Adobe Commerce vs. Magento Open Source: Benefits and Drawbacks

It’s difficult to choose an e-commerce platform. You must take into account both how your company runs now and how you want it to in the future. You need to consider whether you want to grow your offering and incorporate new sales channels and markets, or whether your present clientele will remain the same.

To provide the kind of digital experience that clients have grown to demand, you need the appropriate tools. Additionally, you need to think about the platform’s price and the return on your investment.

Magento Open Source, previously known as Magento Community, is a special product from Adobe Commerce. The open-source, free version of Adobe Commerce is quite capable and includes many features that are also present in the paid version. But how far can you really go with this Open Source version, and what are your alternatives when the road runs out?

In order to assist you choose which is the best option for you, we’ll examine the strengths and weaknesses of Magento Open Source and contrast it with Adobe Commerce (formerly known as Magento 2 Enterprise).

Depending on your company, you could be a suitable candidate for the Open Source platform or it might make more sense to adopt Adobe Commerce to avoid incurring long-term technical debt.

MAGENTO OPEN SOURCE: WHAT IS IT?

The open-source, free alternative to Adobe Commerce is called Magento. This version, which is mostly appropriate for small companies, enables you to enhance your store by adding functionality and Magento extensions.

It’s simple to see why Magento Open Source is so popular. Each month, thousands of people download and try this free environment. It features a strong developer and evangelist community, as well as a codebase marketplace where tools and extensions are freely shared by the community. It perfectly captures the essence of the open-source movement.

The Open Source edition may appear to be the ideal choice if you have qualified manpower that are knowledgeable about platform coding and spend time installing and maintaining everything from hosting and support to backend requirements (payments, shipping, order administration, logistics).

However, adding features takes time, and the slower speed-to-market may inhibit your growth even if you have the skills to handle the technical aspect of Open Source.

ADOBE COMMERCE: WHAT IS IT?

Everything you receive with Magento Open Source and much more is included with Adobe Commerce. To enable your content creators to manage and generate content without consulting a developer, it incorporates drag-and-drop content management along with designing and preview tools. This can greatly quicken development and increase the agility of your marketing team.

Adobe Commerce is an enterprise platform designed for quick innovation that combines strong out-of-the-box capability, endless scalability, and potent business capabilities to keep you ahead in the complicated world of digital commerce and expanding consumer needs.

WHAT DISTINGUISHES ADOBE COMMERCE FROM MAGENTO OPEN SOURCE?

The primary distinction between Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source is that Open Source is made available without charge. On the other side, Adobe Commerce is a more expensive alternative. With the Open Source edition, it comes with a lengthy range of features and functions that you would have to develop on your own.

Let’s examine the following factors to compare the two choices:

• Cost
• Scalability
• Security
• Features

COST ANALYSIS

As was already noted, Adobe Commerce has a licensing charge but Magento Open Source is free. A portion of your overall yearly earnings becomes the licensing fee.

It’s crucial to take value into account in addition to cost when evaluating purchases. And as we shall demonstrate below, the value you receive from the premium version is far larger. You should also think about how much programming effort it will take to add features that are currently included in the premium edition.

However, after your business achieves a particular turnover, this is mostly true because of the pricing strategy for Adobe Commerce. You will still be required to pay the minimal licensing price even if your income is modest. The minimal licensing fee cost can be too much for your company in this situation. The free platform can be a better option if you don’t anticipate quick growth that would encourage investment in the subscription version.

SCALABILITY

A key success element when selecting an ecommerce platform is to plan for growth from the start. Going with Adobe Commerce right away is an excellent decision if you anticipate quick development. With its many features, Adobe Commerce provides a growing company with the amount of agility it requires. If you choose the free edition, you run the danger of being slowed down and held back by having to construct every new element your growth path demands.

SECURITY

Adobe Commerce is far more reliable than Magento Open Source in terms of security. Open Source lacks sophisticated payment security and credit card tokenization, which might be problematic given that they are elements necessary for secured transactions. The fact that the free version does not adhere to PCI DSS security is another significant problem.

More sophisticated security options are provided by Adobe Commerce. The premium version includes the Magento Secure Payment Bridge for credit card processing and is “PCI compliant.” Additionally, the premium version includes frequent scanning, bug bounty programs, and secured payment processors like PayPal, WorldPay, CyberSource, Authorize.net, and others. Additionally, Adobe Commerce’s Action Logs make sure that each modification performed by users who have access to the admin panel is noted and saved.

The Fastly Web Application Firewall and CDN and DDoS protection are both provided by the Cloud. You get more security features, like New Relic infrastructure and logs and a devoted technical adviser, by upgrading to the pro edition.

FEATURES

While the essential capabilities of the free and premium ecommerce systems are comparable, choosing Adobe Commerce offers extra capability in a variety of areas, including

• B2B quotations, corporate accounts, my purchase orders, fast order and requisition lists, business credit and payment on account, shared catalog, and customizing company email are all included in the full B2B package.
• Advanced search features include quick autocomplete, intelligent corrections for misspelled queries, and product attribute searches.
• Cloud: DDoS protection, a site-wide analysis tool, a Fastly Web application firewall, New Relic APM, and Magento BI (on-demand)
• Multiple environments, separated and dedicated hardware configuration, New Relic infrastructure and logs, a B2B module, and a personal technical adviser on staff are all features of Cloud Pro.
• Action logs, order archives, order management systems, complete catalog exports, and scheduled data import/export are all included in the system and catalog.
• Marketing tools include Google Tag Manager, private sales and events, rules pertaining to related products, email reminders, visual merchandisers, and product suggestions.
• Advanced segmentation and targeting: dynamic and tailored product display, consumer traits, and in-the-moment segmentation
• Advanced content management capabilities include drag-and-drop content management, page structure, and dynamic blocks.
• Options for giving include the provision of individualized gift cards, gift registries, reward and loyalty programs, and vouchers.
• Customers can add a number of things to their basket by inputting the SKU list.
• Sales: Managing a shopping cart, searching for addresses, seeing cart thumbnails, and returns
• Support: Available round-the-clock.

As can be expected, the premium version’s features are more effective and sophisticated than those in the free version.

SPEED-TO-MARKET

Speed to market is Adobe Commerce’s most significant advantage. The open-source community and ethos are present in Adobe Commerce, but it also has out-of-the-box functionality that is far more powerful than what even an experienced Open Source build can offer. The adaptability and speed-to-market it provides you with is the most significant advantage of having access to these powerful capabilities from day one.

Speed is crucial whether entering a new market, developing a new sales channel, rolling out new items, or even altering the entire organizational structure of your company. The quickness of an online sale is crucial. To grab the initiative and maintain an advantage over your rivals, you must act quickly. If you have to create too much from scratch, you will quickly fall behind.

With the Adobe Commerce platform, you can free up your team’s time and mental energy so they can concentrate on strategy and innovation rather than testing, security, and uptime concerns. This means that rather than becoming bogged down in time-consuming implementation effort, your digital talent can concentrate on keeping innovative and ahead of the curve. The most crucial component of your website, the user experience, can be changed, adapted, and configured with ease because of Adobe Commerce’s very adaptable backend.

TAKEAWAYS

Whether you choose the premium or the free version, Adobe provides a strong platform to develop your e-commerce business. Both Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce provide some capabilities, such as responsive online experiences across devices, straightforward checkout, payment, standard shipping, and fundamental site administration. This is sufficient to establish a simple website with one purchasing option and restrictions on how clients may interact with your goods.

The premium edition, however, will enhance the user experience in a number of ways. The built-in functionality, B2B suite, powerful cloud features, ElasticSearch, pre-existing CMS capabilities, Content Staging and Preview, customizable delivery, and connection with Adobe Experience Manager are some of the major drivers of Adobe Commerce.

Consider the future as well. Will you require multi-site, multi-language, and multi-currency capabilities? Are you going to use the transactional data for business analytics and commerce analytics? How quickly can you enter the market with drag and drop visual merchandising? Will you desire the capacity to upsell or cross-sell? Would you like to be able to expand, alter, or scale your selling structures?

Adobe Commerce is the best choice for you if the answer is yes.

THE WAYS MYGENTO CAN HELP

At Mygento, we work with customers that have many brands, currencies, and languages to synchronize all of their channels and develop successful ecommerce campaigns. We’d be happy to get you set up and assist you in determining which platform is the greatest match for your company. To find out how we can assist you in expanding your e-commerce business, get in contact with our team of specialists.