Magento Open Source vs Magento Commerce: Which e-commerce solution to choose 2021?

For more than 10 years, Magento has established itself as one of the open source e-commerce solutions most used by online sales professionals, especially among medium and large companies. Acquired by Adobe, the company has further developed and expanded its offer by offering different editions, including a Commerce version which offers the possibility of storing its site in the Adobe Cloud.

Advantages of using Magento

Next, we list the advantages and disadvantages of Magento ecommerce platform to give a better idea of ​​what it offers, we do it taking into account the use of the Community Edition, which is the edition that we usually recommend to most of our clients:

Versatile content management

Magento, especially in its new version: Magento 2, includes an intuitive and visual page editor that allows owners to manage the contents of their site, in an easy and intuitive way.

Mobile ready

Magento is oriented for “mobile first” websites and is prepared to be able to design stores in which the contents are optimally displayed on mobiles and small screens, placing special emphasis, in addition to the contents, on the processes, such as adding the product to the cart or checkout to accommodate the consumer shopping trend that continues to move towards mobile use.

Advanced search engine optimization

Magento stands out as an optimal SEO platform, both in the SEO Ready option, as well as the optional and added options that can be carried out, since it is open to implement any SEO retouching that an SEO strategist may request and for those who have the knowledge and the skills to do it. The objective is to position both the store and its products to improve the positions in search engines such as Google, Bing and more.

The platform also allows store owners to add Google Analytics and other third-party integrations to their site to aid in data analysis.

Powerful and capable

The Magento platform can support up to 1,000,000 products and handle more than 80,000 orders per hour. The products can be simple, or configurable, having the possibility of complex and advanced files.

Related products, suggested and related sales

Magento has integrated options to relate products between and display products on different pages, areas or blocks: related, cross or suggested sales. In order to increase the conversion rate in addition to improving the user experience. In addition, these types of relationships can be personalized for specific cases, for example, when it is detected that in the shopping cart the customer acquires an LED but not a transformer that would be needed for the proper functioning of the LED, a group of new products that instead of a “related” or “suggested” product are called “Necessary Products.”

Integrations with ERP and CRMS or third-party apis

Magneto is highly prepared to connect with Third Party Software, be it ERP or CRMS as other possibilities: Paypal, Mail Chimp, Google Shopping, Ebay, Stripe and more.

Magento Security

Besides being flexible and scalable, Magento is highly robust and secure. Allows you to manage multiple levels of security permissions. Fully compliant with PCI Data Security, with many additional details and security extras, for example: the login screens are equipped with CAPTCHA and a secondary password request that includes an additional defense against unwanted breaches.

Smart product search

Magento has a dynamic and fast search, capable of filtering products according to an infinite number of parameters. Magento uses a cloud of unique search terms, product tag filters, product reviews, recently compared and viewed products, and allows you to configure your search with automatically suggested terms. That is why in this area it also stands out above its competitors.

Huge and professional community

More than 240,000 companies use Magento for their e-commerce needs. In 2012, there were several hundred Magento developers with official certifications from 35 different countries around the world, and more than 800,000 estimated developers in total. That number has grown since then, providing newcomers with a strong backbone of support and great opportunities for business connections. The fact that Magento is the consolidated leader in Open Source has made the community have a very professional character and that the modules developed are of high quality.

Quality / Price ratio

Magento is open source, and offers a huge catalog of custom extensions developed by the aforementioned community. This means that most of the customizations that an online store will need will be covered by some of the modules, although in some very specific case a custom development will have to be done.

It is also worth highlighting Magento’s multisite conception, better structured that allows creating and managing multiple online stores using one Magento instance at the same time (in several languages ​​and with several currencies): a significant advantage for large companies serving a global market .

Magento is priced high compared to other popular Open Source options, but its higher performance amply justifies it. On the other hand, Magento is much more affordable than other solutions.

If you are thinking of Magento for your future site or if you are wondering about the different options offered by Magento, which are Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce, we have highlighted the main features and differences, in order to determine the best solution depending on use. The criteria of functionality, price, as well as flexibility and stability were taken into account.

1- Open Source Magento: free and customizable

It is the best known version of Magento, the free version which was originally called Magento Community Edition (or Magento CE). Downloadable for free, the Open Source version is a very popular solution for SMEs wanting to benefit from many professional features and thus be able to compete with the main e-commerce players.

Although often associated with SMEs, the Open Source version has convinced many larger companies. Offered in its most reduced version, the e-commerce platform has the advantage of being able to be personalized and greatly improved , which has convinced many big names on the web to develop their site using the free and open version of Magento. This is something very common, at a time most of the merchants used this version, which, if we use a development team and an adapted infrastructure, can be made equal with other Magento offers and other business platforms.

We find basic the main features of Magento:

• Integrated order, payment and delivery process
• Optimized for mobile shopping (responsive)
• International sales (many countries, currencies and worldwide delivery services)
• Catalog management (includes the different types of products: simple, configurable, bundles and customized)
• Adding extensions via the App Marketplace
• Immediate purchase (simplified ordering process for registered users)
• Internal research

But as said before, these are the minimum features, you can improve your site with extensions and connectors (free or paid), as well as specific developments.

2- Magento Commerce: paid with support and cloud

Magento Commerce is in a way the “premium” version of Magento, previously called Magento Enterprise Edition (EE), which in theory is intended for larger companies requiring premium support and more features. It is obviously a paid solution, by subscription, comprising two sub-versions: Magento Commerce (management of the infrastructure to be provided) and Magento Commerce Cloud (hosting included in the cloud). The two therefore differ only in terms of hosting and automatic updates on the Cloud version.

These are obviously the versions most highlighted by Magento, because in addition to allowing regular income to the company thanks to subscriptions they allow to offer packs with other Adobe products as well as additional services and upgrades (better support , more efficient cloud…).

3- Main differences between Magento Open Source and Commerce

The main difference between the two versions of Magento is therefore the price: Open Source is free but requires extensions or even developments, Commerce is paid via a subscription . The subscription price is calculated based on the company’s turnover, without counting the different options (services, infrastructure, etc.). According to some estimates, the lowest prices observed for a Magento Commerce license are around $ 25,000 / year .

Magento Commerce allows you to host your site in the cloud managed by Adobe, supposedly more secure, to use it as a PaaS (Platform As A Service) – or to host it yourself, it’s up to you. Open Source requires you to manage or delegate this part with third parties. The security and reliability of the infrastructure therefore depends on who you choose for it.

Even though the base code is the same on both platforms, there are additional features available on Magento Commerce, which are not all of the same importance. Here are the main additional features:

Elastic Search

Elastic Search makes it possible to improve the internal search of your site, personalize the results, suggest synonyms, follow the search data…

B2B Suite

The suite for e-merchants selling to businesses is an important added value to the Magento platform. It makes it possible to create catalogs and specific prices according to the types of customers, to better define the roles, limits and permissions of purchases, to propose specific payment options according to the type of customers, fast payments …

Page Builder

It is now possible on the Commerce version of Magento to create pages very easily, in drag-and-drop, like Wix or Gutenberg in WordPress. This functionality also allows you to create components to manage content and pages. The page builder can be used with all page templates and can be improved by developers.

Advanced marketing features

Certain marketing functionalities accessible via third-party extensions are natively included in the Commerce version, such as customer segmentation, email automation, private sales, reward points, credits, etc.

Magento BI

Magento Business Intelligence provides comprehensive reports, for example on customer lifetime value , as well as many details on purchasing behavior.

The Commerce version also includes PWA Studio, which allows you to make your Magento site a Progressive Web App , or even Magento Shipping, to manage multi-carrier shipping from your Magento administration.

To access the comparison table provided by Magento, click here. Note that some features provided with Commerce such as Magento BI, PWA Studio or Magento Shipping can also be used in Open Source version, with paid subscription.

In conclusion, the choice of version of Magento depends on the size of your business, your budget and how you want to manage your site.

• If you want to have nothing to manage apart from your activity and your sales, and you are ready to pay a substantial sum every month / year, Magento Commerce Cloud is a suitable solution. Beware of costs that can be delusional depending on your income.
• If you want to benefit from the Magento Commerce advantages and manage the hosting yourself (or delegate), with a subscription at the equivalent price, opt for Magento Commerce .
• Finally if you have the will to create a professional site without subscription, by leaving you the possibility of making evolve the site with developments and by controlling all the infrastructure part, look for Magento Open Source . This allows you to create (or have created) your e-commerce environment based on the excellent Magento CMS base while having greater flexibility, if your activity or your ambitions evolve.

The Open Source solution is therefore aimed at both VSEs, SMEs, freelancers and startups, as well as medium and large companies. It is suitable both for basic use of the platform and for a 100% personalized, tailor-made approach.

Commerce and Commerce Cloud solutions are intended for SMEs and large companies with a large budget, for questions of user comfort and support included.