Magento Open Source vs Adobe Commerce vs Magento Commerce (On Premises): Major Differences

Magento Open Source is a free edition which includes the majority of e-commerce features you need for day-to-day operations. It allows the admin user to make changes to page layouts, create different types of products, sort customers into groups, offer discounts, and much more, all out of the box! If more features are needed that aren’t included in the original package, there are plenty of extensions to choose from, and magento development companies who can help with more advanced customizations to fit the site for your business needs. Magento highly recommends this version for small and mid-size businesses.

Adobe Commerce (Cloud), formerly known as Magento Commerce, is the enterprise-level version of Magento. Since it is a cloud-based solution, businesses can take advantage of the scalability, security, and reliability offered by cloud hosting providers.

Adobe Commerce offers additional features and functionalities that are not available in Magento Open Source. These include advanced B2B capabilities, such as custom catalogs and pricing for different customer groups, as well as a range of analytics and reporting tools to help businesses better understand their customers and optimize their sales.

Businesses using Adobe Commerce can take advantage of enterprise-level support, with dedicated account management and technical support teams.

Adobe Commerce is best suited for mid to large-sized businesses with complex e-commerce requirements, particularly those that want to launch B2B service. The platform is also ideal for businesses that require a high level of customization and control over their e-commerce operations.

However, choosing Adobe Commerce, businesses should consider their budget and resources, as the platform is a paid solution (and it is actually more expensive than its competitors like Shopify or BigCommerce). However, the additional features and support offered by Adobe Commerce may justify the higher cost for businesses that require the extra functionality.

Magento Commerce (On Premises) is very similar to Adobe Commerce in terms of functionality. The major difference is that this version is self-hosted, meaning that businesses have complete control over their infrastructure and can choose their own hosting provider.

The self-hosted nature of the platform may offer greater cost savings for businesses with unique hosting requirements or security concerns.

Magento OpenSource is a completely free to download, open source platform. This means it can be downloaded for free, but features related to setup and customization will result in financial cost, unless attempted individually without the aid of Magento or other developers. Notice that it isn’t easy without any sort of development background yet a paid subscription connects our users with nearly 150,000 developers who work with Magento in all corners of the world All you need to do is to find the company you can rely on to develop your store.

Also, there are a lot of paid extensions which you can add to your website whose costs may vary from $25 to $5000.

TThe final cost of Adobe Commerce or Magento Commerce (On Premises) depends on expected annual online revenue and average order value of your store. Prices may vary from those reflected in the table.

Users of the paid versions, Adobe Commerce and Magento Commerce (On Premises), are provided with 24×7 monitoring and email support by Magento. The specialists monitor core application and cloud infrastructure and help you to resolve issues as soon as possible. Users of the Open Source edition don’t have this opportunity by default, but they can always hire a professional Magento development company to support their website. For example, at Magecom we offer from 40 to 120+ hours of technical support for:

• ✅Performance and server resource monitoring
• ✅Site security updates
• ✅Troubleshooting
• ✅Design changes
• ✅Development & customization
• ✅Project management
• ✅Quality assurance

Magento OpenSource edition doesn’t include cloud hosting, so you will need to choose a reliable hosting provider on your own, paying attention to the server performance and scalability as your online business grows.

Adobe Commerce packages include cloud hosting as Platform-as-a-service, which means users are allowed to control and configure software on the cloud. Also, merchants get the opportunity to use a Content Delivery Network, which makes websites load faster from geographically distributed servers.

Magento guarantees DDoS protection with big bandwidth allocation of the websites made on Commerce packages. This kind of attack attempts to render websites unavailable and unresponsive which could prove detrimental for online business.

Owners of Commerce editions get New Relic APM Pro and Blackfire.io Enterprise. The first one is a tool for application performance monitoring which measures page load times, detects slow transactions, and counts errors. The second one is a tool for writing performance tests and automated test scenarios. It makes it possible to merge teams working in development, testing, staging, and production.

Businesses that choose Magento Commerce (On-Premises) are responsible for hosting and deploying the platform on their own hardware or cloud infrastructure.

Both Adobe Commerce and Magento Commerce (On Premises) offer B2B features. It enables setting up multiple buyers, defining specific permissions, adding self-service tools, creating company accounts, and custom catalogs. It also allows you to set up different payment options, order forms, bank information, etc.

Owners of Magento Open Source have to buy 3rd party add-ons for selling to other businesses.

With Adobe Commerce Pro Plan, you can benefit from advanced analytics which consists of 75 reports on sales, marketing, customers, and more. It allows you to export data to CSV and XLS formats as well as send email summaries to team members. You can also include Business Intelligence into your Magento Commerce (On Premises) plan.

Unlike Google Analytics, the Business Intelligence tool helps you to find out a lifetime value of your customers. It allows you to highlight the most profitable group of customers and analyze their behavior in real-time.

There is a possibility to set up Abode Commerce or Magento Commerce (On Premises) websites on up to three separate servers. It provides distribution of backend processes resulting in faster database work and extra reliability.

Dedicated Hardware

Adobe Commerce users get individualized hardware with Pro Plan which belongs to them only and is allocated in Infrastructure-as-a-Service. This ensures that no other websites can be set up and hosted here, and provides extremely high security.

With Magento Commerce (On-Premises), businesses have complete control over their hosting environment, which means they can choose the hardware and infrastructure that best suits their needs.

Magento Commerce Pro owners are provided a personal manager helping them with the website launch. This expert helps to lead the launching process, answer any arising questions, and will offer the most effective solutions according to customers.

As you see, Magento Open Source has been designed for small businesses, excluding B2B functionality, and offered as a lighter option as compared to Adobe Commerce.

While the availability of a dedicated launch manager for Magento Commerce (On-Premises) varies depending on the service provider, businesses can work with their chosen partner to determine the level of support and services they require to ensure a successful launch of their e-commerce platform.

The decision between Adobe Commerce, Magento Open Source, and Magento Commerce (On-Premises) depends on a variety of factors, including a business’s budget, technical expertise, and specific e-commerce requirements.

If you still have questions, feel free to contact us. Our ecommerce consultants will be pleased to tell you more about Magento and which option may be best for you.