Shopware and Magento 2 are both robust eCommerce solutions that find their enthusiasts all over the world. Each has its own set of advanced features, advantages, and target audiences, making them suitable for many types of businesses varying in size, budget, technical expertise, and specific eCommerce needs.
Whether you’re drawn to Shopware’s simplicity and customer-centric approach or enticed by Magento 2’s scalability and customization capabilities, this comparison aims to simplify the task of selecting the ideal platform for your online business.
Let’s start with briefly describing both platforms.
Quick jump
What is Shopware?
Shopware is an API-first, open-source eCommerce platform known for its user-friendly interface and extensive out-of-the-box features that cater to businesses of many sizes and industries. Shopware 6, the latest version of the platform, is built on modern technologies – PHP Symfony and VueJS framework- and offers a variety of hosting plans. Shopware aims to provide each online store with a personalized path and customer journey, providing the best User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX).
Key features of Shopware include compelling content creation with Shopping Experiences, SEO optimization features, the Rule Builder for enhanced control, B2B capabilities, and support for multiple sales channels and languages.
Available versions: Community Edition, Rise, Evolve, and Beyond
What is Magento 2?
Magento 2 is an eCommerce platform that also offers a wide range of features and capabilities to empower businesses. Similar to Shopware, it is designed to support businesses of all sizes while focusing on medium-sized businesses and enterprises. Magento is based on the PHP Zend framework and can be hosted on private servers as well as on the cloud.
Magento’s key advantages are its customizable architecture and the number of integrations available, which make it a solid choice for complex and fast-growing businesses with extensive product catalogs.
Available versions: Open-source & Adobe Commerce
Shopware vs Magento 2 comparison
Moving to the topic of today’s blog, we will compare both eCommerce platforms based on several factors that are important for potential users of these solutions.
Market share
Let’s begin the comparison with some statistics. Magento holds a significant market share in the eCommerce platform landscape. With 127, 656 live websites currently using Magento and an additional 543,712 sites that have historically used Magento, it showcases a strong presence in the market. On the other hand, Shopware, while having a smaller market share compared to Magento, still demonstrates a notable presence. There are 26,074 live websites currently using Shopware, with an additional 59,027 sites that have historically used the platform.
Easy of use
Shopware is known for its user-friendly interface and ease of use, making it a good choice for businesses without extensive technical expertise. The platform’s straightforward setup and management process enable businesses to establish and maintain their online presence quickly. Also, the admin panel based on the Vue.js framework is intuitive and minimalistic.
Magento 2 is a feature-rich platform with a steeper learning curve. It’s more suited for businesses that have access to developers or technical teams. Experienced developers should install and configure the platform, and the admin panel may require some technical knowledge as well.
Scalability
In terms of scalability, both eCommerce platforms offer great flexibility and scalability options that allow businesses to create robust, high-performing stores. However, Shopware is more of a “standard” platform focused on shopping experiences and simplicity, while Magento is a more advanced tool that requires more developer knowledge but, at the same time, offers more room for platform customization to support complex eCommerce stores and enterprises.
Shopware provides scalability through its Symfony-based architecture, optimizing shopping experiences with simplicity. This simplicity ensures that businesses can maintain performance as they grow, facilitated by efficient resource management and easy integration with external systems.
On the other hand, Magento’s scalability is powered by a robust, highly customizable architecture based on the Zend framework. This architecture is suitable for large-scale operations and complex setups and enables eCommerce stores to handle high volumes of transactions and traffic spikes.
Extensions
The extensions for Shopware are available on the Shopware Store. While the number of them is smaller than in Magento, the Shopware platform offers many features that are out-of-the-box, and the most important extensions are already available in the store.
In the case of Magento, Extensions are available on the Magento Marketplace, where there are many paid and free plugins for your eCommerce store, from social media integrations to payment gateways.
Worth noting is that both platforms offer the most popular integrations crucial for operating an eCommerce business, i.e., payment gateways like PayPal or Stripe, shipping providers like DHL, and customer relationship management (CRM) systems such as Zendesk, facilitating enhanced customer service and engagement.
SEO & Marketing
In this case, both eCommerce platforms offer search engine optimization (SEO) features such as SEO-friendly URLs, meta-tags customization, external/internal links, and more. Nonetheless, Shopware offers more straightforward tools and options for managing SEO and marketing activities, making it more accessible for non-technical users.
Apart from that, both solutions provide decent marketing features like cross-selling, discounts, or product reviews, as well as powerful integrations for marketing purposes, such as Cleverreach for Shopware or Springbot for Magento, as well as marketing automation tools such as HubSpot.
When it comes to analytics tools, integration with Google Analytics is available for both Shopware and Magento 2. Additionally, both eCommerce solutions offer advanced reports and analytics features, like “Analytics & Reporting” in Shopware or “Data Connection” in Adobe Commerce. When an online business needs extra tools for this purpose, they are available in the platform’s store.
Mobile-friendly
The powerful Alokai extension is available for both Shopware and Magento. It is a versatile Progressive Web Application (PWA) solution that makes it easier to create a mobile version of the eCommerce store by leveraging modern web technologies.
Additionally, Magento offers an out-of-the-box tool called PWA Studio, thanks to which experienced developers can create customized PWA storefronts in Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source.
Costs & Licenses
Shopware, apart from the Community version, offers 3 commercial ones: Rise (starting at €600/month), Evolve (custom pricing), and Beyond (custom pricing). Each license differs in offered functionalities and provided support. For instance, the “Rise” version is suitable for new businesses that only need some basic features, while the “Evolve” version is designed for medium-sized businesses that need more advanced features like enhanced roles & permissions management or CMS rules. Due to that, online businesses can choose the version based on their needs and budget.
Magento 2, apart from the Open Source version, offers only one commercial version – Adobe Commerce, with no other flexible pricing options. Given only one paid version of a platform, a company needs to decide whether the budget can cover the cost of this license.
When it comes to maintenance costs, Shopware is usually cheaper to implement and maintain due to its simplicity and flexible pricing than Magento 2. This ease of use reduces the need for extensive developer work during setup and ongoing maintenance, ultimately lowering associated costs.
Hosting
Moving on to the hosting options, both solutions offer On-Premise and Cloud hosting. Establishing a self-hosted platform involves more work due to the responsibility for technical aspects of the infrastructure. This task covers choosing hardware specifications, configuring the software, and direct management of data security protocols, ensuring that sensitive information remains under the company’s oversight. However, in exchange, a company gains full control over the website’s development data.
Cloud hosting is an option where the cloud’s owner (in this case, Shopware or Magento) is responsible for the technical aspects, so the business owner does not have to worry about the website’s maintenance. Nonetheless, the customization and development options may be limited. The Shopware Cloud is available as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). The SaaS version is the usual go-to for standard businesses that do not require extensive customization. The PaaS version, on the other hand, allows developers to modify the platform to correspond with eCommerce business needs while maintaining the benefits of cloud hosting.
Magento 2, in turn, offers Adobe Commerce Cloud when the website can be deployed as a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), providing an environment to host and manage Magento applications. It enables developers to build and customize applications without the need to manage the underlying infrastructure, providing tools and services for application development, testing, and deployment.
Community support
Both Shopware and Magento are supported by active communities and offer various forms of assistance to their users, although they differ in some aspects. Magento stands out with one of the most extensive communities in the eCommerce industry, consisting of a vast number of developers, partners, and forums ready to offer help. In contrast, Shopware, while having a smaller community than Magento, emphasizes the importance of strong customer relationships and provides support through its forums and an online academy. As a result, depending on your preferences for community size and the type of support available, Magento could be the preferred choice for those seeking to engage with a larger community and access to a bigger number of developers, while Shopware might be more appealing to those who value personalized support.
Built-in functionalities
Now, let’s look at some of the out-of-the-box functionalities of both platforms:
Content management
In terms of managing content, Shopware offers its Content Management System (CMS) named Shopping Experiences. Thanks to this feature, users can easily create engaging and personalized content for their online store without the need for extensive technical knowledge or coding skills. Shopping Experiences in Shopware allow users to create layouts with fully responsive, predefined, and customizable blocks through a drag-and-drop interface and leverage the Shopware Twig template engine, which provides a flexible, secure, and fast template system for developing complex user interfaces.
The CMS in Adobe Commerce (Magento Enterprise) also offers a Page Builder similar to the one in Shopware. It is easy to use and customizable, enabling to achieve similar levels of visual engagement. Instead of the Twig template engine, it utilizes its own templating system, primarily based on PHP files known as PHTML files.
Managing multiple stores and sources of inventory
Shopware allows users to manage multiple sales channels via the Sales Channels feature. This can include channels like social media, marketplaces, POS, or any other. Multi-source inventory (MSI) feature is also available for managing multiple warehouses.
Magento 2 provides a Magento Multistore feature for this task, as well as its own feature for managing product sources.
Both solutions offer customizing stores to differ in assortment, language, or currency. However, Sales Channel in Shopware may be more flexible in terms of integrating various types of sales channels and easier to set up and manage, since Magento’s multistore feature is aimed at complex businesses and enterprises.
Multi-language features
Shopware offers operating in multiple languages that the customer can use to shop in the online store. German and English are supported by default, while other languages are supported by downloading the free Shopware language pack. The Admin Panel in Shopware can be translated to other languages as well.
Similarly, the Magento platform gives the opportunity to choose from many languages based on Magento language packs. Themes support multi-language storefronts that allow the customer to select the desired language.
Multi-currency features
Shopware and Magento users can leverage multi-currency features to enhance their eCommerce capabilities.
In Shopware, businesses can create multiple currencies by following simple steps in the Admin panel, such as adding currencies with specific details like name, ISO code, symbol, and conversion factor. Additionally, Shopware enables users to set price rounding settings for different countries, ensuring flexibility in displaying prices tailored to diverse markets.
Likewise, Magento enables businesses to browse available currencies in Magento’s back office and choose the currencies accepted for payment at the online store. Then, the store can decide whether the currency should be applied globally or depending on the region.
Furthermore, Shopware Store and Magento Marketplace offer extensions designed to support multi-language and multi-currency operations.
B2B eCommerce features
For improving business-to-business capabilities, Shopware provides B2B Suite available in “Evolve” and “Beyond” versions. It includes features like custom pricing, order options (large orders and repeat orders), submission and approval of sales offers, and more.
Adobe Commerce, as a paid version of Magento, also offers many useful functionalities that aim to support b2b operations, such as quick order, add to cart by SKU, shared Catalog, custom catalogs, and pricing.
Both solutions are well-suited for B2B eCommerce businesses, offering many functionalities and interesting tools. Therefore, we created another blog that more thoroughly describes the eCommerce B2B features in these platforms and the other popular eCommerce solutions!
Workflow & automation
When it comes to improving workflow, Shopware offers the Flow Builder. This feature allows online businesses to automate workflows across the eCommerce ecosystem by setting up triggers and actions for various events, such as order placements, customer registrations, and product reviews, making it a powerful tool for automating communication, marketing, and other repetitive tasks. Example: “Segment customers and orders into specific categories through tags” and “Create individual emails according to your tags and categories.”
Additionally, the Rule Builder feature introduces the possibility to create specific rules and conditions regarding pricing, payment methods, shipping, and more. This is a great way to enhance the shopping experience by implementing rules like “free shipping when the basket value exceeds € 40” or “show promotional banners for people interacting with your store for the first time.”
On the other hand, Magento offers a more customizable platform that, while requiring more technical expertise, provides the infrastructure needed for complex automation and integrations. This platform provides pricing rules and dynamic rule-based product relations, allowing rules regarding marketing and sales to be set.
Magento would require some developer’s work and/or integrations to match the functionalities of Shopware Flow Builder and Rule Builder, but at the same time, it is more customizable. Its event-driven architecture and the vast ecosystem of extensions allow businesses to tailor the platform extensively to their specific workflow automation needs.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) features
The powerful AI Copilot in Shopware is your individual support for managing an eCommerce website. It covers a range of tasks, including, for instance, generating content for Shopping Experiences, classifying customers, searching by image/context, and preparing AI-based translations for reviews. Apart from that, it has a lot more use cases that are certainly worth exploring.
Magento, in turn, offers the AI and machine learning framework Adobe Sensei that powers intelligent recommendations, generates personalized content, and gathers marketing insights.
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Summary
In conclusion, both Shopware and Magento 2 are strong contenders in the eCommerce platform market, each with its strengths and ideal use cases.
While both platforms offer comprehensive features for eCommerce businesses, the choice between Shopware and Magento 2 should be based on your specific business needs, available budget, and future goals.
Shopware might be the better choice for businesses that value simplicity and customer experience, focusing on a feature-rich platform with a user-friendly interface. In contrast, Magento 2/Adobe Commerce advanced customization features cater to businesses with more complex requirements and the technical knowledge to manage the platform.