Magento and Shopify detailed features comparison

Magento eCommerce and Shopify are two very popular digital commerce platform and merchants often decide between two of them when plan an online store. There are probably hundreds of articles that compare these platforms, but to our surprise we couldn’t find one that compares Magento and Shopify features head-to-head. In this post you’ll find such comparison.

Magento and Shopify: beyond the features

However before we starting to compare features, let’s have a quick outlook to the platforms characteristics that lay beyond features if we define them as technical capabilities. An infographic below provides that high-level overview.

We’ll refer to the best high-level comparisons in the references section at the bottom of this post.

Magento vs Shopify features compared

Now let’s start comparing features. Couple important notes about the comparison below:

We compared out-of-the-box features, not something that can be done through apps/extensions. The reason for that that Magento has over 9,000 apps and Shopify over 500, so making full comparison of all the functionality available through apps is barely possible. In some cases we made a notes that the feature is available through an app
We used Magento Community as a basis for comparison. Some features available in Magento Enterprise only mentioned in the notes

So the comparison table is below, it is pretty expensive (contains 148 rows). You’ll find a summary analysis below the table.

Magento and Shopify comparison, out of the box features
Category	Feature/parameter	Magento	Shopify	Comment
Product catalogue	Unlimited products and categories	yes	yes	Categories are Collections in Shopify
Product catalogue	Sub-categories	yes	no*	In Shopify tagging used for sub-categories
Product catalogue	Simple products	yes	yes
Product catalogue	Options	yes	yes	Done through variants in Shopify, less flexible than in Magento
Product catalogue	Options custom price	yes	yes	Done through variants in Shopify, less flexible than in Magento
Product catalogue	Configurable products	yes	yes	Done through variants in Shopify, less flexible than in Magento
Product catalogue	Grouped products	yes	no
Product catalogue	Bundle products	yes	no
Product catalogue	Virtual products	yes	no
Product catalogue	Digital products	yes	yes
Product catalogue	Unlimited product attributes	yes	no*	In Shopify free or paid app required
Product catalogue	Attribute sets	yes	no
Product catalogue	Back orders	yes	no*	Customisation or App required in Shopify
Product catalogue	Min/max quantities	yes	no
Product catalogue	Batch updates to products in admin panel	yes	yes
Product catalogue	Automatic image resizing	yes	yes
Product catalogue	Automatic image watermarking	yes	no
Product catalogue	Special prices	yes	yes	Compare price in Shopify
Product catalogue	Advanced pricing rules	yes	no
Product catalogue	Search results rewrites and redirects	yes	no
Product catalogue	Customer product tags	yes	no
Product catalogue	Customer reviews	yes	no*	Can be done through free app in Shopify
Product catalogue	Personalisation: text, images	yes	no*	Customisation required in Shopify
Product catalogue	Product sorting settings (admin)	yes	yes
Product catalogue	Product RSS feed	yes	no
Catalog and product browsing	Layered navigation with flexible filters	yes	yes
Catalog and product browsing	Select grid and list format for products listing	yes	no
Catalog and product browsing	Search auto-suggest	yes	no*	Customisation required in Shopify
Catalog and product browsing	Breadcrumbs	yes	yes
Catalog and product browsing	Category specific design	yes	no	Customisation required in Shopify
Catalog and product browsing	Product specific design	yes	no	Customisation required in Shopify
Catalog and product browsing	Multiple images per product	yes	yes
Catalog and product browsing	Product image zoom	yes	no	Yes*
Catalog and product browsing	Stock availability	yes	yes
Catalog and product browsing	Facebook and Twitter share	yes	yes
Checkout	One page checkout	yes	no
Checkout	Guest checkout	yes	yes
Checkout	Multiple addresses	yes	no
Checkout	Optional start of checkout account creation	yes	yes
Checkout	Saved shopping cart	yes	no	yes
Checkout	SSL – front and back-end	yes	yes
Checkout	Gift messages	yes	no*	Customisation required in Shopify
Checkout	Shipping and tax estimate	yes	no*	Customisation required in Shopify
Checkout	Saved credit card for offline payment	yes	no
Checkout	Charge or authorise	yes
Checkout	Native support of Paypal	yes	yes
Checkout	Native support of Authorise.net	yes	yes
Checkout	Native support of Braintree	yes	yes
Checkout	Support of checks/money orders	yes	yes
Checkout	Support of purchase orders	yes	no
Checkout	Shipping labels for major carriers	yes	no*	In Shopify for USPS only and in US only – Incorrect, printing label app
Checkout	Real-time UPS rates	yes	yes
Checkout	Real-time DHL rates	yes	no
Checkout	Real-time USPS rates	yes	yes
Checkout	Real-time Fedex rates	yes	yes
Checkout	Limit shipping by countries	yes	yes
Checkout	Flat shipping rates per order	yes	yes
Checkout	Flat shipping rates per item	yes	no
Checkout	Table rates on weight, amount and destination	yes	yes
Checkout	Order tracking from customer accounts	yes	yes
Checkout	Fraud Analyis tool	no	yes*	3rd party extension required in Magento, not available for external gateways with all plans in Shopify
Marketing	Related products	yes	no
Marketing	Cross-sell	yes	no
Marketing	Up-sell	yes	no
Marketing	Simple coupons	yes	yes
Marketing	Unique coupons auto-generation	yes	no	Automatic generation of unique coupons for list of eligible customers – Yes this has it too
Marketing	Complex promotion rules	yes	no
Marketing	Multi-tier quantity discounts	yes	no
Marketing	Minimum Advertised Price (MAP)	yes	no
Marketing	Customer groups	yes	yes
Marketing	Customer group pricing	yes	yes*	Requires to create coupon in Shopify
Marketing	Recently viewed products	yes	no
Marketing	New products	yes	no
Marketing	Product comparison	yes	no
Marketing	Wish list	yes	no
Marketing	Share wish list	yes	no
Marketing	Persistent Shopping Cart	yes	no
Marketing	Free shipping	yes	yes
Marketing	Polls	yes	no
Marketing	Newsletter system	yes	no
Marketing	Share with friends	yes	no
Marketing	Category landing page	yes	yes
Marketing	Gift cards	no	yes*	From "Shopify" plan in Shopify, in Magent requires 3rd party extension or Enterprise Edition
Marketing	Automatic Abandoned Cart emails	no	yes*	From "Shopify" plan in Shopify, in Magent requires 3rd party extension or Enterprise Edition
SEO	Google site map	yes	yes
SEO	SEO friendly URLs	yes	partial	Only last part of URL can be changed in Shopify
SEO	URL rewrite management	yes	yes
SEO	Product Meta	yes	yes
SEO	Categories Meta	yes	yes
SEO	Content pages Meta	yes	yes
SEO	Auto site map	yes	yes
SEO	Auto search terms	yes	no
SEO	Google Shopping support	yes	no*	free app required in Shopify
Site Management	Multiple websites and stores	yes	no
Site Management	Unlimited admin user accounts	yes	no	Depends on plan in Shopify, from 2
Site Management	Admin user access restrictions	yes	yes
Site Management	Admin user roles	yes	no
Site Management	Complete look&feel control	yes	yes
Site Management	Multiple languages support	yes	*yes	one language per store in Shopify
Site Management	Multiple currencies support	yes	no	Theme customisation required in Shopify to display multiple currencies
Site Management	Catalogue batch import	yes	yes
Site Management	Customers batch import	yes	yes
Site Management	CMS	yes	yes
Site Management	Blog	extension	yes
Site Management	Flexible tax rates	yes	yes
Site Management	Optional CAPTCHA	yes	no
Site Management	Allowed countries for shipping, billing and registration	yes	yes*	In Shopify defined through Shipping zones only
Site Management	EU VAT validation	yes	no
Site Management	EU cookies notification	yes	no
Order Management	View, edit, create and fulfill orders	yes	yes
Order Management	Invoices, shipments	yes	yes
Order Management	Credit memos	yes	no
Order Management	Split invoices and fulfillment	yes	no
Order Management	Print invoices, pack. slips and shipping labels	yes	no
Order Management	Phone orders with custom. account sync	yes	yes
Order Management	Assisted Shopping	yes	no
Order Management	Customized Order Status	yes	no
Order Management	Re-order for customers from admin interface	yes	no
Order Management	Order email notifications	yes	yes
Order Management	RSS feed of new orders	yes	no
Order Management	Customisable transaction emails	yes	yes
Customer accounts	Customer dashboard	yes	yes
Customer accounts	Address book with unlimited addresses	yes	yes
Customer accounts	Wish list with comments	yes	no
Customer accounts	Order statuses and history	yes	yes
Customer accounts	Re-order from account	yes	no
Customer accounts	Recently ordered items	yes	no
Customer accounts	Default billing and shipping addresses	yes	yes
Customer accounts	Newsletter subscription management	yes	no
Customer accounts	Email or RSS share of wish list	yes	no
Customer accounts	Product tags submitted	yes	no
Customer accounts	Product reviews submitted	yes	no
Customer accounts	Access to digital products purchased	yes	no
Analytics and Reporting	Google Analytics eCommerce tracking integration	yes	yes
Analytics and Reporting	Admin dashboard with reports	yes	yes
Analytics and Reporting	Sales report	yes	yes
Analytics and Reporting	Tax report	yes	yes
Analytics and Reporting	Abandoned shopping cart report	yes	no*	free app
Analytics and Reporting	Best viewed products report	yes	no
Analytics and Reporting	Best purchased products report	yes	yes
Analytics and Reporting	Low stock report	yes	no
Analytics and Reporting	Search terms report	yes	no
Analytics and Reporting	Product reviews report	yes	no
Analytics and Reporting	Tags report	yes	no
Analytics and Reporting	Coupon usage report	yes	no
Analytics and Reporting	Insights : Website cart analysis	no	yes
Others	Responsive themes	yes	yes
Others	Built-in POS	no	yes	Extra $40/month for Shopify, 3rd party extension required in Magento

If you think that the comparison need to be amended or corrected – feel free to post a comment to this post, we’ll appreciate that.

Analysis

From the full list of features compared (148):

Magento vs Shopify comparison. All features

62 are available in both systems
77 are available in Magento only
5 are available in Shopify only

Features by category

Magento vs Shopify comparison. Features by categories comparison

Based on that analysis it is clear that Magento beats Shopify in number of features available out of the box.

Conclusion

Magento is definitely packed with more features out of the box then Shopify, it provides merchants with more advanced functionality in almost all sides of running eCommerce business. There are also more extensions available and being open source, Magento can be customised in virtually any way.

Note that while the features are important, when selecting an eCommerce platform you need to think about number of other factors including development and support&maintenance costs, scaling, flexibility, future growth, integration with other systems. In some cases it may be that Shopify is good enough for your business.

There is also a a compromise available: easy to set-up and maintain SaaS eCommerce platform based on Magento functionality – Zoey Commerce (Magenable is an official partner of Zoey)

Feel free to contact us if you need help in selection of eCommerce platform for your business.

Updates

I was advised that Shopify Plus now has transaction fees

References

The references below provides more high-level comparison of Magento and Shopify platforms

Aionhill – https://aionhill.com/magento-vs-shopify-2016-do-you-wish-for-simplicity-or-freedom
Matterhorndigital https://matterhorndigital.com.au/digital-news/magento-vs-shopify-ecommerce-platforms-compared/
Paul Rogers https://paulnrogers.com/magento-community-vs-shopify-ecommerce-platform-comparison/
Our own blog post about human resources available /magento-ecommerce/magento-vs-shopify-human-resources-pool-comparison/

Magento and Shopify: beyond the features

Magento vs Shopify features compared

Analysis

Conclusion

Updates

References

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Magento & Bigcommerce Experts.