BigCommerce vs. Magento: Which is Right for Your Ecommerce Business?

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Running a successful eCommerce company has a lot of moving parts to it, but nothing can be as important as the platform you choose to run your e-commerce business on.

When you’re just starting out it can be hard to know which e-commerce platform is right for you. The success of your business partly depends on choosing the right one. You want to choose one that’s easy to use.

If you choose one that’s challenging it’ll set your business back. Plus you want to choose one that’s easy to use for your customers as well. In this blog post, we’re going to compare two big players in the eCommerce platform world, BigCommerce, and Magento.

Both have the reputation of being powerful eCommerce platforms that allow you to customize your store and integrate with necessary extensions. Which one is right for you?

Let’s dig into some of the key differences between them to find out.

Table of Contents

What is Magento?

Magento is an open-source platform that has been increasingly making shifts to appear more like a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform by introducing a cloud offering to give merchants the option of having a single vendor handle both software and hosting.

BigCommerce is already uniquely positioned as an open SaaS platform. This allows merchants to achieve customization and integrations that had historically only been possible using an open-source platform.

BigCommerce is also offering 4 months free for Magento users that are looking to migrate. Check out this article to learn more about the types of eCommerce platforms, along with their pros and cons.

For merchants already familiar with Magento that are facing the end of life of Magento V1, now is a crucial time to consider the options that are available on the market.

BigCommerce vs Magento

Not sure which one is right for you? Here is a quick breakdown comparing the two platforms with some of their key benefits.

BigCommerce

With BigCommerce, upgrades and patches are automatic so you’re always on the latest version and have no downtime with each upgrade.
When BigCommerce rolls out an update that enables a new feature, merchants will have access to it immediately and can control when or if they want to enable that new feature.
BigCommerce includes hosting without any bandwidth caps or limits.
With BigCommerce’s automatic updates, merchants don’t have to pay for ongoing maintenance costs and can focus on innovation or growing their business.
BigCommerce has a drag-and-drop Page Builder available on all plans, which is not something merchants would get on Magento open source.

According to Groove Commerce, BigCommerce accommodates B2B and B2C companies.

Magento

Keeping up with the necessary security patches and version updates is time-consuming and labor-intensive.
The more customizations a merchant makes, the harder (and more costly) their Magento store becomes to maintain. This has a huge impact on installing updates, security patches, and adding extensions.
Costs can vary greatly on Magento: Paying for infrastructure, development, hosting, and maintenance with adds up.
With Magento, the complexity of the platform makes merchants reliant on developer support.
The learning curve from Magento 1 to Magento 2 is significant, due to Magento 2 using different architecture and newer technologies under the hood.

Plugins/Apps

Both Magento and BigCommerce have an app marketplace. But there are some differences between them. Magento does have a bigger app marketplace.

The reason BigCommerce has a smaller one is that a lot of the features are already built-in.

That means you don’t have to install an app for everything. Then with Magento you’re responsible for maintaining and upgrading the apps when needed.

With BigCommerce the developers take care of the maintenance for you. When you download apps to BigCommerce they install directly into your store.

Pricing and Fees

According to NChannel, merchants usually report paying less for BigCommerce than Magento because BigCommerce is an out-of-the-box solution. Nchannel even states that some merchants even pay 75% less than they would on Magento.

BigCommerce most affordable plan is $29.95 a month. With this plan you get:

Unlimited bandwidth
Unlimited storage
Unlimited staff accounts
Branded store
Sell on eBay and Amazon
Connect to social media
Connect to Google shopping
Responsive website
Single page checkout
Add a blog
Use Google Pay, Amazon Pay, and Apple Pay
Use coupons, gifts cards, and discounts
No transaction feeds
and more!

Whereas with Magento you have to look for a hosting provider. They don’t host your store for you like BigCommerce. It’s similar to WordPress.org. You download the software first. Then you find a hosting provider. After that, you install it yourself.

This also means you have to pay hosting fees. Most hosting providers charge more if you need more bandwidth. This can all be complicated if you aren’t tech-savvy.

Conclusion

In the end, BigCommerce looks to come out on top in this ecommerce comparison. Picking the right ecommerce platform is essential for your ecommerce business.

BigCommerce is offering 4 months free and 10% off migration services for merchants that switch from Magento to BigCommerce.

Whether you are forced to re-platform from Magento 1 or just want to explore your options, there is no risk in trying BigCommerce.

Get a Demo Today!