Platforms · 8 July 2026 · 10 min read
Magento or Shopify? How to choose without regretting it in two years
An honest comparison between Magento 2 and Shopify: catalogues, checkout, long-term costs, and the situations where each one is the wrong answer.
We have built on Magento for over twelve years and, since this year, on Shopify too. That puts us in a rare position: we have no interest in pushing you either way. This article is what we tell clients in the first conversation.
The difference that matters most
Shopify is a service. Magento is software you own. Almost every other difference follows from that.
| Aspect | Shopify | Magento 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Up-front cost | Low. You launch in weeks. | High. Development from six weeks upwards. |
| Recurring cost | Subscription plus transaction fee plus apps. Grows with volume. | Hosting and maintenance. Doesn't scale with your sales. |
| Checkout | Controlled by Shopify. Customisable only on Plus. | Entirely yours. |
| Large catalogue | Degrades past a few thousand SKUs with many variants. | Built precisely for it. |
| B2B | Limited. Solved with apps, and compromises. | Native: group pricing, company accounts, quotes. |
| Your data | With Shopify. No database access. | On your infrastructure, with full access. |
| Technical effort | Close to none. You administer nothing. | Real. You need an agency or a team. |
Choose Shopify if…
- You sell under a few thousand products, with simple variants.
- You want to test the market quickly, without a large up-front investment.
- You don't have and don't want a technical team.
- You sell B2C, with a standard checkout flow.
- You need integrated channels: Instagram, TikTok, marketplaces.
Choose Magento if…
- You have a large catalogue, with many attributes and complex filters.
- You have business customers on different group pricing.
- Your checkout has to work differently from the standard one.
- Volume makes the transaction fee exceed what a Magento would cost.
- You have ERP integrations with business logic of their own.
What matters less than people think
“Magento is better for SEO”
Not inherently. Both platforms can be optimised properly. The difference is made by the implementation, not the platform. A badly built Magento ranks worse than a well-built Shopify.
“Shopify is faster”
Also no. A Shopify with 30 apps injecting scripts has worse Core Web Vitals than a Magento on Hyvä. Speed comes from discipline, not from the platform.
“I have to choose for life”
No. Migration in both directions happens regularly. If you anticipate outgrowing Shopify, it gets built with the migration in mind from the start: a clean URL structure and exportable data. We've written separately about migrating without losing traffic.
And the other platforms?
The discussion doesn't reduce to two options. WooCommerce suits you if you already have a WordPress site with traffic. PrestaShop and OpenCart have smaller ecosystems but lower costs. VTEX is worth discussing for enterprise unified commerce, and CS-Cart if you want a multi-vendor marketplace.
If you're starting from scratch and don't know where to begin, the online store development page is the right starting point.
How we decide, in practice
The first conversation is about fit, not about the project. We ask how many products you have, what kind of customers, which integrations you need, and where you want to be in two years. The platform falls out of the answers — and often it isn't the one you expected.
If you want a second opinion before deciding, consulting by the hour is exactly that: an hour, one concrete question, a written summary afterwards.