You are either on Magento and wondering whether Shopify would cut your costs and complexity, or you are on Shopify and someone has suggested Magento can do things your current platform cannot. Both conversations happen regularly, and both directions of migration happen frequently enough that the comparison deserves an honest treatment rather than a vendor-motivated one.

Here is the reality of both platforms in 2026, including where Magento still wins, what Shopify cannot yet replicate, and the total cost picture that is usually missing from comparison articles.

The core difference in philosophy

Shopify is a hosted platform. Adobe Commerce (Magento) is an open-source platform. This distinction drives almost every other difference.

On Shopify, Adobe manages the hosting, security patching, server infrastructure, and platform upgrades. You pay a subscription and build on top of a maintained foundation.

On Magento, you are responsible for hosting, server management, security patches, extension compatibility, and every upgrade cycle. In return, you have complete control over the codebase and can build almost anything, including things that would be impossible or impractical on Shopify's sandboxed architecture.

The trade-off is not simply about features. It is about whether you want to run an ecommerce platform or run an ecommerce business.

Where Magento still wins in 2026

Magento (Adobe Commerce) retains genuine advantages in specific scenarios:

Deep customisation with no architectural constraints: On Magento, you can modify any part of the platform, including the database schema, the checkout logic, the order management flow, and the admin interface. There are no sandboxed extension points, no App Store limitations, and no platform-enforced architecture. If your business has genuinely unusual requirements that no SaaS platform accommodates, Magento can be built to fit them.

Complex B2B with approval workflows: Magento's B2B module (included with Adobe Commerce) handles complex enterprise B2B scenarios that Shopify Plus still cannot match natively: multi-level purchase order approval workflows, shared company catalogues, company credit accounts with hard credit limits, and requisition lists. For manufacturers and distributors with procurement teams who have formal approval processes, Magento B2B is more complete.

No per-transaction fees: Magento has no transaction fees regardless of which payment gateway you use. At high GMV, this is a meaningful cost saving compared to Shopify merchants using third-party payment processors. A merchant doing £10m/year with a third-party processor on Shopify Advanced pays 0.5% in transaction fees, which is £50,000/year. On Shopify Plus that drops to 0.15% (£15,000/year), but on Magento it is zero.

Highly complex product catalogues: Merchants with tens of thousands of SKUs, highly configurable products (custom options, multi-attribute configuration), or complex product relationships (kits, bundles with variable components) sometimes find Magento's product model more expressive than Shopify's.

Existing large investment: If you have spent years and substantial budget building a heavily customised Magento store, the switching cost to Shopify may not be rational even if Shopify would meet your current requirements.

Where Shopify wins in 2026

Speed to market and iteration speed: A new Shopify store can be launched in weeks. A new Magento store, even with a good agency and a clear brief, takes months. More importantly, iterating on Shopify, adding a new feature, swapping an app, testing a theme change, is dramatically faster than the equivalent work on Magento.

Total cost of ownership at most revenue levels: Magento's open-source nature does not mean it is cheap. The typical Magento total cost of ownership for a mid-market UK merchant includes:

Hosting: £500 to £2,000/month for a properly scaled Magento environment
Development: £50,000 to £200,000+ in initial build cost
Annual maintenance: £20,000 to £60,000/year for patches, upgrades, and extension updates
Security: ongoing vulnerability management and patching

Compare this to Shopify Plus at $2,500/month with no hosting overhead and largely self-service upgrades. For merchants below £20m annual GMV, Shopify's TCO is almost always lower.

The app ecosystem: Shopify's App Store has over 8,000 apps covering every ecommerce use case. Most of them are plug-and-play, maintained by the app developer, and priced by subscription. Magento's extension marketplace is much smaller, and extension quality is inconsistent. Many Magento extensions require developer installation and can conflict with other extensions in ways that are expensive to diagnose.

Performance out of the box: Shopify's infrastructure is optimised for ecommerce. Core Web Vitals on a well-built Shopify store are consistently strong. Magento stores require active performance work (proper hosting, caching configuration, CDN setup) to reach comparable speeds. Poorly optimised Magento sites are common and have a measurable negative impact on conversion.

Security: Shopify handles PCI compliance and security patching automatically. Magento requires you to apply security patches, often urgently, when vulnerabilities are disclosed. Unpatched Magento stores are routinely compromised. This is not theoretical: Magento is consistently one of the most targeted ecommerce platforms for card skimming and malware.

Platform comparison table

Factor	Shopify (Advanced/Plus)	Magento (Adobe Commerce)
Hosting included	Yes	No (self-managed)
Monthly platform cost	£399 to $2,500+	£0 (licence) to £50,000+ (Adobe Commerce Enterprise)
Hosting cost	Included	£500 to £2,000+/month
Transaction fees	0.15% to 2%	None
Initial build cost	£5,000 to £50,000+	£50,000 to £300,000+
Annual maintenance	Low (app subscriptions)	High (£20,000 to £60,000+)
Speed to launch	Weeks	Months
Security responsibility	Shopify	Merchant/agency
B2B (basic)	Yes (Plus)	Yes
B2B (complex approval)	Limited	Yes
App/extension ecosystem	8,000+ apps	Smaller marketplace
Custom checkout logic	Via Functions/Extensions	Full code access
Headless capability	Yes (Hydrogen)	Yes
Scalability	Automatic	Requires infrastructure planning

Who Magento still makes sense for in 2026

The honest answer: fewer merchants than in 2020. But there are still scenarios where Magento is the rational choice:

Complex enterprise B2B with formal procurement workflows: If your B2B buyers have multi-level purchase order approval, company budgets, and requisition lists, Magento's B2B module is more complete than Shopify Plus.
Very high GMV with significant transaction fee sensitivity: At £20m+ GMV with third-party payment processors, Magento's zero transaction fee advantage becomes substantial.
Highly bespoke product configuration: Products with extremely complex configurable options (for example, custom manufacturing with thousands of combination options, or industry-specific configurators) may require Magento's open architecture.
Existing heavy Magento investment with specific capabilities: If you have built significant custom integrations, ERP connections, or business logic in Magento over many years, and it is working reliably, the switching cost may not be justified.
Adobe Commerce Cloud customers with enterprise support contracts: Adobe Commerce Cloud (the hosted Magento offering) addresses the hosting and patching overhead. For merchants already in the Adobe ecosystem, this can make sense.

Why merchants migrate from Magento to Shopify

The most common reasons UK merchants choose to migrate from Magento to Shopify:

Escalating maintenance and development costs consuming budget that could be spent on growth
Performance problems that are expensive to resolve on Magento infrastructure
Security incidents or vulnerability exposure
Inability to find or retain Magento developers at a reasonable cost
A desire to reduce dependency on a single agency with deep proprietary knowledge of their codebase
Feature velocity: needing to move faster than Magento's development cycles allow

Merchant surveys consistently show that post-migration to Shopify, total annual technology costs typically fall by 30-50% for mid-market merchants, and the time between identifying a need and having a solution live decreases dramatically.

Key actions to take now

Calculate your true Magento TCO if you are currently on the platform: Add hosting, development retainer, extension licences, and security costs. Compare this honestly to what Shopify Plus would cost at your revenue level.
Identify your specific requirements that you believe Magento alone can meet: For each one, verify whether Shopify Plus with the available app ecosystem or custom Functions development can meet the same need. Most merchants find fewer genuine gaps than they expected.
Get a migration assessment if you are considering moving from Magento to Shopify: A reputable Shopify Plus Partner agency should be able to give you a scoped migration estimate and identify any specific requirements that need custom development.
Do not migrate for the sake of modernity: If your Magento store is generating strong revenue, is stable, and the operational costs are under control, migration carries risk. Only migrate when the TCO saving or capability gap is clear and quantified.
Evaluate Adobe Commerce Cloud before dismissing Magento entirely: If the self-managed hosting overhead is your primary concern, Adobe Commerce Cloud removes it. It is significantly more expensive than the open-source version, but it changes the maintenance burden calculation.
Assess your B2B requirements carefully: If complex B2B is your primary reason for considering Magento, test Shopify Plus B2B features against your specific workflow before ruling it out.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Magento free? The open-source Magento (Community Edition / Magento Open Source) is free to download, but the total cost of running it on a production store is substantial once you account for hosting, development, extensions, and maintenance. Adobe Commerce (the enterprise edition) has a licence fee on top of those costs.

How much does it cost to migrate from Magento to Shopify? Migration costs vary significantly based on catalogue size, order history volume, custom integrations, and the complexity of your existing Magento build. For a mid-market UK merchant, budgets of £15,000 to £60,000 for a full migration (including data migration, theme build, and integration setup) are typical. Simpler stores can be done for less; highly customised Magento builds cost more.

Will I lose functionality migrating from Magento to Shopify? In some areas, yes. Complex B2B approval workflows, certain product configuration approaches, and very bespoke checkout logic may not have a direct Shopify equivalent. A thorough requirements mapping exercise before migration will identify any gaps so they can be addressed through custom development or app selection.

What is the difference between Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce? Magento Open Source is the free, self-hosted version with core ecommerce functionality. Adobe Commerce adds a B2B module, advanced page builder, product recommendations, live search, and Adobe support. Adobe Commerce is available as a self-hosted licence or as Adobe Commerce Cloud (hosted by Adobe). Pricing for Adobe Commerce is custom and typically starts well above $20,000/year.

Shopify vs Magento: Which Platform Is Right for Your UK Business in 2026?