Shopify Plus vs Magento Enterprise (Adobe Commerce): Why Brands Are Switching in 2026

Magento — now Adobe Commerce for its paid enterprise edition — has powered serious ecommerce for over a decade. It can do almost anything. The question enterprise brands keep asking is whether that flexibility is still worth what it costs to run. More and more are deciding it isn't, and moving to Shopify Plus.

Here is an honest look at where each platform wins, and how to tell which one fits your business.

Shopify Plus vs Magento at a glance

	Shopify Plus	Magento 2 / Adobe Commerce
Editions	One enterprise plan	Magento Open Source (free) or Adobe Commerce (licensed)
Hosting	Included, fully managed	Self-hosted, or Adobe Commerce Cloud
Upgrades & security patches	Automatic, done by Shopify	Applied by your developers, release by release
Tech stack	Liquid themes, Shopify APIs, Hydrogen for headless	PHP, MySQL, Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, Varnish
Customization	Apps, Shopify Functions, checkout extensions, custom apps	Full code access to every part of the platform
Who runs the store day to day	Marketing and merchandising teams	Often needs developers

The real difference: who maintains the platform

On Magento, your team (or agency) owns the platform: servers, caching, search, extensions, version upgrades and security patches. Adobe gives each Adobe Commerce 2.4 release a three-year standard support window, so upgrades are a recurring project, not a one-off. Magento 1 reached end of life on June 30, 2020, and many brands still remember that forced replatform.

On Shopify Plus, Shopify runs the platform. Hosting, security, PCI compliance and new features arrive without upgrade projects. Your developers spend their time on things customers notice.

Flexibility vs speed

Magento's biggest strength is that you can change anything in the code. That is also its cost: every customization has to be built, tested and carried through future upgrades.

Shopify Plus takes a different approach. You customize through the theme, apps, Shopify Functions (for discount, shipping and payment logic) and checkout extensions — all upgrade-safe. For the rare need nothing covers, we build a small custom app. Most brands find they need far fewer custom builds than they had on Magento.

Checkout

On Magento, checkout is something you build and maintain, often with third-party modules. On Shopify Plus, you get Shopify Checkout and Shop Pay, extended with Checkout Extensibility. Shopify reports, from a study it commissioned, that its checkout converts 15% better on average than competing platforms, and that Shop Pay can lift conversion by up to 50% against guest checkout. They are Shopify's figures — but the maintenance saving is certain.

Extensions vs apps

Magento brands often run dozens of extensions, each with its own updates and conflicts. In a migration we list every one and replace it with a built-in Shopify feature, an app or a small custom app. Many simply aren't needed any more.

B2B and multi-store

These used to be Magento territory. Shopify now covers them natively: B2B company accounts, catalogs, price lists and payment terms are available on every Shopify plan, and Shopify Plus adds unlimited catalogs, deposits and partial payments. Shopify Markets handles currencies, languages and domains, and Plus expansion stores cover separate brands or regions.

When Magento is still the right choice

• You need deep, code-level control of business logic that apps and Functions can't cover.
• You have a strong in-house PHP team and value owning the full stack.
• You must self-host for a specific legal or infrastructure reason.

When to switch to Shopify Plus

• Upgrades, patches and hosting are eating your development budget.
• Marketing waits on developers for everyday changes.
• Extension conflicts cause outages or slow pages.
• You're facing another major version upgrade anyway.

This article compares features and day-to-day running. For a cost-by-cost breakdown, read Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus: total cost of ownership and Shopify Plus pricing.

What the switch involves

A typical Magento-to-Shopify Plus migration takes 6–10 weeks for a mid-size store and 3–6 months for enterprise builds with B2B, several store views and ERP links. Products and configurable variants, attributes, customer groups, order history, content and every URL redirect move across. For budgets by store size, see our Magento to Shopify migration cost guide. See the full field-by-field map on our Magento to Shopify migration page.

FAQ

Is Shopify Plus better than Magento for enterprise? For most enterprise brands that sell direct to consumers, yes: lower maintenance, faster changes and a stronger checkout. Magento suits brands that need code-level control and have the team to run it.

Can Shopify Plus handle complex catalogs? Yes. Large catalogs, rich variants, bundles, metafields and B2B price lists are all supported; very large configurable products are split or grouped during migration.

What happens to our Magento extensions? Each is replaced with a built-in Shopify feature, an app or a small custom app.

Can customer passwords be migrated? No platform can transfer passwords. On Shopify's passwordless customer accounts that doesn't matter: customers sign in with a one-time email code and see their imported order history.

Will our SEO survive the move? Yes, with a full 301 redirect map, carried-over metadata and close monitoring after launch.

Planning your move off Magento?

We'll review your store, extensions and integrations and give you a fixed-scope migration plan. Book a free migration consultation.