Two of the biggest players in the ecommerce platform world are BigCommerce and Magento. Both have gained a high reputation for being powerful ecommerce platforms that allow you to customise your store and integrate with necessary extensions. I had the task of comparing and looking into some of the key differences between the two platforms because I wanted to switch to the best.

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. This gives merchants the option of having a single vendor handle both software and hosting so sounds ideal but I found BigCommerce is already uniquely positioned as an open SaaS platform so let the comparing commence!

SaaS allows merchants to achieve customisation and integrations that had historically only been possible using an open source platform. BigCommerce offers 4 months free for Magento users that are looking to migrate and whilst talking to local ecommerce professionals, this was concidered to be very much a snap for them. Four out of five of the professionals I spoke with had lost a lot of trust in Magento after experiencing security issues and although they were nervous about the change it was a strong persuader. The fifth professional hadn't experienced any security issues but he also decided to switch as he was looking for a strong SEO rich platform and felt BigCommerce fitted the bill. Check out this article to learn more about the types of ecommerce platforms, along with their pros and cons and you will see why I came to the decision I did.

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. Should you switch to Magento V2 because Adobe is the new owner? If you're not sure which one is right for you, here is a quick breakdown of what I learnt whilst 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.

Magento

Keeping up with the necessary security patches and version updates is time consuming and labor intensive.

The more customisations 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 a different architecture and newer technologies under the hood.

For another view, here's what Wayne Ainsworth, Ecommerce Manager, from Awesome GTI has said about BigCommerce and Magento.

"We'd been on Magento for several years, but there came a point when we realised that the platform wasn't optimised for what we were trying to do anymore. Plus, we were never sure if the data from that system was 100% correct. We needed a hosted platform that allowed us to focus more on the marketing and selling of products rather than always being tied up with system maintenance. That's why BigCommerce stood out as a big opportunity for us. We were expanding into B2B markets and fundamentally changing the way we do things online, and BigCommerce helped us accomplish that. It's helped us get to where we are today."

In the end, BigCommerce looks to come out on top in this comparison as a SaaS platform built for seamless scalability at an affordable price. Not convinced? BigCommerce is offering 4 months free and 10% off migration services for merchants that switch from Magento to BigCommerce. Whether you are forced to replatform from Magento 1 or just want to explore your options, there is no risk in trying BigCommerce.

I must admit I had very little knowledge of either system when I started looking. I had heard of them both but I've only worked with bespoke coded websites up until now and updating them had become very slow and tiresome. I visited commerce shows during my research and there were many companies offering services for Magento 1 but that is about to be discontinued. I was very surprised that many of these companies couldn't offer support for Magento 2 and that's because they simply didn't have the knowledge of the new platform at the time. After being told by a few small companies locally that they had experienced security issues, I had to ask others of their opinions during my research and sadly they confirmed further cases. I visited the BigCommerce stand several times whilst at these commerce shows and I was impressed. They even provided a demo store for me to play with and I had prepared some of my products for sale before leaving that day and that's how easy it was.

As Magento had been bought out by Adobe I couldn't not compare them but I switched to BigCommerce in the end and am very happy with it. I personally believe I made the right decision but if you're looking and don't want to take my word for it then  Get a Demo today, remember to take advantage of the free for 4 months offer! There was even an added bonus for me as there's a free SSL included with every BigCommerce website, so I saved even more money because I had bought this separately previously.