Shopify vs. Adobe Commerce (Magento)

Commerce should be simple, not stressful

From cost and speed to security and innovation, Shopify absorbs the complexity of commerce because you shouldn’t have to. Hosting, PCI, and upgrades are included on Shopify. And Shopify Editions highlights 150+ product updates, including new AI features, twice a year.11 On Adobe Commerce, some functionality may require add-ons or extensions,1 each with its own cost and maintenance.

Brands that moved from Adobe Commerce to Shopify

Join the many brands that have made the switch to Shopify from Adobe Commerce, including Lulu and Georgia14, Bombas, Gymshark15, and Spanx. SodaStream moved from a mix of Adobe Commerce and local solutions.
  • Universal Store
  • Life Interiors
  • Glue Store
  • Makeup Cartel
  • St Frock
  • Lulu & Georgia
  • Sennheiser
  • SodaStream
  • LSKD
  • Spanx
  • Bombas
  • Gymshark
  • Rebecca Minkoff
  • Jones Soda
  • Outdoor Research
  • Stanfield's

Why Shopify

Four reasons brands are switching

  1. 1
    Better TCO

    Shopify's total cost of ownership (TCO) is 29% better than Adobe Commerce's, on average, based on research commissioned by Shopify, with hosting, security, upgrades, and bandwidth included.2

  2. 2
    Faster innovation and AI

    Shopify Editions highlights 150+ product updates twice a year.11 Sidekick and Shopify Catalog are included, and Agentic Storefronts is enabled automatically for eligible stores. Terms and availability apply.10

  3. 3
    Greater agility

    Commerce teams can make their own changes in the Shopify admin, so developers get time back for high-value initiatives.

  4. 4
    More secure and reliable

    Shopify handles hosting, patching, and incident response for every store. Shopify is certified Level 1 PCI DSS compliant and has been issued SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 reports.13

Better TCO

Shopify's TCO is 29% better than Adobe Commerce

Do more, spend less. Whether we’re saving you maintenance costs or freeing up your dev teams, Shopify’s total cost of ownership is, on average, 29% better than Adobe Commerce’s, based on research commissioned by Shopify.2

Use the TCO calculator to compare Shopify with your current platform.

Calculate your TCO
Total cost of ownership calculator graphic

On average:

42%higher platform fees and ecommerce stack costs on Adobe Commerce2

On Shopify, hosting, SSL, CDN, and bandwidth are all included. On Adobe Commerce, this number covers the license plus the hosting, extensions, and third-party tools needed to complete the platform.

24%higher operational and support costs on Adobe Commerce2

Shopify handles patching, upgrades, and infrastructure for you. On Adobe Commerce, this number covers agency retainers, patch cycles, and the in-house hours it takes to keep the platform running.

42%higher implementation and setup costs on Adobe Commerce2

Migrations to Shopify finish 25% faster and are 3.3 times more likely to land on budget.3 On Adobe Commerce, this number covers build time, integrations, and the upgrade projects that follow each major release.

Checkout

Avoid lost conversion opportunity

Shopify Checkout comes with Shopify Payments, and developers customize it with checkout UI extensions and Shopify Functions.

Shopify Plus is a specialist and best-of-breed in the ecommerce and retail omnichannel industry. As a direct-to-consumer brand, Shopify Plus empowers us to achieve our ambitions and our vision, as well.

Faster innovation and AI

Shopify Editions highlights 150+ product updates twice a year, AI included

Thousands of engineers roll out 150+ product updates twice a year through Shopify Editions.11 Most new features are delivered directly, available right away and without requiring any version upgrades. In 2025, Shopify invested more than $1.5B in R&D, all of it in commerce.4 On Adobe Commerce, updates also require you to invest the time and resources to make the upgrades yourself.1

Agentic commerce

Agentic Storefronts lists your products inside AI agents such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and more. It’s enabled automatically for eligible stores. Terms and availability apply. Shopify Catalog automatically structures your product data so AI can find and surface your products.10

AI in the admin

Sidekick is a commerce-trained AI assistant built into Shopify’s backend. It answers questions about your business, drafts content, and takes on tasks for you.

How updates reach your store

New capabilities ship to every Shopify store automatically. On Adobe Commerce on Cloud and on-premises, Adobe Commerce lists six patch releases and one minor release a year, applied through manual upgrades, while Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service upgrades automatically.1

$1.5B+invested in R&D in 20254

Twice a yearnew Shopify Editions releases

What's new across Shopify, twice a year.

Explore Shopify Editions

In the end, we chose Shopify because the speed of development is significantly faster. Shopify is simply an absolute innovation driver in the field of ecommerce.

Greater agility

Commerce teams can make changes without developer tickets

Shopify helps everyone move faster, whether that means freeing your commerce teams from being overly dependent on developers or giving your dev teams more time for high-value initiatives. Anyone in the business can do the work they want to do.

Tools for commerce teams

Edit products, create discount codes, sell gift cards, schedule product drops, edit the storefront with the no-code theme editor, send email campaigns, and more, all from the Shopify admin.

Automate repeat work

Shopify Flow and Shopify Functions let you create custom workflows for unique buyer experiences and back-end tasks, from flagging high-risk orders to adding a new discount type. Shopify has these built in.

Built-in features

With built-in features like promotions, merchandising, and advanced analytics, Shopify cuts down on your need for third-party apps and fees.

Apps, extensions, and APIs

Apps instead of extensions

Shopify’s apps offer a plug-and-play experience with simple setup, while Adobe Commerce on Cloud and on-premises supports PHP extensions and App Builder apps, and Cloud Service uses App Builder apps.1

APIs for every layer

Shopify's Admin and Storefront APIs, webhooks, and Shopify Functions let teams build custom apps and integrations. For headless builds, use the Storefront API with any framework, or Hydrogen with Oxygen hosting at no extra cost.

16,000+apps in the Shopify App Store4

80%After moving to Shopify from Adobe Commerce, Bobo Choses reduced the time its team spent resolving technical issues by 80%.9

Read case study 

Shopify has scaled with us, and if we hadn't switched, who knows where we would be? It’s a no-brainer for any business, at any stage.

More secure and reliable

Security and compliance, handled at the platform level

Shopify runs hosting, patching, and compliance at the platform level, so keeping the platform secure is our job rather than your team's. Although Adobe Commerce takes on security responsibility for its infrastructure, your teams are responsible for maintaining compliance with every customization to your code base, and Adobe Commerce lists manual upgrades for its cloud and on-premises versions.1

100msAverage Storefront API response times

99.9%platform uptime during the biggest flash sales and events of the year.

PCI DSS Level 1 and SOC reports

Shopify is certified Level 1 PCI DSS compliant and has been issued SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 reports,13 with built-in tools to support GDPR and CCPA compliance. Every store includes a free SSL certificate. For Adobe Commerce on Cloud, Adobe Commerce lists SOC 2, PCI, and ISO certifications per hosting provider.1

Security updates

Shopify ships security updates automatically, so there's no version to keep current and no patch to schedule.

Peak reliability

Shopify is built to handle high traffic, with reliable performance during peak sales events. We keep the tech up to date, so you’re not on the hook to constantly maintain your code base.

Fraud analysis built in

Our built-in fraud analysis monitors order risk, authorization rates, chargebacks, and more, so your business can make decisions informed by risk level. Shopify Flow can hold high-risk orders automatically, so suspicious orders are caught before they ship.

The growth of the company was at risk, and hence we wanted to move to a partner where scale or performance were not an issue.

Analyst validation

Industry analyst recognition

Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ report

Gartner® Magic Quadrant™

Shopify was named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Digital Commerce Platforms, its fourth consecutive year as a Leader, and positioned highest for Ability to Execute.5

Read the report 
Forrester logo

Forrester

Shopify was named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Commerce Solutions, Q3 2026, one of two Leaders in the evaluation and was designated a Customer Favorite.6

Read the report 
Gartner® Critical Capabilities™ report

Gartner® Critical Capabilities™

Shopify received the highest score in the AI-Enabled Commerce (3.33 out of 5) and B2C Digital Commerce (3.75 out of 5) use cases, and scored highest in the Composable and Agile Commerce use case, in the 2026 Gartner® Critical Capabilities for Digital Commerce Platforms.7

Read the report 
IDC logo

IDC market share

IDC ranked Shopify #1 in worldwide digital commerce applications market share for 2025, with 21.8% of revenue, up from 19.5% in 2024.8

Read the IDC results 

Migration resources

Brands that migrate to Shopify from Adobe Commerce can work with a large network of partners who specialize in these migrations, covering everything from catalog and customer data to ERP integrations and SEO.

Implementation

Migrations to Shopify are 25% faster on average than migrations to Adobe Commerce, 53% more likely to finish on time, and 3.3 times more likely to finish on budget, based on research commissioned by Shopify.3 Your next migration doesn't have to look like your last one.

Migration partners

Shopify's partner network includes agencies that specialize in Adobe Commerce migrations. They plan and run the move end to end, and some build custom migrations with new AI tooling and Shopify's APIs.

Migration guide

A technical migration framework for teams moving from Adobe Commerce, covering catalog and customer data, extensions and custom modules, ERP and 3PL integrations, URL and SEO preservation, and launch sequencing.
Read the technical migration guide 

AI makes migration more predictable, not just faster

Shopify partners now use AI to map data, clean up catalogs, and check migrated pages against the source, so you see a working version of your store on Shopify early in the project, instead of finding surprises at launch.12
See how 

They stop asking whether the migration is possible and start asking what they want to build next.12

RunDTC

Daniel Meola — Solutions Architect

Bombassaved $108,000 a year in platform costs after moving to Shopify from Adobe Commerce.9

Read case study 

Spanxsaw a 10% increase in conversion rate after moving to Shopify from Adobe Commerce.9

Read case study 

SodaStreamgrew direct consumer sales from 2% to almost 20% of total revenue on Shopify.9

Read case study 

SANJOreduced total cost of ownership by about 60% and increased conversions by 25% after moving to Shopify.9

Read case study 

Featured Adobe Commerce migration partners

23Digital
Convert
MindArc

Shopify vs. Adobe Commerce (Magento) comparison

How Shopify and Adobe Commerce handle hosting, upgrades, pricing, checkout, apps, B2B, international selling, integrations, security, and migration.
Comparison of Shopify and Adobe Commerce (Magento) across eleven buyer concerns, with sources in the footnotes.
Buyer concernShopifyAdobe Commerce
Deployment and hosting
Shopify
Hosting, SSL, and unlimited bandwidth included in every plan
Adobe Commerce
SaaS, Adobe Commerce-managed cloud (single tenant), or on premises1
Upgrades
Shopify
Shopify Editions highlights 150+ product updates twice a year
Adobe Commerce
Cloud and on-premises: manual upgrades, six patches and one minor release a year; SaaS: automatic1
Total cost of ownership
Shopify
TCO 29% better than Adobe Commerce2
Adobe Commerce
Adobe Commerce's platform fees and ecommerce stack costs are 42% higher; operational and support costs 24% higher; implementation and setup costs 42% higher2
Implementation timeline
Shopify
Migrating to Shopify compared to migrating to Adobe Commerce: 25% faster speed of implementation; 53% more likely on-time implementation; 3% lower budgeted implementation costs; 3.3x more likely on-budget implementation3
Adobe Commerce
Baseline in Shopify's Time to Value study3
Checkout and payments
Shopify
Shopify Payments built in; customize with checkout UI extensions and Functions
Adobe Commerce
Adobe Payment Services on Cloud Service; payment solutions on cloud and on-premises1
Ecosystem and apps
Shopify
16,000+ apps in the Shopify App Store4
Adobe Commerce
Cloud and on-premises: PHP extensions and App Builder apps; Cloud Service: App Builder apps1
Architecture and extensibility
Shopify
Admin and Storefront APIs, Shopify Functions, Hydrogen with Oxygen hosting included
Adobe Commerce
Cloud and on-premises: PHP extensions and App Builder apps; Cloud Service: App Builder apps1
B2B
Shopify
B2B and DTC on one platform; every feature works across both
Adobe Commerce
Full B2B after installation on cloud and on-premises; core B2B preinstalled on SaaS1
International
Shopify
Shopify Markets sets content, currency, duties, and taxes per audience
Adobe Commerce
Multiple websites, stores, and language store views per installation1
CRM and ERP integration
Shopify
Out-of-the-box connectors for Acumatica, NetSuite, Microsoft, and more
Adobe Commerce
REST and GraphQL APIs plus API Mesh on cloud and on-premises; API Mesh on SaaS1
Security and compliance
Shopify
Level 1 PCI DSS certified; SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 reports
Adobe Commerce
SOC 2, PCI, and ISO per hosting provider on cloud; adds GDPR on SaaS1

Sources are listed in the footnotes. TCO and time-to-value rows use the claims doc and Time to Value figures verbatim.

Shopify vs. Adobe Commerce FAQ

Shopify vs. Adobe Commerce

Want better results? Switch to Shopify.

From higher revenue potential to constant innovation, customers and analysts agree that Shopify’s the leading choice.
Get in touch

1 Adobe Commerce documentation on Adobe Experience League: "Adobe Commerce SaaS vs PaaS comparison" (last updated September 11, 2026), "Migrate to Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service" (last updated September 24, 2026), and "Site, store, and view scope" (last updated August 20, 2026). Accessed October 7, 2026.

2 TCO whitepaper commissioned by Shopify from a leading independent consulting firm, studying total cost of ownership across major ecommerce platforms in North America, December 2023 to January 2024. All values are average (cdn.shopify.com/static/plus/documents/TCO_whitePaper.pdf).

3 The Pursuit of Time to Value: Unlocking Agility and Growth in Today’s Commerce Market, EY, commissioned by Shopify, 2025 (shopify.com/resource/time-to-value-guide). Based on independent research of hundreds of enterprise migrations; the Adobe Commerce figures are on p. 16 of the report.

4 Shopify Enterprise TCO blog: more than $1.5B invested in R&D in 2025 (shopify.com/enterprise/blog/ecommerce-total-cost-of-ownership). Shopify App Store: over 16,000 apps (apps.shopify.com).

5 Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce Platforms, Aditya Vasudevan, Penny Gillespie, Sandy Shen, Jason Daigler, Mike Lowndes, 19 October 2026 (shopify.com/resources/gartner-magic-quadrant). GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, and MAGIC QUADRANT is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

6 The Forrester Wave™: Commerce Solutions, Q3 2026, July 22, 2026 (reprint.forrester.com/reports/the-forrester-wavetm-commerce-solutions-q3-2026-9989c1a9/index.html). Forrester does not endorse any company, product, brand, or service included in its research publications and does not advise any person to select the products or services of any company or brand based on the ratings included in such publications.

7 Gartner, Critical Capabilities for Digital Commerce Platforms, Sandy Shen, Aditya Vasudevan, Mike Lowndes, Jason Daigler, Penny Gillespie, 20 October 2026 (shopify.com/resources/gartner-magic-quadrant). The Gartner disclaimer in 5 applies.

8 IDC Market Share: Worldwide Digital Commerce Applications Shares, 2025, doc #US54603626, June 2026, as reported on the Shopify Enterprise blog, "Shopify Ranked #1 For Worldwide Digital Commerce Applications Market Share" (shopify.com/enterprise/blog/shopify-market-share).

9 Shopify customer case studies: Bombas (shopify.com/case-studies/bombas), Spanx (shopify.com/case-studies/spanx), SodaStream (shopify.com/case-studies/sodastream), SANJO (shopify.com/case-studies/sanjo), and Bobo Choses (shopify.com/case-studies/bobo-choses). Accessed October 2026.

10 Shopify, Agentic Storefronts (shopify.com/agentic-storefronts). Agentic Storefronts is enabled automatically for eligible stores; terms apply.

11 Shopify Editions (shopify.com/editions). Shopify Editions ships twice a year; the Spring 2026 Edition included more than 150 updates.

12 Shopify Enterprise blog, “How AI Is Making Ecommerce Migration Faster, More Predictable,” June 25, 2026. Based on interviews with Shopify agency partners Netalico, Endertech, RunDTC, Sunrise Integration, and Future Holidays (shopify.com/enterprise/blog/ai-ecommerce-migration).

13 Shopify, “Security” (shopify.com/security) and “PCI Compliant Hosting” (shopify.com/security/pci-compliant): Shopify is certified Level 1 PCI DSS compliant and has been issued SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 reports; GDPR and CCPA guidance at help.shopify.com. Accessed October 2026.

14 Shopify case study: Lulu and Georgia. shopify.com/case-studies/lulu-and-georgia

15 Shopify case study: Gymshark. shopify.com/case-studies/gymshark

Trademark: Adobe Commerce is a trademark of Adobe Inc.