What is Magento 2?

Magento is an open-source e-commerce platform that was founded in march of 2008. Magento is a well-known platform in the e-commerce world.

It's mainly known for it's flexibility and how scalable it is. Magento is also one of the most robust platforms in the world due to its capacity to handle big amounts of data and traffic.

Magento 2 is the newest versions that was released in November of 2015. This version offers more functionality and is a lot more secure and user friendly than it's predecessor, Magento 1.

If you decide to choose Magento 2, PHPro is a Magento Enterprise Solution Partner, so don't hesitate to contact us!

What is Shopware 5?

Shopware was founded in 2000 in Germany and has been around for a longer time than Magento. Just like Magento, Shopware is an open source project that's recently been getting more popular worldwide. Before this it was mainly known in Germany.

Shopware is at version 5.5 by now and receives new updates on a regular basis. These updates are easy to install and can be done through the web interface. Before updating Shopware you should check if all extensions are compatible with the new update.

How often are Magento and Shopware used?

Magento is the biggest e-commerce platform in the world. According to a study from IDC, Magento had a worldwide market share of 29,1% in 2017. This is a lot in comparison to the 0,4% of Shopware.

These statistics aren't really abnormal since Shopware was only available in German and has only been available in English in recent years. In Germany Shopware has a market share of 6,35%, this makes Shopware the fourth biggest e-commerce platform in Germany.

Besides the market share, the size of the community is another important element, especially for open source project. The Shopware community has about 40 000 members while Magento's has more than 100 000 members.

This is normal since Magento is used more worldwide and thus it has more users who would join the community.

Are Magento and Shopware difficult to use?

Magento is a complex platform and can be difficult to use. This was harder before Magento 2, but with the new admin panel it's become easier to manage a Magento webshop.

Shopware offers a very user-friendly interface to configure or change something on the webshop. Integrating external applications is also fairly straightforward in Shopware.

Because of the user friendly interface it's way easier to set up a Shopware webshop and you need little to no technical knowledge. This allows less technical people to use the platform.

When we compare this to Magento, we can see that it's more complicated. To set up a Magento webshop, you do need some time and knowledge of web development. Because of this, a lot of people choose to use a third party, like PHPro, to set up their Magento webshop.

What's the performance of Magento and Shopware?

An important factor in deciding performance is the loading time of a page. Studies have shown that when the loading time increases it directly impacts the bounce rate of the page.

This means that it's important to have a good performance on your e-commerce webshop. Treolabs made a comparison on standard sites of both platforms and both pages receive a good score. The Magento 2 website got a score of 79% and the Shopware website got 87%.

When we compared two demo sites in Google PageSpeed Insights, we saw that the Shopware website scored significantly better with a score of 98. The Magento demo got 73, which isn't bad but quite a bit lower than the Shopware score.

Of course, we should take into account that these are just demo sites and the scores in actual webshops will depend on the hosting platform, amount of products, etc.

Will Magento and Shopware help my SEO?

When we look at the SEO functionalities of both platforms, we can see there are quite a lot of options available. According to a study from ecommerce-platforms about the SEO score of e-commerce platforms it appears that Magento scores really high with a score of 95. With this score it is tied for third place. Sadly, Shopware wasn't included in this study.

The biggest difference between both platforms is that a lot of advanced SEO functionalities of Magento need to be configured manually. In Shopware the SEO functionalities are automatically configured. These can still be changed, but people with little to no knowledge automatically use the SEO functionalities.

Is it possible to add functionalities to Magento and Shopware?

Both platforms allow users to develop modules or extensions for their platform. These extensions can be offered for free or be sold in the store or marketplace of the platform. Because of this, the functionality of both platforms is quite extensive.

A possible disadvantage to the Shopware extensions is that it was German only for a long time, so it's possible that soms extensions are only available in German. This does seem to be a small amount since there are a lot of English extensions available.

A similar problem could be brought up for Magento, because not all Magento 1 modules are available for Magento 2.

Shopware also offers extensions that they've built themselves, which isn't the case for Magento who only offer their Enterprise Edition for more functionalities made by Magento.

Since Magento 2 it's become less troublesome to install and use modules. Before Magento 2 modules could create conflicts with other modules that had to access the same data. This problem has been solved in Magento 2 which means these conflicts shouldn't happen anymore.

What's the price for Magento and Shopware?

Both Magento and Shopware offer a free community edition. These community editions don't have the same functionalities as their paid versions. The community edition is perfect for learning to use the platform or for start-ups and small companies.

Besides the community or open-source edition from Magento, they also offer a commerce version. For this version you need to pay a yearly license that comes in at a bit more than 17 000 euro.

Shopware is a little more flexible in their pricing than Magento and offers different versions. The first version is the Shopware Professional for 999 euro. This price includes 12 months of support and is a one-time fee. On top of this version and the community edition you can buy premium extensions from Shopware.

The next option is the Shopware Professional Plus for 5 995 euro. This version includes all premium extensions. There is also an Enterprise edition but their is no price available for this.

Final conclusion of Magento vs Shopware

For small to medium sized companies that want to start an e-commerce webshop we would recommend a Shopware webshop. Their platform is easier and cheaper to set up while providing the necessary functionalities.

For medium to large companies, we definitively recommend Magento. Because of their complexity they're harder and more expensive to setup, but you do get a more scalable and robust platform that can handle more data and traffic.

Choosing a platform is heavily dependent on what's expected of the platform, the amount of traffic and products that will be on the website and of course the price. Because of this it's difficult to make a definitive decision.

We'll also have to wait and see how much Shopware will continue to grow outside of the German market where it currently has a strong presence. If the English community continues to grow, Shopware could become a good international competitor for Magento.

PHPro is a Magento Certified Partner so if you decide you need a Magento 2 e-commerce webshop, make sure to contact us!

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