What is Magento? The Ultimate Guide to the Magento E-Commerce Platform

If you’re stepping into online retail, you’ve probably heard people mention Magento. Developers rave about it. So do bigger retail brands.

But what is Magento, exactly? And what makes it different from other tools out there?

What is Magento?

Here’s the plain answer. The Magento platform isn’t a basic website builder. The Magento software is a highly scalable, fully customisable framework built for running online stores.

So what’s Magento’s biggest appeal? Total control over your storefront. You’re never locked into a rigid template.

This is exactly why Magento has become so popular in places like the U.S. and the UK. The Magento UK scene is especially strong. If you’re looking into UK Magento development, you’re building on a solid, well-supported foundation.

• Discover the Top 10 Magento Security Tips to Protect Your Store and Customers

What is Magento Used For?

So what is Magento actually used for?

At its core, it’s built to launch, manage, and grow online stores. Want to run a single Magento store? Magento can do that. Want to run a huge global operation? Magento can do that too.

It also supports multiple stores at once. You can run several storefronts — in different languages, different currencies — all from one admin panel.

People search for this in different ways: “web Magento,” “webshop Magento,” “Magento webshop,” “Magento website.” It’s all the same thing: enterprise-grade webshop software built so you don’t outgrow it.

Investing in a proper Magento website means your tech stack grows with your traffic. Not against it.

Benefits of Magento

There are a lot of all-in-one SaaS platforms out there. (SaaS just means software you rent and someone else hosts, instead of software you own outright.) So why use Magento instead?

It comes down to two things: ownership and growth.

• Total Customisation: You own your code outright. You can change any feature, checkout flow, or layout to fit your business.
• Unrivalled Scalability: It handles hundreds of thousands of products. It handles thousands of transactions an hour. No problem.
• Native B2B Features: B2B means business-to-business — selling to other companies, not individual shoppers. Magento has company accounts, custom price quotes, and quick order forms built in.
• Advanced SEO Control: You get URL rewrites, sitemaps, and metadata controls out of the box. These all help your store show up in search results.

What is Adobe Commerce?

What is Magento ecommerce, really? It’s the platform itself, plus a business decision Adobe made on top of it.

Magento is one of the best-known Magento solutions out there. It runs everything from small, single-brand Magento ecommerce websites to huge, multi-country retailers. You can’t really talk about Magento e-commerce today, though, without mentioning what Adobe did next.

Adobe bought Magento. Then it rebranded the paid, enterprise version of the software as Adobe Commerce.

So today there are two options:

• Magento Open Source: the free, community-supported version.
• Adobe Commerce: the paid, enterprise version. It adds native cloud hosting, AI-driven product recommendations (through a tool called Adobe Sensei), and extra features for complex B2B businesses.

Both options run on the same Magento ecommerce platform underneath. The core code is identical either way.

Magento Open Source

Magento Open Source used to be called the Community Edition. It’s completely free. You can download it, use it, and change it however you like.

Because it’s open-source, a huge community of developers works on it constantly. They build extensions, fix bugs, and keep it current.

Adobe Commerce vs Magento Open Source

So which one should you actually choose?

Adobe Commerce comes with more features built in from day one. But there’s a strong case for starting with Magento Open Source instead.

Here’s why. Both versions run on the same core code. The performance, the security, the ability to scale; none of that changes based on which one you pick. The difference is what you’re paying for on top.

Adobe Commerce’s licence fee is based on your store’s Gross Merchandise Value, or GMV for short. That’s the total value of everything you sell through the platform in a year. Fees start in the low five figures. For bigger stores, they can climb well past $100,000 a year.

Choose Open Source, and you skip that fee entirely. That budget can go elsewhere instead. Think better hosting, better design, or more marketing spend.

You’re also not stuck with fewer features. A large community of developers builds extensions that replicate most of what Adobe Commerce offers. You get similar functionality, without the recurring licence fee.

What is Magento 2?

You’ll see “Magento 2” or “Magento 2.0” mentioned a lot if you’re researching this. 

Magento 2 is a full rebuild of the original platform. Adobe released it to fix the speed problems in the old version.

If you’re running a store today, you’re using this newer framework. It loads faster. The checkout is simpler. And it works properly on mobile.

Magento 1 vs Magento 2

The difference between the two versions is huge (enough).

Magento 1 reached end-of-life in mid-2020. That means Adobe stopped releasing security updates for it.

Running an old, unsupported version leaves your site open to data breaches.

A quick note on a few terms in the table below. PHP is the programming language the whole platform runs on. Varnish is caching technology that speeds up page loads. OpenSearch is the search engine that powers your site’s on-page search. Hyvä is a popular, lightweight theme framework for building the front end.

Here’s what changed between the two versions:

How Much Does Magento Cost?

The open-source code itself is free to download. But running an actual store costs money. You’ll need to pay for hosting, development, design, and any extensions you add.

If you’re considering the enterprise route, the question becomes: how much does Magento 2 cost once you’re paying for Adobe Commerce?

Adobe Commerce works on a tiered licence, based on your GMV; the total value of what you sell through the platform each year. Smaller stores on the self-hosted tier start around $22,000 a year. Larger, cloud-hosted stores can cost well over $100,000 a year.

Is There a Magento UK Community?

If you’re running an e-commerce business in the UK, you might wonder if there’s local support.

There is. The Magento UK community is active, and so is the wider UK Magento scene. Meet Magento UK, for example, is a yearly conference for growing retailers. It’s a good place to pick up industry insight and meet other people working with the platform.

How Do You Build a Magento Webshop?

Building a Magento webshop, or a full Magento ecommerce website, takes planning. It’s not like using a basic website builder.

Here’s the process:

1. Secure Your Hosting: Pick a cloud host that’s set up specifically for a Magento website.
2. Installation: Download the core Magento code and set it up on your server.
3. Theme Customisation: Install a fast frontend so your Magento store loads quickly.
4. Configure Your Catalogue: Set up your product details, categories, and stock inside your Magento webshop.
5. Integrate Extensions: Connect your payment providers and shipping options to finish your Magento webshop setup.

That five-step list makes it sound simple. In practice, it isn’t. Getting everything set up properly takes real technical skill. That’s why most businesses don’t try to do it alone.

Finding the Right Magento Expert

Because building a Magento store properly takes real expertise, most businesses bring in an agency to help.

If you want the right people to design, build, or maintain your store, our network of trusted partners can connect you with vetted Magento agencies and specialists.