1、Comparing Magento and Shopware in 2023 Which platform suits your business better?Author:Marek BorzckiWhats insideMagento in 2023|4Shopware in 2023|8 Head-to-head:Magento vs.Shopware comparison|12When to choose Magento and when to choose Shopware|22 Marek BorzckiSolution Architect at DivanteWelcome!C

2、hoosing the right eCommerce technology can be a new and exciting challenge for your business.This eBook will analyze whats up with Magento and Shopware in 2023.Itll help you discover their unique functionalities,current popularity,costs,performance,and community.Based on those aspects,youll be able

3、to choose which of them is a better fit for your company.vs.2Magento vs ShopwareEmpowering eCommerce.400+11+280+1000+We build powerful digital products and passionate communities around the technologies that are coming next.global brands as clientsyears on the marketeCommerce experts on boarddeliver

4、ed projectsLets talk about new technologies in your eCommerce.Contact us at Together.Magento vs ShopwareMagento in 2023Magento in 2023I wont describe what Magento is in detail because you will find thousands of articles about it.Ill try to explain what Magento looks like in 2023,its strengths and we

5、aknesses,and its plans.Ill focus on the main factors that help us compare Magento with Shopware.Magento was created in 2007(Magento 1),but in 2015,Magento,based on the experience of many eCommerce creations,created a completely new platform(Magento 2)from scratch.The last big change was in 2018 when

6、 Adobe acquired Magento.Magento,from the beginning,was created as a single unified platform.That means that it should serve the merchant standard eCommerce features without development or“out of the box.”Thanks to that,it decreases the cost of implementationand time to market.The popularity of Magen

7、toThis strategy allows Magento to be one of the digital commerce leaders.Even though many competitors appeared in the market,0.9%of online stores used Magento in 2022.The statistics get even better for the most-trafficked websites.We still see that our customers are very interested in Magento.Moreov

8、er,some statistics might show data incorrectly for webshops,where Magento is just a back end.Magento versionsThere are two versions of Magento:Magento Open Source is a free-to-use,self-hosted platform actively supported by the community.It includes all basic eCommerce functionalities.Adobe Commerce

9、is SaaS,PaaS,or self-hosted with individually estimated license cost.It has many more functionalities than Magento Open Source,including more advanced PCI-compliant security and cloud infrastructure to optimize performance and scalability.As a part of Adobe Experience Cloud,which are integrations wi

10、th Adobe Experience Manager,Adobe Analytics,and Adobe Target,it gives you access to Adobe business intelligence services.Those services include machine learning and personalization capabilities powered by Adobe Sensei.Both Magento versions support PWA Studio,a headless front-end approach.Its usually

11、 an excellent alternative for Magento users who are satisfied with Magento but want to deliver to the customer a mobile-first,dedicated customer experience on the front end.5Magento vs ShopwareUnique features of MagentoUnique Adobe Commerce features are:Page Builder:intuitive,advanced drag and drop

12、and content management system(CMS)editor.Product Recommendations:recommendations of products in multiple eCommerce places/pages in cooperation with Adobe Sensei.Inventory management:advance multi-inventory management including support for command-and-control(C&C)processes.B2B features:most required

13、B2B features,including company structure with roles and permissions,dedicated prices per company,company credit,and quote requests.Reports:powerful business intelligence to centralize and manage data from multiple sources that can be visualized in reports.Payment services:manage and report multiple

14、payment methods from one place.Magentos plansMagento is for everyone.It can fit every scale of business and all business segments,including B2C,B2C,and D2C.On the one hand,this is certainly an advantage.On the other,this could be a weakness because:Advanced features require many lines of code and in

15、crease the complexity of the update process and the weight of the entire platform.This could have an impact on development time.All-in-one architecture platforms are tough to scale,even in cloud infrastructure.This implies the consequences of high server/cloud parameters and costs and often impossib

16、le high-performance results than other eCommerce platforms offer.For example,while API response within 100ms is a standard in commercetools,its tough to obtain for Magento.Magento Enterprise/Advanced features,especially combined with Adobe Experience Cloud,could cause higher license costs compared t

17、o competitor SaaS eCommerce platforms.Magento admin panel can be slow.Building many functionalities in one place could be risky.Suppose your business wants to replace or change an architectural element,such as eCommerce.Youll need to build all related features from scratch.On top of that,the growing

18、 business might 6Magento vs Shopware require more performance and capability,which is very hard to scale in all-in-one platforms.Those limitations are nothing new,so Magento and its community work hard on improvements and propose various ideas and tools to solve them.Adobe tries to build new externa

19、l features.For example,product recommendation calculations are made by separate Adobe Sensei servers.Implementation of full page cache,separate front-end logic thanks to PWA Studio,cache on multiple levels,choosing extensions with the highest performance capability,cloud infrastructure,and many othe

20、rs.Its crucial to think about those improvements from the beginning because sometimes its hard to implement some of them later on.For example,if we have unique prices per customer on the listing page and want to use full page cache.Its very common to use Magento as a back end and build a separate fr

21、ont end based on PWA Studio,Vue Storefront,or from scratch.Separate some logic and features outside Magento using microservices to improve performance and reuse that logic in other business systems.Indexing static data,such as products,categories,and prices,to quickly available services and database

22、s or third-party services,such as Algolia for searching or Mirakl as an admin panel for marketplace merchants.Implementing ideas based on composable commerce and microservices-based,API-first,cloud-native,and headless(MACH)principles.Magentos communityLast but not least,Magentos strength is a commun

23、ity that actively takes care of Magento,especially Magento Open Source.Theyve created 3,500+extensions,and the community consists of over 300,000 experienced,certified Magento developers and agencies.7Magento vs ShopwareMagento vs ShopwareShopware in 2023 Shopware in 2023Shopware was created in 2003

24、.In 2019,they released Shopware 6 with an API-first approach,an intuitive admin panel based on Vue.js,and performance and technology improvements.The last big change was in 2022 when Carlyle and PayPal invested$100 million to accelerate its product innovation and help it expand to new markets.Shopwa

25、re product strategy,from the beginning,was similar to Magento.Since Shopware 6 was released,their strategy changed to allow the merchant to decide if they wanted to build features inside the platform with an all-in-one principle or transfer responsibility to other systems,leveraging a composable com

26、merce approach.Magentos strategy is very similar in this regard,but in my opinion,it works better in Shopware.Its smaller and easier to customize and much more intuitive than Magento.This is,in general,one of Shopwares mottos.The popularity of ShopwareShopware is very popular in the DACH market,with

27、 28,254 active stores,which is 5%of all online stores in the DACH region.However,its much less popular in the global market,where only 0.1%of all online stores use Shopware.This will probably change after the previously mentioned Carlyle and PayPal support.Since 2020,Shopware has appeared in the Gar

28、tner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce in the“Niche players”section,and year by year,its getting closer to the“Leaders.”Shopware versionsThere are four versions of Shopware available:Shopware Community Edition is a free-to-use,self-hosted platform actively supported not only by the community but b

29、y Shopware itself.It includes basic eCommerce functionalities but also many unique features,which will be described below.Shopware Rise Edition is SaaS,PaaS,or self-hosted and available for$600 per month.It includes all Community Edition features plus some improvements.The basic difference is Saas/P

30、aaS cloud hosting and Shopware support opportunities.Evolve and Beyond Editions is SaaS,PaaS,or self-hosted versions with license costs estimated individually.It includes many more advanced features regarding content management,design,workflow,automation,customer experience,marketing,inventory and o

31、rder management,and B2B capabilities than previous versions.9Magento vs ShopwareShopware,since investing in API-first and headless commerce approaches,developed three front-end options:a native front end thats great for standard eCommerce projects,Shopware PWA for projects that require a progressive

32、 web app(PWA)approach,and Shopware Frontends for more dedicated front-end implementations.Unique features of Shopware The most unique Shopware features are:Flow Builder:intuitive tools to automate business processes without coding.According to the predefined events,you choose the condition which ini

33、tiates another action,such as an order placement event.According to the order amount,it might send a different email.Visual page builder:intuitive,advanced drag and drop,and a CMS editor.Intuitive,easy-to-use administrator panel built on Vue.js.Guided Shopping allows you to present shopping events o

34、n a video stream dedicated to selected customers.Its kind of a modern livestream shopping experience.B2B Suite:B2B extensions like company structure,their permissions,acceptance of orders features,quick ordering(by XLSX/CSV file import),reorder,quote management,and customer-specific pricing.Multi-in

35、ventory to manage stock for products in multiple locations.AI description assistant to generate product descriptions based on a few keywords.Shopwares plansShopware plans to grow as a best-of-breed solution.They focus on building expected features like subscriptions,returns,blogs,and more.Shopware i

36、s working hard on performance improvements to be able to take over medium and large-scale organizations.Shopwares limitationsIf you carefully read the description above,you should notice that Shopware is a much smaller platform than Magento.It has fewer out-of-box features and external services like

37、 Adobe Experience Cloud.It might be a weakness.On the other hand,fewer features mean its easier to customize.Its a better suite for projects where we would like to base it on 50-70%of ready-to-use features and build others from scratch.10Magento vs ShopwareOther possible Shopware limitations:Shopwar

38、e is popular mainly on the DACH market,but it might expand with PayPal and Carlyle support.Some of the plugins might be lower quality than Magento.This can have an impact on performance and maintenance.A qualified Shopware agency should solve this problem.As an all-in-one architecture platform,its h

39、ard to scale,similar to Magento.Less complexity helps to deliver better performance,but Magento has more advanced cache tools.Shopwares communityThe Shopware community is maybe not as strong as Magento but still has much to be proud of.Their community has over 1,500 extensions and about 40,000 exper

40、ienced developers.11Magento vs ShopwareMagento vs ShopwareHead-to-head:Magento vs.Shopware comparisonPopularity comparison in 2023Magento 2023Shopware 2023Numbers of live stores in 2022 Q4163,72536,668Growth in 2022 Q4New Active stores6,3291,187Stores increase quarter-over-quarter4.13.4Stores increa

41、se year-over-year15%12%Social Media Usage(%stores that use social)Facebook45.4%30.7%Instagram35.1%27.1%Top 3 Countries1st placeUnited States:22,202 stores 13,6%of storesGermany:25,209 stores 68,7%of stores2nd placeUnited Kingdom:12,095 stores 13,6%of storesSwitzerland:25,209 stores 68,7%of stores3rd

42、 placeGermany:9,882 stores 6.0%of storesAustria:1,402 stores 3.8%of storesMagento is widespread and particularly popular in the U.S.Even though it has a long list of competitors and more merchants migrated from Magento to other platforms than moved to Magento in Q1 2023,the number of Magento stores

43、increased by 15%.This means that many new merchants choose Magento as their first platform.13Magento vs ShopwareMagento 2023Shopware 2023Top 3 Domains1st 74,776 stores 45.7%of stores.de22.702 stores 61.9$of stores2nd place.de8,665 stores 5.3%of 5,874 stores 16.0%of stores3rd place.co.uk8,267 stores

44、5.0%of stores.ch1,690 stores 4.6%of storesTop 3 competitive eCommerce platforms that changed to Magento/Shopware in Q1 2023Number of merchants migrated to Magento/Shopware1,9343951st placeCustom Cart:1,239 merchants 64%of merchantsCustom Cart:232 merchants 58.7%of merchants2nd placeWooCommerce:247 m

45、erchants 12.7%of merchantsMagento:54 merchants 13.6%of merchants3rd placeShopify:219 merchants 11.3%of merchantsWooCommerce:32 merchants 8.1%of merchants14Magento vs ShopwareMagento 2023Shopware 2023Top 3 competitive eCommerce platforms that changed to Magento/Shopware in Q1 2023Number of merchants

46、migrated to to other platforms3,4242641st placeCustom Cart:1,450 merchants 42.3%of merchantsCustom Cart:179 merchants 67.8%of merchants2nd placeOpenCart:854 merchants 24.9%of merchantsShopify:41 merchants 15.5%of merchants3rd placeWooCommerce:455 merchants 13.2%of merchantsWooCommerce:20 merchants 7

47、.5%of merchantsStatistics confirm that Shopware is much more popular in the DACH market than globally.Based on the numbers,Shopware has four times fewer live stores.Its an interesting fact that German merchants choose Shopware two times more often than Magento.Migration statistics are in favor of Sh

48、opware because more customers migrated to Shopware than other platforms.When we add the number of new active stores,you can see that the number of Shopware stores increased by 12%.Costs comparison:license,hosting,maintenanceYou surely know that the costs would be dramatically different when we compa

49、re a small-scale project,with a short list of dedicated functionalities,and a large custom project.Lets focus more on ranges than real numbers.15Magento vs ShopwareBecause specifics of platforms are different,I want to consider a few areas:Development Cost related to the process of creating eCommerc

50、e in the minimum viable product(MVP)scope.Process includes analysis,programming phase,configuration,user acceptance testing(UAT),migration,and publication.Generally,all steps required to build an online store.Cost will be reflected as time ranges,like the number of months,which should be multiplied

51、by the number of development team members and multiplied by team salary.Licenses and Extensions Cost related to platform license or cost of extensions.Please note that license costs are often negotiated individually,and the list of services and extensions often differ.Hosting Cost for cloud infrastr

52、ucture and service-level agreement(SLA)depends on if its hosted on premise or with SaaS or PaaS hosting models.Cost includes not only final production environment but test environments as well.Strategy of the infrastructure might not only be related to platform recommendations and performance strate

53、gy but also to security requirements.For cloud-based solutions,itll be worth highlighting costs related with traffic range.Maintenance Costs for adjustments related to platform stability and feedback from customers.Others I havent included smaller costs such as the domain,SSL certificate,and similar

54、.Exemplary-project assumptions Medium-scale project Development team for medium-scale project:1.5 x Back-end developers 16Magento vs Shopware 1.5 x Front-end developer,0.5 x Project manager 0.5 x Project leader 0.5 x Quality assurance 0.25 x Analyst 0.25 x UX/UI designer 0.25 x SEO and SEM specialis

55、t Headless front-end(PWA)Estimated costs related to the type of platformsMagento 2023Shopware 2023Development time9-12 months8-10 monthsLicensesCommerce platformMagento Open Source:free of chargeAdobe Commerce(Commerce Pro or Managed Services):depends on%of sales revenue.Its usually a few times more

56、 than Shopware.Community Edition:free of chargeRise-600/monthEvolve/Beyond:depends on%of sales revenue.Its usually a few times less than Adobe Commerce.Headless front endPWA Studio:free of chargeShopware PWA:free of chargeExtensions/add-onsUp to 2000 per item17Magento vs ShopwareMagento 2023Shopware

57、 2023Hosting Including SLA and testing/staging environmentCommerce platformOn premise inprivate cloud:1300-2000/monthSaaS/PaaS:included in platform license costHeadless front endOn premise in private cloud:600-1200/month/environment,depends on pageviewsMaintenanceCommerce platform0.5 x Back-end deve

58、loperHeadless front end0.5 x Front-end developerTo summarize everything above,at the time of publishing this comparison,ballpark estimations for an exemplary-medium-scale project can be anything between 660,000 and 880,000 for Magento,and 411,000 and 514,000 for Shopware.Those estimations exclude li

59、censing and hosting costs.Performance comparisonThis factor is partly related to the scale of the project,but I want to focus on the expected result from the customers point of view here.Lets see how quickly pages will be displayed for the user and how fast theyll be able to finalize their purchase.

60、High eCommerce performance means a big impact on two very important rates:Customer bounce rate:the percentage of visitors that leave a webpage without taking action.Conversion rates:number of users who complete some actions,especially making a purchase on your site.Lets focus on page load time.Every

61、 mentioned platform allows for responding in less than one second for some pages.For example,by using the full page cache mechanism,we can return static pages like a home page or CMS pages in a few milliseconds.However,some pages cant be cached and should be calculated dynamically per customer,such

62、as cart 18Magento vs Shopwareand checkout pages.Considering all of that,we want to take into consideration the average response time of all eCommerce pages.Average page load time exceeds one second On both mentioned platforms,the average response time is more than one second,and without the above ex

63、ceptions regarding some pages,like Full Page Cache(FPC),its hard to deliver a better response time.But lets compare performance capabilities depending on the scale of the project.Small to medium-scale projectFor small to medium-scale projects(10k-500k products,50-200 orders per hour),Shopware will p

64、erform better.Shopware,because of its simplicity,allows us to reach a very good average performance load time from the beginning,especially when were using similar improvements as described below for Magento.One of the crucial aspects is to be careful with extensions because some of them might not b

65、e of good quality,which could have an impact on the page performance.Experienced Shopware partners shouldnt have a problem with that.Its also a good practice to separate some of the logic outside of Shopware,which is part of the composable commerce principle,to avoid turning Shopware into a heavy mo

66、nolith application.As an example,lets take the implementation of unique prices per customer in B2B eCommerce.We can transfer responsibility for counting individual prices to a third-party system like an enterprise resource planning(ERP)system or a microservice.Medium to large-scale projectsFor mediu

67、m to large-scale projects(more than 500k products,more than 200 orders per hour),Magento will win a performance comparison.When it comes to page speed,Magento overtakes Shopware thanks to more advanced cache mechanisms and indexing processes.The highest functionality coverage by Magento has an impac

68、t on the platform scalability,which in the end,might affect its average page load time.The lowest times can be seen on the checkout pages.19Magento vs Shopware Magento has plenty of prevention ideas.These include the mentioned full page cache,PWA Studio headless front end,Redis cache,choosing extens

69、ions with the highest performance,cloud infrastructure to adapt to website traffic,and many others.Its important to think about those improvements at the beginning because sometimes its hard to implement some of them later on.For example,if we have unique prices per customer on the listing page,it m

70、ight not be possible to use full page cache.Its worth mentioning here that,in some cases,described improvements can be costly and could affect the development time because building some functionalities in high performance can be quite time consuming.It might also have an impact on subsequent mainten

71、ance costs.Still,because of Magentos advantages,performance times are acceptable at that level for many eShops.Average page load time is less than one second Where all-in-one optimized solution limits are ending,the composable commerce approach,such as commercetools,is starting.Performance is one of

72、 the main goals of commercetools.Thanks to that,you can easily reach 100 milliseconds of API response times instead of seconds in Magento or Shopware.You can use it to deliver unique,super fast eCommerce sites,like Zalando,Amazon,or Alibaba.It is possible thanks to the implementation of MACH princip

73、les.If performance and a modern tech stack without compromises,especially regarding budget,is your first factor.To learn more,you should read more about commercetools.Functionality coverage comparisonYou should know your business needs,current and future plans,list of desired functionalities,and you

74、r customers expectations before you try to choose the best eCommerce to match your requirements.The vast list of features of all-in-one platforms is one of the main reasons why those platforms might be an interesting solution for your eCommerce.More ready-to-use functionalities decrease implementati

75、on costs and reduce time to market.You should check compatibility with multiple areas of your shop:Back-end functionalities with objects like product catalog,promotions,customers,CMS,orders,reports,and so on.You should also include the process of data 20Magento vs Shopwareadministration.Front-end fu

76、nctionalities with pages like home page,listing page,product page,cart and checkout page,my account pages,CMS pages,and so on.You should include the expected customer journey and experience,such as the mobile-first approach and device compatibility,such as the PWA approach.Third-party system integra

77、tions includes the available middlewares,which covers integration,compatibility with third-party systems structure,integration efficiency,and data amount.You should be able to integrate with systems like ERP,customer relationship management(CRM),warehouse,marketing automation,and so on.Migrations me

78、ans which data should be migrated and from which systems.SEO and SEM expectations,especially compatibility and coverage.Platform assignment according to coverage percentage 70-80%coverage-Magento Magento has the bigger chance to have the highest functionality coverage because Magento Open Source and

79、 Adobe Commerce offer plenty of functionalities out of the box.Besides,if you dont find it in the Magento core,theres a big chance youll find it in the community.Therere more than 3,500 extensions available.If in that 30%of noncoverage areas,you find very costly features to build from scratch,you ca

80、n rethink using Shopware,which is easier to customize than Magento.50-70%coverage-Shopware Shopware,as an all-in-one solution,has plenty of functionalities but much fewer than Magento.At the moment,Shopware 6 has over 1,500 extensions.However,thanks to being lighter and simpler,its much easier to cu

81、stomize.Because of that,Shopware is better for projects where most functionalities are covered by the core features but theres still a need to customize.Security comparisonBoth platforms are taking great care about security,starting from internal prevention mechanisms,through infrastructure security

82、 recommendations,and ending with third-party plugins,which achieve even more security improvements.Magento probably has more advanced mechanisms out of the box than Shopware,but its hard to find a significant difference that could bring an advantage.21Magento vs ShopwareMagento vs ShopwareWhen to ch

83、oose Magento and when to choose ShopwareBoth platforms are scalable enough to build an exceptional and professional web store.Their fit depends on your project requirements.Shopware seems to be a better fit for small or medium-sized businesses.The license will be multiple times cheaper than Adobe Co

84、mmerce.Youll get most of the project requirements covered by ready-to-use functionalities.Implementation and customization should be more efficient and cheaper,the platform is easier to set up,it has a more intuitive interface,and includes other unique features.If youre considering migrating to Shop

85、ware,check out our article on How to migrate to Shopware 6 from other platforms.If youre a business owner of a medium or large company,then Magento is a good option.The license cost should be acceptable for your business.Youll have ready-to-use functionalities or plugins to cover most of your busine

86、ss requirements.Itll also be a good option if youre interested in more advanced features from Adobe Experience Cloud,such as machine learning and personalization capabilities powered by Adobe Sensei.If youre thinking about going in that direction,our Magento development team is ready to help you wit

87、h any business challenge.Magento 2023Shopware 2023Popularity globally(%of online stores use this platform)0.9%0.1%The most popular marketU.S.GermanyHeadless front-end approachYes(PWA Studio)Yes(Shopware PWA and Frontends)UsabilityComplex UI:Performing installation and configuration may require exter

88、nal help from developersSimple and intuitive UI:Helps to get started easilyCostsMagento Open Source:free to useAdobe Commerce license costs a few times more than ShopwareShopware Community Edition:free to useShopware Rise/Envolve/Beyond license costs a few times less than Adobe Commerce23Magento vs

89、ShopwareMagento 2023Shopware 2023Time of development according a medium-scale project9-12 months8-10 monthsPerformanceBetter results for medium and large projectsBetter results for small and medium projectsCommunity(developers)300,000+40,000+Plugins/modules3,500+1,500+Business sizeBetter fit for med

90、ium and large projectsBetter fit for small and medium projectsPlatform customization capabilitiesLess efficient customization than ShopwareMore efficient customization than MagentoThe next step:analysis of requirementsAs superhero platforms of the eCommerce world,Magento and Shopware both have power

91、s that suit the needs for specific situations.Every company is different and needs a holistic and individual approach.The requirements for online retailers are becoming more complicated and demanding.If your current solution doesnt meet your goals or help you stand out from the competition,our digit

92、al consultants will be happy to help.Divante is a Magento and Shopware partner,and we have the required know-how to implement both systems.Our team will help analyze your needs and suggest the best option for your company whether thats Magento,Shopware,or composable commerce.24Magento vs ShopwareWhi

93、ch platform suits your business better?400+11+280+1000+If youre reading this,youre probably getting ready for a big move with your eCommerce technology.Lets discuss your options.We can help you go through all the technologies available on the market,pick the best one for your online store,and deliver a perfect project that will open up new opportunities for your business.Lets talk about your needs at global brands as clientsyears on the marketeCommerce experts on boarddelivered projects