Magento Alternatives: Where to Move Your Ecommerce in 2024

Powering Your Magento eCommerce Website with a Better Magento Alternative — 2024 Top Options for B2B, B2C, D2C

Managing your online store is quite challenging, and the wrong choice of eCommerce platform makes this task even more difficult. The most popular platform doesn't always mean the best one - this is just the case with Magento's e-commerce solution. According to our experience and the experience of thousands of business owners, Magento is slow, costly, difficult to deal with, and not scalable.

Let’s review Magento alternatives and consider moving your storefront to one of the better platforms. This guide will help you with the right choice, explaining everything you need to know about what Magento offers, how to improve customer experience, and why it's worth considering some other ecommerce solution, including headless commerce. 

Moving from Magento — Some of the Possible Drivers

Even though $100 billion is an annual Magento turnover, this platform has some limitations that thousands of Magento stores owners complain about. Of course, for some of users Magento is the perfect ecomerce, but Magento comes with some of the cons you should know. Learn more about Magento: 

• Magento is not designed for begginers. You should already have some eCommerce store management and technical background to unlock all the platform opportunities.
• Magento can be slow, so you should look for additional performance-boosting tools to improve the overall experience.
• Users are also disappointed in the support team. At a critical moment, when you need help, there is a chance of not reaching support.
• Magento is quite costly — the price starts at $1600 per month. It raises if you want an updated version of Magento , Magento extensions etc.
• Moving from any version of Magento will also be challenging so making the right choice among other open source alternatives is essential.

The Most Powerful Magento Ecommerce Competitors — Main Pros and Cons of each of most-known ecommerce platform Revealed

So, let’s review other eCommerce platforms like Magento to make a fully-informed choice on which platform (or possibly none?) best meets your new business needs. 

Below is the list of the platforms we are going to compare: 

• Shopify
• BigCommerce
• Volusion
• Ecwid

Shopify- one of the most popular ecommerce platform if you want to integrate your commerce with any available extension

Considering the platform's popularity, well-thought-out business logic, and a good set of functions for creating, promoting, and maintaining an online store, Shopify rightfully takes first place in the list of Magento alternatives. 

The platform is used by 500,000 businesses across the globe, has 1,2 million users, and operates in 175 counties. These figures are already enough to attract the attention of the pickiest business owners. 

Moreover, the platform developers are constantly working on new features and products within the system to meet the changing business needs. So, let’s look at this platform's main pros and cons. 

Pros

• A powerful Point-Of-Sale (POS) system that makes it easy to combine and streamline the experience of users online and offline
• Data export from CSV files is quite easy
• Flexible product shipping settings
• Multilingual website development opportunities (within $79 subscription)
• Abandoned shopping cart management features are available in all of the paid packages
• In-build email marketing features (2500 subscribers come for free)
• Powerful analytics plus visual reporting opportunities
• Free trial available

Cons

• No drug and drop functionality
• The product images you will upload should have the same sizes and dimensions to make the users' impressions holistic. Pre-editing of your photos will take some time.
• Lack of flexible and Google-friendly SEO settings for your online business
• Blogging features are quite basic but enough for SEO promotion
• There are only 9 free templates; however, the choice becomes wider with a paid plan. 

Pricing

As for the pricing, the platform's cost is quite affordable, even for small and aspiring businesses. Even the Basic Shopify subscription is enough to get all the necessary online store setup and promotion functions. 

There is also a Shopify Light tariff for $9 per month, and customized pricing opportunities for large enterprises. Thus, Shopify may be one of the good alternatives to Magento enterprise. 

However, keep in mind that they charge 0,5-2% depending on the package from each transaction you make using any other payment method other than Shopify payments. 

✓Suitable for:

• Dropshipping stores

• Maturing startups ready to invest in paid and advanced functionality

• Big online stores planning to expand their assortment since the number of products you may showcase is unlimited (which is not the case for product variants). 

Bigcommerce- great B2B solution if you do not want to use Magento anymore

Bigcommerce is one more popular software as a service (SaaS) product that should be reviewed in the list of similar to Magento platforms. The list of features it offers is quite similar to the ones provided by Shopify, however, there are some differences when it comes to the product page personalization and subscription terms. 

Pros

• The platform is easy to get started with
• The choice of templates for your store is quite good.
• There are very flexible product options. This is also a competitive edge over Shopify where only 3 options are available.
• No transaction fees regardless of the subscription plan you choose but there are sales limits per each ($50,000 - $400,000 per month, plus negotiable sales limit in an Enterprise tariff)
• Flexible abandoned card management; automatic email sending features.
• Great multilingual and multi-currency features
• Flexible shipping settings
• The eCommerce website powered by Bigcommerce will also have good opportunities for SEO promotion. You may easily edit metadata, URLs, and manage your pages interlinking.
• There is an image optimization feature (which is one more benefit over Shopify). 

Cons

• Reaching out to the support team will be challenging
• Free templates are quite similar to each other but still nice
• Subscription fees aren’t immediately visible on the website. 

Pricing

As for the cost, the pricing policy is the same as Shopify’s one (but there is no Light plan for $9). There are also custom pricing offers for enterprises. 

✓Suitable for:

• Online stores striving for creating great layouts for their products and cutting costs on the transaction fees
• Dropshipping businesses
• Online stores with great assortment and a lot of different opportunities within one product (colors, sizes, and other parameters) since the number of SKUs per product is 600. 

Prestashop- the one you can consider if you do not choose Magento

Prestashop is a rather specific tool, and personalization is its main focus. The thing is that the installation and use of the product are completely free, plus you can only pay for the integrations that you need. This sounds attractive enough, but in practice, using Prestashop can be more expensive than you'd expect.

However, as for the functionality provided for your store, there is no cause for complaint. Prestashop comes with all the necessary features, that is, the only thing you can suffer from is design and personalization, even despite the open-source nature of the platform. But even this problem can be solved if you have the necessary skills or you hire a third-party specialist.

Pros

• The product comes for free, plus there is a demo version.
• There is quite an active community and a lot of training materials (while the support team is quite difficult to reach).
• Prestashop is an open-source platform, thereby you may do everything you want with it, if you have the necessary skills, of course.
• After you have coped with design and customization, managing your store becomes an easy, enjoyable, and effective process with Prestashop.
• There are a lot of useful features for everyday online store operations, customer retention, and inventory management. 

Cons

• Even despite good personalization opportunities, some apps may still be compatible with Prestashop.
• You should be ready for investing your time in customizing your store, paying for different add-ons, or paying for them plus the help of professional developers.
• The cost of the above-mentioned additional tools may be quite high but their usage can be still essential. 

Pricing

The tool comes for free; the price for additional solutions for customization may vary. 

✓Suitable for:

• Selling physical or digital goods can be equally effective with this platform.
• As for the business scale, it can be a good choice for small and medium businesses whose owners are ready to invest time and money in store’s customization. 

Volusion - easier than Magento 1, Magento 2 and any other solution

It is not the most popular, but one of the very first eCommerce systems on the digital market. Therefore, it would be wrong to miss this platform in our Magento alternatives overview. Even despite its 20+ years of presence on the market, it still has a lot to offer retailers. 

Pros

• There are all the necessary functions for online store management like product presentation and variants, payment integrations, customer reviews, an abandoned shopping cart management, SKUs, coupon and barcodes, shipping and taxes calculations, product data export and import, reporting, and analytics.
• There is a Shopify-like Point of Sale system, however, it is accessible from desktop only.
• There are no transaction fees.
• The platform focuses on security and convenient data management as well. There is an automatic backup function, however, there is no two-factor authentication.
• The tool is quite good for SEO promotion. 

Cons

• There is a limited amount of templates to choose from (only 11 themes). Paid templates are costly - $180 per each.
• The tool is perfectly suitable for American companies. Businesses from other countries may face some difficulties. 

Pricing

As you may see, the prices are quite affordable and attractive. The tariff plans are very flexible, and even the personal tariff is enough for a small online store since there are 100 products you may showcase and a $50,000 annual turnover limit. As for the more advanced packages, they have all the necessary and a lot of advanced eCommerce features. 

✓Suitable for:

• Companies selling physical goods since selling digital products is quite challenging. Small to large businesses since there are flexible subscription options and the number of products you may sell  - from 100 to unlimited. 

Ecwid ‌- free alternative for Magento commerce 

The competitive advantage of this tool is that you can use the free version for as long as you want. If the set of free functions is not enough, then there is no problem to start using a suitable package. To get started with Ecwwid, you need to register and start setting up your store. Here you can both adapt an existing site for e-commerce and create a project from scratch using Instant Site.

The free version of the product allows you to sell up to 10 products, which can be an advantage for those who are just starting their journey in e-commerce. However, for those who are confidently on their feet, such a restriction will force them to use a paid tariff plan. In general, this is a very interesting and decent product that has enough features to run your e-commerce business simply. What else do you need to know about this product? Let’s dwell on the pros and cons in more detail.

Pros‌ ‌

• There is quite a decent feature set in a free plan.
• There are all the essential features for e-commerce which include tax calculators, product management, and shipping options.
• There are also various payment systems for accepting payments.
• The tool is suitable for those who work on a dropshipping basis.
• There is an availability of plugins for integration with various platforms.
• The presence of POS functionality to create an additional offline store.
• Ecwid App Store has many useful tools for e-commerce as well.
• There is the ability to create a multilingual online store.
• Selling digital products/services is quite easy too.

Cons

• There is a  limited number of templates.
• The free plan does not have the necessary features for SEO promotion.
• There are not enough features to create a complete website.
• Numerous features will work only with additional third-party party integrations.

Pricing‌ ‌

This platform offers 4 tariff plans, one of which is completely free and has no time limit. All subsequent plans range from $15-99, which vary in both features and product restrictions.

✓Suitable‌ ‌for‌ 

This tool is good for those who do not have the extra funds to start an eCommerce business. The basic tariff plan is enough to test how everything works and make a final decision on the suitability of this platform for your business.

• Suitable for existing sites from popular CMS (WordPress, Joomla, and so on).
• Suitable for a dropshipping business.
• Suitable for small and medium-sized businesses.
• Suitable for selling physical and digital products. 

Top Companies Like Magento — The Comparison Chart - Magento ecommerce vs. another ecommerce platform

So, what are the best alternatives to Magento? The right answer is as follows.

The best choice is the one that suits your business needs while providing flexibility, customizability, and UX improvement opportunities at low cost and with little effort. Headless eCommerce fully meets these requirements. 

Headless eCommerce Benefits and Opportunities You Should Consider if you want to power up your Magento commerce

Can headless eCommerce be the best alternative to Magento? Surely, it can. 

What’s more, it can be a great option even when compared to other, more user-friendly, and affordable eCommerce platforms. 

The essence of the headless eCommerce approach is separating your frontend from the backend to make the first more flexible, lightweight, and API-driven. 

So you may leave your backend in Magento and create whatever you want front-end with a headless storefront.

This approach opens up the following beneficial opportunities:

• Better performance of your website since your frontend is as fast as the APIs transfer the necessary data. So, this is the way to overcome the slowness of some eCommerce platforms.
• The fast work of your website is equally great for your customers, your level of sales, and even your SERP positions.
• Headless eCommerce opens up a lot of opportunities for customization and better response to the changing market conditions since you need to make changes in your frontend only. 

Conclusion for every ecommerce website

There can be a lot of alternatives to Magento you may try. However, the eCommerce industry is rapidly changing towards the headless approach that opens up more room for flexibility, customization, cost-savings, and a better experience for your customers. B2Storefront makes the process of going headless even easier. If you want to choose Magento, you can. But be aware of other open source solutions that can help you to power up your commerce, can integrate your store, do the best for mobile devices and online shopping experience. 

Get in touch with us to find out more details, try a demo!