Are you thinking about opening an online store but can’t decide between Magento and BigCommerce?
Picking the right platform is like choosing the best starting point for a race. It can make all the difference in how smoothly you get to the finish line.
Magento and BigCommerce are two of the top choices out there for setting up your store, but they offer different paths to success.
In this blog post, we’re going to dive deep into what makes each platform unique, from how easy they are to use, to what kind of support you can expect, and even how much they’ll cost you.
So, let’s get started and find out which platform might be the right fit for you: Magento or BigCommerce?
An Overview of Magento
Magento is an open-source platform that lets people create their own online stores. This means that anyone can use Magento’s basic structure for free and change it however they like to meet their specific needs.
Because it’s open-source, a huge community of users and developers around the world work on it, continuously improving its features and security.
Owned by Adobe
Adobe, a well-known company that makes a lot of different software, bought Magento in 2018. After buying it, Adobe added Magento to its Adobe Experience Cloud.
This is a collection of tools that help businesses with their marketing and managing their online presence. By being part of this suite, Magento offers more powerful options for people to market their products and manage their stores.
Written in PHP
The core of Magento is written in PHP, which is a very common programming language used for making websites. This is important because many web developers know PHP, so finding someone to work on a Magento store is relatively easy.
PHP also ensures that Magento can run on many different web hosting platforms, making it flexible for different kinds of businesses, whether they’re small startups or large enterprises.
An Overview of BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a popular platform used by businesses to create online stores. Unlike some other platforms where you need to handle a lot of technical stuff, BigCommerce makes things simpler.
It’s a type of service known as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). This means instead of buying the software once and installing it on your computer or server, you pay a regular fee to use it.
BigCommerce takes care of all the technical details like hosting your website on the internet, keeping it secure from hackers, updating it with new features, and fixing any issues that come up.
Suited for Various Business Sizes
One of the great things about BigCommerce is that it works well for all kinds of businesses.
Whether you’re just starting out with a small shop or you’re part of a big company looking to expand online, BigCommerce has the tools and features you need. This flexibility is a big reason why so many different types of businesses choose BigCommerce.
User-Friendly
Another reason people like BigCommerce is that it’s easy to use. You don’t need to be a tech expert to set up your online store.
This makes BigCommerce a great choice for business owners who want to focus on selling their products and services, not on figuring out complicated software. The platform is designed to be straightforward, allowing you to manage your store without needing to hire a team of developers or designers.
Magento vs BigCommerce: Full Comparision
Both Magento and BigCommerce have their own strengths and features, but they also have differences that might make one a better choice for your business than the other. We’ll go through what each platform offers, from how easy they are to use to how much they cost, and everything in between.
1. Built-in Functionality
When it comes to building an online store, both Magento and BigCommerce offer a lot of great features. Let’s dive into what each platform offers and how they compare.
Core E-commerce Features
Both platforms are strong in the basics. They allow you to add products easily, set up different variations (like sizes and colors), manage product attributes, and keep track of your inventory.
They also help you organize your products into categories and let customers filter through them to find what they need. When it comes to checking out, Magento and BigCommerce ensure the process is secure for your customers, although Magento might give you more ways to customize the checkout experience.
They support many payment gateways, meaning you can accept payments through various methods like credit cards and PayPal. Shipping is another area where they excel, offering integrations with major carriers, real-time shipping rate calculations, and flexible shipping options.
Where They Differ Significantly
- B2B Features: If your store is focused on selling to other businesses, Magento, especially its Commerce edition, has more built-in features for this. It can handle things like customer-specific pricing and account management better. BigCommerce is working on improving its B2B capabilities, especially with its Enterprise plan, but Magento is ahead in this area.
- Multi-Channel Selling: Want to sell your products not just on your website but also on places like Amazon and eBay? BigCommerce makes this easy with built-in integrations. For Magento, you might need extra tools to sell across different channels.
- Blogging: If having a blog on your store is important to you, BigCommerce has you covered with a built-in feature. With Magento, you’d likely need to add a third-party extension to add blogging to your site.
2. Ease of Use
When choosing between Magento and BigCommerce, how easy it is to use each platform is a big factor. Let’s see how they stack up in this area.
Magento: A Bit of a Challenge
Magento offers powerful features and flexibility, but it’s not the simplest to use. Setting up your store, configuring options, and managing it day to day can get complex.
You really need to know your way around technical stuff or have someone who does. Learning how Magento works, understanding its terms, and using all its features can take quite a bit of time and effort.
It’s a platform that’s more suited for businesses that have access to developers or can partner with an agency for help with their website.
BigCommerce: Ease and Simplicity
On the other hand, BigCommerce aims to be more straightforward. It’s built to be user-friendly, with a dashboard that’s easy to understand and navigate right from the start.
For those who want to get their store looking just right without having to learn a lot of technical details, BigCommerce includes a drag-and-drop page builder. This tool lets you arrange your site’s elements simply by moving them around on the screen.
It’s a great choice for businesses that might not have a lot of technical expertise and want to handle things on their own as much as possible.
3. Pricing
Let’s talk about how much Magento and BigCommerce might cost if you decide to use them for your online store.
Magento: Free and Not-So-Free
Magento has two main versions: Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce.
- Magento Open Source is free to download. That sounds great, right? But remember, you need to pay for hosting it somewhere on the internet, and prices for that can vary a lot. Plus, if you’re not a tech wizard, you might need to hire some help to set everything up and keep it running smoothly. Also, if you want extra features, you’ll likely need to buy extensions, which are additional tools you can add to your store.
- Magento Commerce is the fancy version that comes with a price tag. The cost depends on how much you sell each year and what extra features you want. It’s designed for bigger businesses that need a lot of advanced tools.
BigCommerce: Pay as You Grow
BigCommerce, as we already mentioned, is a Software-as-a-Service. This means you pay a monthly fee to use it, and BigCommerce takes care of hosting and updates.
There are different plans you can choose from, including one for very large businesses called Enterprise, which has custom pricing.
One thing to keep in mind is that each BigCommerce plan lets you sell up to a certain amount before you have to move to a more expensive plan. Some plans might also have extra fees for transactions, but these can be avoided on the pricier plans.
4. Design and Themes
When setting up your online store, how it looks to your customers is super important. You want a design that shows off your products and makes shopping easy and fun.
Magento and BigCommerce both offer ways to design your store, but they do it differently. Let’s see how they compare.
Magento: For Those Who Dream Big
Magento is like a giant box of LEGOs. If you can imagine it, you can probably build it.
You have total control over how your store looks, from the overall layout to the tiny details. You can find lots of themes on the Magento Marketplace.
Some are free, and some you have to pay for. But here’s the thing: putting it all together can be pretty tough.
You’ll likely need to know how to code or have someone who can do it for you. This makes Magento great for businesses that really want their store to stand out and are willing to invest in making that happen.
BigCommerce: Making Things Easier
BigCommerce is designed more for a quick build. It also has a marketplace with themes, but there might not be as many as Magento offers.
However, BigCommerce has a special tool called Stencil and a drag-and-drop builder. These tools let you change your store’s look without needing to dive into coding.
You can still do some custom work if you want, but you won’t have as much freedom as Magento gives. This is perfect for businesses that want a nice-looking store without getting too technical.
5. Payment Options
When running an online store, offering your customers the right payment options is key. People like having choices on how to pay, and they trust familiar payment services.
Let’s look at how Magento and BigCommerce stack up in this department.
What They Share
Both Magento and BigCommerce are good at letting your customers pay their way. They support big names in payment processing like PayPal, Stripe, Braintree, and Authorize.Net.
This means you can offer the payment methods most of your customers know and trust. They also both work well with various local and regional payment options, depending on where your customers are.
Magento: Flexibility with a Catch
Magento is all about giving you choices. If you’re using Magento, you can add pretty much any payment gateway you want, whether it’s a popular one or something more unique.
This is great if you need something very specific. However, Magento starts with just a few payment options ready to go.
If you need more, you might have to add extensions, which could cost extra money.
BigCommerce: Ready to Go
BigCommerce comes packed with a lot of payment gateways right from the start. This means you can offer a wide range of payment options to your customers without much extra work.
And a big plus is that BigCommerce usually doesn’t charge extra fees for using these payment options. There are some exceptions, especially if you’re using a less common payment method, but for the most part, what you see is what you get.
6. SEO
When it comes to getting your online store noticed by search engines, both Magento and BigCommerce have tools to help, but they approach SEO (Search Engine Optimization) a bit differently. Let’s break down what each platform offers for making your store more search-friendly.
Magento: Customize Every Detail
Magento gives you a lot of power to tweak and fine-tune everything that can affect your store’s search engine rankings. You can change meta titles and descriptions to match exactly what you think people will search for.
You also have control over your site’s URL structure, making sure it’s easy for search engines to understand what each page is about. Even details like what text appears when you hover over an image, known as “alt text,” can be customized.
And if you want to go even further, there are extra tools and features you can add from the Magento marketplace, though some might cost you.
BigCommerce: Straightforward and User-Friendly
BigCommerce also covers the SEO basics well. It lets you manage meta titles and descriptions, set up 301 redirects to guide search engines through site changes, and even helps you automatically generate an XML sitemap that tells search engines about all your pages.
The good thing about BigCommerce is that it’s easier to handle if you’re not a tech expert. The SEO settings are designed to be user-friendly, so you can make changes without needing to dive into the code.
And if you do want to add more capabilities, BigCommerce has apps you can use to extend your SEO efforts.
7. Security
When you’re running an online store, keeping your customers’ information safe is super important. Let’s look at how Magento and BigCommerce handle security, so you can make sure your store is a safe place to shop.
Magento: DIY Security
Using Magento means you have a lot of control, including over your store’s security. This means you need to stay on top of updates, especially security patches that Magento releases.
You also have to make smart choices about where your store is hosted and keep an eye on any extra features (like extensions) you add, as they could have security risks if not properly managed. If you go with Magento Commerce, you get some extra help from Adobe, including more built-in security features.
BigCommerce: Security Included
BigCommerce takes a different approach. Since it’s a hosted platform, a lot of the security stuff is taken care of for you.
They make sure your store meets PCI Compliance standards, which is a fancy way of saying they keep customer payment information super secure. They also automatically update your store with the latest security patches and have a bunch of technical safeguards in place to protect your store from bad guys.
Even though BigCommerce handles a lot of the heavy lifting, you still have some responsibilities, like using strong passwords and being smart about who has access to your store’s backend.
8. Scalability
When your online store starts growing, you want to make sure your website can grow with it. Let’s compare how Magento and BigCommerce stack up when it comes to getting bigger and handling more customers.
Magento: Ready for the Big Leagues
Magento is like a powerhouse when it comes to growing your store. It can handle really big online stores that sell lots of products and get tons of visitors.
But, getting to that point isn’t just a walk in the park. You need to have the right hosting and some serious tech skills to make sure everything runs smoothly, especially during busy times like holiday sales.
If you’re aiming to be a really big business, Magento Commerce is built just for that. It’s packed with features that help large stores manage lots of customers without slowing down.
BigCommerce: Growing Made Simpler
BigCommerce also lets you grow your store, but it works a bit differently. They have different plans, and as your store gets bigger, you move up to the next plan. This is pretty straightforward, but there’s a catch.
If you sell more than what your plan allows, you have to upgrade to a more expensive one. Upgrading is easy, but you have to keep an eye on your sales so you don’t get surprised by needing a pricier plan.
BigCommerce is a good pick for small to medium stores and even larger ones, as long as you’re okay with the way their plans are set up.
9. Support
When you’re running an online store, having good support can make a big difference, especially if you run into trouble or just have questions about how to do something. Here’s how Magento and BigCommerce stack up in terms of the help and support they offer.
Magento: Community and Custom Support
If you’re using Magento Open Source, a lot of your support will come from the Magento community. This includes forums where you can ask questions, knowledge bases filled with helpful articles, and online groups of Magento users.
If you need more personalized help, especially for tricky issues, you might need to hire a Magento developer or work with an agency that specializes in Magento. This kind of expert support can be super helpful but will cost extra.
For businesses using Magento Commerce, Adobe offers more direct support. This includes technical help with any issues you might face and account management to help you get the most out of Magento.
The exact level of support you get can vary depending on which plan you’re on.
BigCommerce: Help Whenever You Need It
BigCommerce offers support 24/7, no matter what plan you’re on. This means you can get help anytime through phone, live chat, or their email/ticketing system.
For quick questions or urgent issues, having access to live chat and phone support can be really handy.
They also have a Help Center that’s packed with articles, guides, and how-tos on all sorts of topics. Plus, there’s a community forum where you can connect with other BigCommerce users.
10. Extensions & Integrations
When you’re building an online store, being able to add new features or connect with other tools can make a big difference. That’s where extensions and integrations come in.
Magento and BigCommerce both offer these options, but they do it in their own ways. Let’s check out how they compare.
Magento: A World of Options
Magento has a huge marketplace full of thousands of extensions. You can find pretty much anything you need, from marketing tools and payment gateways to shipping integrations and accounting connections.
If you have a very specific need, Magento probably has an extension for it. Plus, if you’re tech-savvy or have a developer, you can even create custom integrations.
But, having so many options means you might need some technical know-how to get everything working smoothly. Also, while there are free extensions, many of the most useful ones cost extra money.
BigCommerce: Simplicity and Efficiency
BigCommerce also has an app marketplace, but it tends to focus more on the essentials like marketing, inventory management, and shipping solutions. Many of these apps are easy to add right from your BigCommerce dashboard, making the process pretty straightforward.
BigCommerce stands out for its strong built-in connections with big names like Amazon, eBay, and various social media platforms. This means you can easily sell across multiple channels without needing extra tools.
However, if you’re looking for very niche or custom integrations, BigCommerce might not have as many options as Magento.
Which Platform Should You Choose?
Deciding between Magento and BigCommerce for your online store depends on what you’re looking for and how you plan to grow your business. Let’s break down who might prefer each platform.
Who Should Use Magento?
- Businesses Looking for Customization: If you want your store to have a unique look or specific features that aren’t available out of the box, Magento gives you the freedom to customize almost everything. This is great if you have a clear vision of how you want your store to work and appear.
- Tech-Savvy Users or Those With Developer Support: Since Magento can be complex and requires regular updates and security management, it’s best for those who have some technical skills or the budget to hire someone who does. This way, you can make the most of what Magento offers.
- Large Businesses or Fast-Growing Companies: Magento is highly scalable, which means it can handle a lot of products and a lot of traffic. It’s a good fit if you’re aiming big or growing quickly and need a platform that can keep up.
Who Should Use BigCommerce?
- Businesses Seeking an Easier Start: BigCommerce is user-friendly, with a simpler setup process. If you’re not very technical or just want to get your store up and running without a lot of fuss, BigCommerce is designed for ease of use.
- Small to Medium-Sized Businesses: With its straightforward pricing and built-in features, BigCommerce suits small to medium-sized businesses well. You get a lot of the essential tools you need without extra costs or complications.
- Stores That Plan to Utilize Multi-Channel Selling: If you’re looking to sell not just on your website but also on platforms like Amazon, eBay, and social media, BigCommerce has strong integrations that make this easy.
In Summary
Magento is a powerful choice for those who need customization and have the resources to manage it, ideal for larger businesses or those with specific needs.
BigCommerce, on the other hand, offers an easier, more straightforward approach, making it a good match for smaller businesses and those who value simplicity and efficiency in their e-commerce platform.