Magento vs Shopify vs BigCommerce

Shopify is the easiest platform to launch on and has the largest app ecosystem; BigCommerce is a hosted (SaaS) platform with more features built in and no transaction fees when you use a supported payment provider; Magento (Adobe Commerce) gives you the most control because you host and code it yourself, but it needs a developer. The right choice depends on whether you value speed, built-in depth, or total control. Shopify holds roughly 29% of the US ecommerce platform market and about 10% globally as of 2025, according to Statista’s US ecommerce platform data and BuiltWith trends, while Magento and BigCommerce trail well behind Shopify on store count across the BuiltWith ecommerce technology trends.

Key Takeaways: Shopify leads on ease of launch and app selection and runs about 29% of the US ecommerce market (Statista, 2025). BigCommerce is hosted like Shopify but charges no fee on supported gateways and bundles in more features. Magento Open Source is free, self-hosted, and endlessly customisable, but you pay for hosting, development, and upkeep. Pick by your constraint: time, budget, or control.

How do Magento, Shopify, and BigCommerce compare at a glance?

The core split is hosting model: Shopify and BigCommerce host your store for you (SaaS), while Magento makes you find your own hosting and manage the software. That single difference drives most of the cost, security, and skill-level differences below.

Factor	Shopify	BigCommerce	Magento (Adobe Commerce)
Hosting model	Fully hosted SaaS	Fully hosted (Open SaaS)	Self-hosted open source (Adobe Commerce = paid SaaS/cloud tier)
Entry pricing (monthly)	Basic $29, Grow $99, Advanced $399	Core $39, Growth $105, Scale $399	Software free; you pay hosting, dev, maintenance
Top tier	Shopify Plus from ~$2,300/mo	Performance/Enterprise from ~$1,499/mo	Adobe Commerce, quote-based (often five to six figures/yr)
Platform transaction fees	0% with Shopify Payments; 2%/1%/0.6% on third-party gateways by plan	0% on supported gateways; “open payment provider” fees on non-embedded processors	None from the platform; you choose your own gateway
Ease of use	Easiest; non-technical setup	Easy; slightly steeper than Shopify	Hardest; developer required
Scalability	High; scales to Plus	High; auto-upgrades on sales volume	Very high; limited mainly by your hosting and team
Customisation	Themes plus Liquid; deeper edits need apps/dev	Themes plus more native settings; API access	Near-total control over code and database
SEO control	Good; some URL structure limits	Good; flexible URLs and built-in tools	Full control over every SEO element
Security responsibility	Shopify (PCI handled)	BigCommerce (PCI handled)	You (patching, PCI, server hardening)
App/extension ecosystem	Largest (8,000+ apps)	Smaller but growing marketplace	Large Magento Marketplace; many free and paid
Developer needed	No (optional)	No (optional)	Yes
Best for	Fast launch, simple to mid-complexity stores	Stores wanting built-in features and no platform fees	Large or complex catalogues needing bespoke logic

Sources: Shopify pricing, BigCommerce pricing, Adobe Commerce release notes. Pricing changes often; verify the live pages before quoting figures to a client.

What is the difference between SaaS and self-hosted ecommerce?

SaaS means the platform runs your store on its own servers and handles updates, security patches, and uptime; self-hosted means you install the software on hosting you rent and you own every one of those jobs. Shopify and BigCommerce are SaaS. Magento Open Source is self-hosted (Adobe Commerce adds a paid managed-cloud option on top).

This is the decision underneath all the others. With SaaS, you trade some control for not having to think about server load, PCI compliance scans, or applying the next security release the week it ships. With self-hosted Magento, you get full control of the code and database, but you (or your agency) are responsible for hosting that can handle traffic spikes, for applying security patches promptly, and for keeping PHP and the database on supported versions.

The clearest predictor of which model fits is not company size but who will own the store day to day. If that person writes code or you have an agency on retainer, Magento’s control becomes an asset. If the owner is a founder or marketer who needs to ship a sale this afternoon, SaaS removes the work that would otherwise sit unfinished.

How much does each platform actually cost?

Published subscription prices only tell part of the story, because the real cost includes payment fees, apps, and, for Magento, hosting and development. Shopify’s plans run Basic $29, Grow $99, and Advanced $399 a month, with Shopify Plus starting near $2,300 a month (Shopify pricing). BigCommerce rebranded its plans to Core $39, Growth $105, and Scale $399, with a Performance/Enterprise tier from about $1,499 a month (BigCommerce pricing).

Magento Open Source has no licence fee, but that “free” is the software only. A production Magento store typically carries managed hosting, a developer or agency to build and maintain it, and extension costs. Adobe Commerce, the paid tier, is quoted per business and commonly lands in five to six figures a year for mid-market and enterprise sellers.

Cost element	Shopify	BigCommerce	Magento Open Source
Monthly software	$29 to $399 (Plus from ~$2,300)	$39 to $399 (Enterprise from ~$1,499)	$0
Hosting	Included	Included	You pay (varies widely)
Payment fees	0% on Shopify Payments; up to 2% on third-party gateways	0% on supported gateways	Your gateway’s rate only
Build and maintenance	Optional apps/dev	Optional apps/dev	Developer required

The honest framing: Shopify and BigCommerce are cheaper to start and predictable to budget; Magento can be cheaper at very large scale once you have an in-house team, but it’s rarely the low-cost option for a small store.

Which platform charges transaction fees?

Shopify charges an extra platform fee, on top of normal card-processing rates, when you use a third-party payment gateway instead of Shopify Payments: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow, 0.6% on Advanced, and 0.2% on Plus (Shopify pricing). Use Shopify Payments and that extra fee disappears, which is why most Shopify merchants do.

BigCommerce historically marketed “no transaction fees” as a headline advantage, and it still charges no platform fee when you use a supported (embedded) gateway such as Stripe, PayPal, or Klarna (BigCommerce pricing). Worth flagging for 2026: BigCommerce now applies “open payment provider” fees (around 2%/1%/0.6% by plan) when you use a non-embedded processor outside its supported list, so the old blanket “zero transaction fees” claim no longer holds in every case. Verify your specific gateway against the supported list before assuming zero.

Magento takes no cut at all. You connect whatever gateway you want and pay only that provider’s processing rate. For high-volume sellers, removing a platform percentage from every order is one of the strongest arguments for self-hosted Magento.

Which is easiest to set up and use?

Shopify is the easiest, by a clear margin. You can sign up, pick a theme, add products, and take a real payment the same day with no code. BigCommerce is close behind; it’s a hosted platform with a similarly guided setup, though its admin exposes more settings, which can feel busier to a first-time user. Both let a non-technical owner run the store.

Magento sits at the other end. Even a basic Magento Open Source install needs server provisioning, command-line setup, and familiarity with PHP, Composer, and a database. The reward for that effort is control, not convenience. Magento 2.4.8 requires PHP 8.3 or 8.4, MariaDB 11.4 or MySQL 8.4, and OpenSearch, so keeping a store current is ongoing engineering work, not a one-off.

For a side-by-side on the two-way version of this decision, see our guides to Magento vs Shopify and the pros and cons of Magento.

How well does each platform scale?

All three scale to serious volume, but they get there differently. Shopify scales by moving you up its plans and ultimately to Shopify Plus, which handles high-traffic flash sales and large catalogues on Shopify’s own infrastructure. You never touch a server.

BigCommerce scales similarly and ties plan tiers to your trailing-twelve-month sales: a Core store automatically upgrades toward Growth as you cross roughly $30,000 in annual sales, and Growth toward Scale near $100,000 (BigCommerce pricing). That keeps the platform matched to your size, though it also means revenue growth raises your subscription automatically.

Magento’s ceiling is the highest in raw terms, because you control the hosting. A well-architected Magento store on strong infrastructure can run very large catalogues and complex B2B logic. The catch is that the scaling work is yours: you size the servers, tune caching, and fix the bottlenecks. Scale is available, but it isn’t automatic.

Which platform is best for SEO and customisation?

For day-to-day SEO, all three cover the essentials: editable titles and meta descriptions, clean URLs, sitemaps, and mobile-responsive themes. The difference is how much you can change. Shopify and BigCommerce give you strong, guided SEO controls, but Shopify imposes some fixed URL structures (for example, the /products/ and /collections/ path segments) that you cannot remove.

Magento gives you full control over every element: URL structure, server-level redirects, page templates, structured data, and Core Web Vitals optimisation down to the code. If your SEO strategy depends on bespoke URL architecture or heavy technical tuning, that control matters. For most stores, though, Shopify’s and BigCommerce’s built-in tools are enough, and the technical SEO basics matter more than the platform. See our notes on why a site might not show up on Google for the fundamentals that apply on any platform.

On customisation, the order mirrors hosting: Magento offers the most (you can change anything in the code), BigCommerce offers more native settings and open APIs, and Shopify relies on its theme language plus its large app store for anything beyond the defaults.

Who handles security and PCI compliance?

On Shopify and BigCommerce, the platform handles security: PCI DSS compliance, SSL, server patching, and uptime are theirs to manage, included in the subscription. That’s a real advantage for a small team with no security staff. If a vulnerability is found in the platform, they patch it for every store at once.

On Magento, security is your responsibility. You apply Adobe’s security releases, keep PHP and the database on supported versions, harden the server, and maintain PCI compliance for your hosting environment. Magento publishes patches promptly, but an unpatched Magento store is a known target. This is the most underestimated cost of self-hosting: the work doesn’t end at launch. Budgeting for a maintenance retainer is part of choosing Magento honestly, not an optional extra.

How big is each platform’s app and extension ecosystem?

Shopify has the largest ecosystem, with over 8,000 apps in its App Store covering everything from reviews to subscriptions to shipping, which is a major reason non-technical owners pick it: most gaps are filled by installing an app rather than writing code. BigCommerce has a smaller but growing marketplace, and because it exposes more functionality natively, you often need fewer add-ons to reach the same result.

Magento’s Marketplace offers a large library of free and paid extensions, plus the option to build anything custom because you control the code. The trade-off repeats: Shopify’s ecosystem is broader and easier to use; Magento’s is deeper and more flexible but assumes development capability. For migration planning between systems, our Magento website migration guide covers what carries over and what has to be rebuilt.

How do the three platforms compare on AI features?

All three now ship AI tooling, and in 2026 it’s a real point of differentiation, though mostly for content and merchandising rather than core commerce. Each leans on its own stack.

• Shopify bundles AI through Shopify Magic (product descriptions, email and content generation) and the Sidekick assistant for store tasks and analytics, available across plans.
• BigCommerce adds AI-assisted content and merchandising tools and leans on its Open SaaS APIs so you can plug in third-party AI services.
• Magento / Adobe Commerce ties into Adobe’s wider AI stack (Adobe Sensei) for product recommendations, search, and personalisation, with the freedom to integrate any AI service you can code against.

The split mirrors everything else: Shopify and BigCommerce give you polished AI features ready to switch on, while Magento gives you an open platform to integrate whatever AI you want at the cost of building it. For most stores the built-in tools are enough; for a team with specific AI ambitions, Magento’s openness is the ceiling-free option.

Which platform is strongest for B2B?

All three address B2B, but at different depths. Magento (Adobe Commerce) has the most complete native B2B toolkit: company accounts with roles, negotiable quotes, requisition lists, shared catalogues, and approval workflows built into the platform. For complex, account-based selling, it leads.

Shopify serves B2B through Shopify B2B (on Plus) with company profiles, price lists, and net-payment terms, polished but newer and less deep than Adobe’s. BigCommerce offers a capable B2B Edition with company accounts, quoting, and buyer portals aimed at mid-market wholesalers. The practical order: Magento for the deepest, most bespoke B2B logic; BigCommerce for strong mid-market B2B without managing servers; Shopify B2B when you want B2B and B2C in one easy-to-run Plus store. Match the depth to how complex your buyer relationships actually are.

Quick decision summary: which should you pick?

If you’re short on time, match your dominant constraint to the platform below.

Your situation	Best fit	Why
No developer, need to launch fast	Shopify	Easiest setup, biggest app store, fills gaps without code
Want built-in features, dislike platform fees	BigCommerce	More native functionality; no fee on supported gateways
Large/complex catalogue, bespoke logic, have developers	Magento	Total control and the highest ceiling, if you can run it
Deep B2B with account-based buying	Magento (or Shopify B2B on Plus)	Native quotes, company accounts, approval flows
High order volume, fee-sensitive	Magento	No platform cut; you choose your own gateway

These are starting points, not verdicts; most real decisions weigh two or three of these at once. When they conflict, the deciding question is usually who runs the store day to day.

How do they handle multi-store and multi-language selling?

If you sell across brands, regions, or languages, the platforms differ in approach. Magento is the strongest here: it runs multiple storefronts, websites, languages, and currencies from a single installation and admin, which is a core reason enterprises with several brands or regional sites choose it.

Shopify handles international selling through Shopify Markets (multiple currencies, languages, and domains) and runs separate stores as separate accounts, with Plus adding multi-store management. BigCommerce supports multi-storefront (multiple channels from one account) and multi-currency, sitting between the two. The rule of thumb: for many storefronts and languages managed centrally, Magento’s native multi-store is hard to beat; for selling one brand into multiple markets, Shopify Markets or BigCommerce’s multi-storefront is simpler to run.

How hard is it to migrate between them?

Migration is real work on any of these, and the difficulty rises with how different the architectures are. Catalogue, customer, and order data can be exported and imported in every direction; themes, custom code, and apps almost always have to be rebuilt on the new platform.

Moving between the two SaaS platforms (Shopify and BigCommerce) is the lighter lift, since both are hosted and structurally similar. Moving to or from self-hosted Magento is the heaviest, because you’re also taking on (or shedding) hosting, and Magento’s data model and extensions rarely map one-to-one. Whichever way you go, the make-or-break step is the same: map every old URL to its new equivalent with 301 redirects so you don’t lose search rankings. Our Magento website migration guide covers what transfers cleanly and what has to be rebuilt.

Frequently asked questions

Is Shopify or Magento better for a small business?

Shopify is usually the better fit for a small business. It’s cheaper to start, needs no developer, handles security and hosting for you, and lets you launch in a day. Magento suits a small business only if it has unusual customisation needs and either in-house development or an agency on retainer. For most small sellers, Magento’s total cost and maintenance burden outweigh its flexibility.

Does BigCommerce really have no transaction fees?

BigCommerce charges no platform transaction fee when you use a supported (embedded) gateway such as Stripe or PayPal, which covers most merchants. As of 2026, though, it does apply “open payment provider” fees on non-embedded processors outside its supported list. So “no transaction fees” is true for typical setups but not universally. Check your specific gateway against BigCommerce’s pricing page.

Is Magento free to use?

The Magento Open Source software is free to download and use, but a working store is not. You pay for hosting capable of handling your traffic, a developer or agency to build and maintain it, and any paid extensions. Adobe Commerce, the paid tier, is quoted per business. Treat Magento’s “free” as the licence only, not the project cost.

Can you migrate between these platforms later?

Yes, but it’s real work. Products, customers, and order history can be exported and imported, while themes, custom code, and apps usually have to be rebuilt on the new platform. Moving from Magento to a SaaS platform (or the reverse) is the heaviest because the architectures differ most. Our Magento migration guide walks through what transfers cleanly.

Which platform is best for a large or complex catalogue?

Magento (Adobe Commerce) handles the most complex catalogues, with strong support for configurable products, B2B pricing rules, and multi-store setups, provided you have the hosting and development to run it. Shopify Plus and BigCommerce’s Enterprise tier also serve large stores well and remove the infrastructure work. Choose Magento for bespoke logic; choose a SaaS enterprise plan when you’d rather not manage servers.

What this means in practice

Match the platform to your constraint, not to a feature checklist. If your limit is time or technical skill, Shopify gets you selling fastest and fills most gaps with apps. If you want more built in and dislike paying a platform cut on supported gateways, BigCommerce gives you depth without a developer. If your limit is flexibility, and you have, or will hire, the engineering to run it, Magento Open Source offers control no SaaS platform can match, at the cost of owning hosting, security, and upkeep.

There’s no universally best platform here, only the best fit for who runs the store and what it has to do. For the two-way comparisons behind this decision, see Magento vs BigCommerce and Magento vs Shopify, and verify current pricing on each vendor’s site before you commit, since all three change their plans regularly.