through phone, email & chat
$2.25/mo
Visit
2
WebHostingHub
cPanel with auto script installer Softaculous
Free site transfer & automated daily data backups
No hidden fee & 90 days full money back guarantee
Up to $200 credits for marketing on Google, Yahoo & Bing
$1.95/mo
Visit
3
HostMonster
unlimited domain hosting & disk space
UPS power backup & Linux operating system
24x7 technical support & network monitoring
$50 free advertising credits for Facebook & Twitter
$3.95/mo
Visit