We Compare BigCommerce vs Magento: Is It a Close Battle in 2024?

First off, it’s important that you understand the key differences between BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce, since this will influence your final decision.

BigCommerce is an ecommerce website builder, meaning that it gives you all the tools you need to set up an online store without coding or technical experience. Adobe Commerce, however, is an open source platform (like WordPress), which does require some technical know-how. You’ll need to be confident enough to install the software, purchase web hosting, install extensions, and upload your products.

Now that I’ve covered the key difference, here are the pros and cons of each platform:

BigCommerce is best for…

• Business owners with growing inventories who want to start scaling their store
• Owners of growing businesses who need to upgrade to a system with better sales tools to help them run their store

Adobe Commerce is best for…

• Large, enterprise-level businesses with development teams, or a large budget to hire someone to design their site
• Technically savvy business owners who want more independence and flexibility when it comes to their website’s pricing, design, and features

The Winner

BigCommerce’s integrated pricing plans make it easy to get started

Because BigCommerce’s key features, hosting, and website builder are included in its pricing plans, it’s simpler for business owners to set up their store and start selling as soon as possible.

BigCommerce’s pricing is split into three key plans, alongside an Enterprise Plan that comes with custom pricing. Unlike Adobe Commerce, these plans already come with the features you’ll need to set up your store, like hosting, so you won’t need to worry about extra costs or setup times there.

The BigCommerce pricing plan you’ll be on does depend on your store’s annual sales volume in the past 12 months. For instance, if you earn up to $50,000 a year, you’ll be on the Standard plan, but automatically upgraded to the plan above if you ever exceed that sales volume. That said, you can choose to upgrade to a more expensive plan without meeting the exact annual sales volume recommended, which is useful if you want to access better features.

I’ve put together a table below to help you understand each plan, their features, and the annual sales volumes they apply to:

Overall, I’d recommend the Plus plan, since it offers strong sales features at a reasonable price. For instance, you’ll be able to send abandoned cart recovery emails and use customer groups tools, enabling you to target specific groups of customers and boost your conversion rates in the process.

It’s also worth noting that all BigCommerce plans come with a 15-day free trial, giving you plenty of time to test out its interface and see if it’s the right fit for you.

In contrast, Adobe Commerce’s pricing offers two different options. You can either:

1. Download its free software, Magento Open Source, that you’ll need to install. Having coding knowledge is recommended to get set up with this option, though you can access official instruction documents from Adobe’s website if you’re keen to give it a go.
2. Pay for an Adobe Commerce plan (which is built on top of Magento Open Source). This option comes with additional features – like customer loyalty tools and automated data backup – that are geared toward enterprise level businesses who want to maintain a high-volume ecommerce store.

You also need to consider additional costs when using Adobe Commerce. Whether you opt for Magento Open Source or an Adobe Commerce plan, you will need to pay for:

• Hosting costs – Unlike BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce doesn’t come with website hosting, so you’ll need to find a suitable web host yourself. I’d recommend a compatible host like SiteGround, since it can cost as little as $2.99 per month (billed annually).
• Domain name costs – You’ll need to look for a suitable domain name registrar for your store, such as Domain.com, NameCheap, or Bluehost. For reference, none of BigCommerce’s plans come with a domain name either, so you’ll need to find a host for that platform too.
• Themes – You can buy website themes from the Adobe Commerce Marketplace. These can range from $25 to $499 per theme (as a one-off purchase).
• Extensions – Depending on the capabilities you need, you’ll likely need to purchase multiple extensions for your store. These are add-ons that will enable you to add additional features to your site, like bookings, blogs, or subscriptions. Free and paid extensions are downloadable from the Marketplace.

The Winner

Setting up with BigCommerce is quicker and easier

When it comes to setting up, BigCommerce is easier to use. All of its key features are already built into the platform, so you don’t have to worry about adding additional code or sourcing specific features from third-party websites.

When setting up a store with BigCommerce, I found the process relatively simple, albeit slightly long-winded at times. 

Signing up for an account took me a few minutes. I had to fill in a lot of information first – like my name, phone number, address, and store name – and then wait for BigCommerce to process these details, which took about two minutes. However, you don’t need to give BigCommerce your card details to start with, which is a plus.

Before I could finally access my dashboard, I had three more questions to answer about my store:

1. Do you have an existing website?
2. What will you be selling?
3. What best describes how you currently sell your products?

These additional questions did drag out the sign up process a bit more.

Once you’ve made it onto BigCommerce’s dashboard, you can start getting to grips with the platform and setting up your store. The interface is split into two different areas: the Control Panel (the dashboard where you manage your store’s inventory) and the Storefront (where you edit your store’s design).

When creating your store, you might feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of features available at first, or be unfamiliar with some of the more complex terminology mentioned, like SKU levels and CSV. This means that you might need some time and patience to get to grips with BigCommerce’s finer points. However, the learning curve definitely won’t be as steep as it is with Adobe Commerce’s setup process. 

If you’re not sure where to start with BigCommerce, the Control Panel contains a checklist you can follow to set up your store, which can help you do things like buy your first products or set up your store’s tax rates. When I entered the dashboard for the first time, this list gave me a clear idea of the key steps I’d need to follow to set up successfully.

In contrast, Adobe Commerce comes with an advanced setup process that beginners will find complicated. For example, you’ll need to install the Adobe Commerce software in the first place, and find a reputable website host to connect with your store, which is difficult if you don’t have any technical expertise.

Though Adobe Commerce has plenty of documentation on its website to help you set up, I only recommend this option for business owners who are confident with code or have a development team that understands these technical procedures. If you’re new to building websites or want to set up quickly, BigCommerce is the better option for you.

The Winner

BigCommerce offers accessible themes and design tools that don’t require any coding

Though Adobe Commerce offers more design customization if you know how to code, BigCommerce users will benefit from its built-in themes and design tools that make it simple to change your design.

I could find over 100 BigCommerce themes to choose from in the Themes Marketplace, which I found under the “Storefront” tab in my dashboard. I browsed designs that were organized by category, be it arts and crafts or food and beverage.

At the time of writing, there are only 12 free themes available on BigCommerce (which you may want to consider if you’re on a budget), while the rest require a one-off payment that can range between $100 and $400 per theme. 

Once you’ve found a theme you like the look of, you can preview it to get a taste of what it’ll be like when it’s live.

Adobe Commerce, on the other hand, only has 13 themes on offer on its Marketplace, with only one of these themes being free. I noticed that the paid options ranged up to $499 (as a one-off payment).

They’re also created by third-party developers, so you’ll need to do some research to ensure that the theme you choose is a good choice for your store. Though all of the themes on the Marketplace are vetted, some of the options didn’t have enough images or reviews to help me make a decision, so keep that in mind when looking.

Of course, you could decide to create your own theme from scratch, but this will require some serious coding – or at least a few bucks to pay an expert! You can pay for a designer and/or developer to create a custom Magento theme for you, although it’ll cost around $5,000 on average.

What Design Tools do BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce Have?

I could edit my BigCommerce theme from its Page Builder after selecting “Customize theme” on the dashboard. This opened a new interface that allowed me to change aspects of my storefront from the left-hand sidebar, including:

• Adding new page content, such as photos, videos and product banners, by dragging different widgets onto the page
• The order of content on a page (under the “Layers” tab)
• My website’s color palette (under the “Theme styles” tab)

This isn’t to say that there aren’t any drawbacks with BigCommerce’s design tools. For one, I did find the page editor limiting. On other editors, you can typically arrange content by dragging it up and down the page, but I couldn’t do that with BigCommerce. This restricted the number of fun design combinations I could make. Instead, I could only drag and drop new sections to my page in a linear way, with little room for experimentation.

Additionally, though most of BigCommerce’s themes are mobile-friendly, you can’t directly edit a theme’s mobile design. This is concerning, considering that 86% of the top landing pages are optimized for mobile devices – after all, you don’t want to frustrate users who are visiting your website on their smartphone devices.

As I’ve mentioned before, if you want to change the design of an Adobe Commerce store, you’ll need to be confident with code. Having this skill will allow you to customize your store with countless design options.

The Winner

BigCommerce’s best sales features are already built into the platform

With BigCommerce, you don’t need to hunt for additional apps to find the sales features you’re looking for, since they’re already integrated into the platform.

BigCommerce shines when it comes to its sales tools. It has a large number of built-in features to use, from inventory management to shipping and payment options. This decreases the need to download additional apps for your store.

Some of BigCommerce’s best sales features include: 

• Abandoned cart recovery – If a customer leaves an item in their cart without checking out, you can send them an automated email as a reminder, and potentially feature an exclusive discount code to incentivize them to go through with the purchase. Do note that this feature is only available on the Pro plan and above.
• Multi-channel integration – BigCommerce’s pre-built integrations with online marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, and Google Shopping – plus social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest – enable you to sell across several channels, from a single dashboard.
• Multi-currency selling – BigCommerce store owners can accept payments in over 100 foreign currencies, which opens the door to international expansion.
• Analytics tools and reporting – You can manage your site’s performance with these tools. From the dashboard, I could measure my website’s total visits, conversion rates, orders, and revenue.
• In-person selling – BigCommerce now allows you to integrate POS software for selling in person with your online store. This includes popular platforms like Square, Clover, Epos Now, and Zettle by PayPal.
• Multiple shipping options – From real-time shipping quotes to free shipping, BigCommerce has a large selection of shipping options to choose from. From my dashboard, I could toggle these settings on and off in the “Shipping” tab.
• Numerous payment options – You have 65 integrated payment methods to choose from, which includes digital wallets, credit and debit cards, and pay in installment options. This gives your customers more ways to pay.

Though Adobe Commerce also comes with key sales features – like inventory tools that enable you to create bulk product imports and product variants – the platform does rely more heavily on extensions that can be self-coded or paid for. When it comes to paid extensions, its Marketplace offers 3,985 extensions to choose from at the time of writing.

If you’re downloading multiple extensions for Adobe Commerce, you do need to be careful since costs can quickly add up. Before you commit to a purchase, I recommend researching the options on offer. You’ll want to choose the most cost effective plan that also comes with the features your store needs.

Some of the best things you can do with Magento’s apps and extensions include:

• Add custom coupon codes and encourage customers to make repeat purchases
• Insert advertising banners to add targeted links to corresponding product pages and increase your conversions
• Integrate pre-order features to send automated emails to customers before a product is officially released

The Winner

BigCommerce’s plans come with an array of marketing tools, available on your dashboard

Most of BigCommerce’s marketing tools, like its SEO features and multichannel marketing integrations, don’t need to be installed, and you can set them up directly from your dashboard.

Once your online store is up and running, you can’t stop there. You’ll need to work on your ecommerce marketing channels and ensure that you’re reaching new audiences and driving buyers to your store. But how do BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce fare when it comes to essential marketing features? I’ll explore this below:

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

If you want people to find your store on Google, you need to focus on your website’s basic SEO (search engine optimization) to improve your page rankings on search.

When we tested BigCommerce we were impressed by its SEO features, which included mobile-friendly interfaces and the ability to connect your store with Google Search Console and Google Analytics.

Similarly, Adobe Commerce’s open source software is built with SEO in mind, and also has some important SEO functions built in. On both platforms, you can:

• Edit meta titles and meta descriptions – These will show up on search engine results pages to summarize what your content is about, which is useful for users who are deciding which pages to click on in search
• Add alternative text to images – This is great for SEO best practice and helps Google and visually-impaired users understand the contents of your site’s photos
• Customize SEO-friendly URLs – Use this feature to add important keywords to your URL so it’s clear what each page contains

Where Adobe Commerce falls short, though, is that you will need more technical knowledge to make the most out of your site’s SEO. For example, if you want to manipulate your robots.txt and change which pages are indexed by Google, you’ll need to create custom instructions yourself. So, I would opt for BigCommerce’s built-in SEO features if you’re a beginner.

Email Marketing

If you want to hone your business’ email marketing strategy, Adobe Commerce gives you a lot of choice thanks to its third-party email marketing extensions. When I typed “email marketing” into Adobe Commerce’s Marketplace, I received 423 extension results which included big names like:

• Mailchimp
• MailerLite
• HubSpot
• Sendinblue
• GetResponse

Though most of these extensions are free to install initially, you may need to pay for a plan to start using them and access specific features.

BigCommerce, on the other hand, currently supports just 27 email marketing integrations. While this includes all the heavy-hitters you’d expect it to – namely Klaviyo, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, and Recapture – it still doesn’t offer quite as much of a selection as the Adobe Commerce Marketplace does.

Multi-Channel Integration

Great for convenience, BigCommerce lets you connect with different channels directly from its Control Panel. I could click on “Channel Manager” to connect my store with multiple integrations, which included:

• Online marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, and eBay
• Social media like Instagram and TikTok
• Affiliate partners like impact.com

These integration options really open up more opportunities for your online store, allowing you to reach customers in other markets.

Adobe Commerce doesn’t have built-in multichannel integrations. As you might have guessed, you’ll need to download extensions to connect with all of the major brands, be it Amazon, Etsy, eBay, or Facebook. Not all of these extensions are cheap either. For instance, MageDelights’ Adobe-approved Facebook Shop integration will set you back $149.

The Winner

BigCommerce takes care of your online store’s security for you

On top of offering a free SSL certificate across all its plans, BigCommerce (unlike Adobe Commerce) also automatically applies all security patches for you, helping ensure your site remains compliant with all the relevant rules and regulations.

Both BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce come with essential ecommerce security features that can protect your store and its data. These include:

• PCI compliance – Both platforms adhere to operational standards that ensure all payment data is handled securely. This is to prevent data breaches and fraud, keeping your store’s customers as safe as possible when making a purchase.
• Security patches – BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce release regular security patches: software updates containing the most recent versions of all their in-built security updates. The only difference between the platforms is that you need to install them yourself on Adobe Commerce, while BigCommerce does it automatically.
• Two-factor authentication – You can set up two-factor authentication on both platforms to give your customers an extra layer of security when they sign into their accounts.

However, there’s a significant difference between the platforms when it comes to SSL certificates. BigCommerce has a free SSL certificate pre-built into each of its plans, whereas Adobe Commerce doesn’t. Instead, you’ll need to find a web host provider that features the certificate in its hosting (luckily, most do!).

Web hosts can also bring some of their own additional features to the table that’ll enhance your Adobe Commerce website further. SiteGround, for instance, includes an “Intrusion Prevention System” – a tool that helps safeguard your website from rogue IP addresses caught attempting to steal customer passwords.

Ultimately, both BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce have key security measures in place. The only difference is that BigCommerce’s automatic updates and free SSL certificate make it a more hands-off platform that’s ideal for those with less time on their hands.

The Winner

BigCommerce’s support is all in one place, so it’s easy to find a solution when you need help

Combining live support lines and an AI chat box with useful resources, BigCommerce is brilliant for busy business owners who need to find help fast.

Whenever you need help using BigCommerce, you can access a convenient “Help” tab from your Control Panel (which I found at the bottom left side of the screen). After opening up the tab, I saw a list of help and support options that I could access:

• Email support – When I clicked on the email support option, I was brought to a new page where I could select either “Product support” or “Billing support” based on the type of issue I had. Following that, I could fill in the form with the details of my problem.
• Phone support – BigCommerce’s phone lines are available 24/7, and there are lines for multiple countries across the globe, like the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
• Live chat – If you click on the “Live chat” option, a box will appear at the bottom right side of the screen. Kora, the chat bot, greeted me and asked me to type down my question into the chat box window. It took only a few seconds to receive a response, which aligns with our in-house testing, during which our testers reported quick response times of under ten seconds. 
• Help Center – I could also look through multiple resources on the Help Center to find an answer to my question. If you click on the “Knowledge Base” button, you’ll find useful documents, guides, and videos that’ve been produced by BigCommerce and its community.
• Community Q&A – To find advice from other users, you also click on “Ask the community” to visit the Community Q&A page. I could click on the “Ask a question” button to start a new conversation and receive friendly responses from helpful community members.

In contrast, Adobe Commerce doesn’t have 24/7 support lines like phone support, relying more on its documentation, FAQs, and community forums to keep users informed. The Adobe Forum is the highlight of its help resources and is home to thousands of members who are there to help with any questions you might have.

Though its help resources empower store owners to solve their own issues, looking through multiple pages to find the answers you need is a time consuming process. Consequently, I don’t recommend Adobe Commerce for beginners, since it’s more suitable for those with technical expertise, or who have the time to delve into its documentation and learn how to use the platform. 

BigCommerce, then, is far better for business owners who want to set up an online store with less effort.

Though BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce may be suitable options for your business, they aren’t the only ecommerce website builders on the market. To give you more choice, here are a few other options I’d recommend based on our hands-on experience.

• Shopify is a popular BigCommerce alternative and currently the best ecommerce builder on the market based on our testing. It’s most suitable for businesses with growing inventories, due to its top sales, shipping, and inventory management tools
• Squarespace is the best choice if you want to sell services online. Its scheduling tool, Acuity Scheduling, makes it easy for you to display your business’ services and take online payments
• GoDaddy is popular with small businesses who want a streamlined and speedy experience when setting up their online store. It’s also fantastic value for money, which is handy if you’re on a budget.

When it comes to comparing BigCommerce and Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce is the strongest platform overall due to its brilliant built-in features. 

Whether you need to access specific sales or marketing tools or find immediate help and support, you’ll likely find what you’re looking for directly from your BigCommerce dashboard. This makes the platform ideal if you want to quickly and easily create an online store that can accommodate sales growth.

This isn’t to say that Adobe Commerce (Magento) won’t be a good fit for your store too. If you have the technical know-how, a dedicated development team, or the funds to hire a developer, the platform gives you more freedom to customize your website how you want. That’s why it’s so popular with enterprise brands like Coca Cola, since its endless customization options make it suitable for stores with significant operations and high stock volumes.