8 best Magento alternatives for 2026 (tested and ranked)

Why teams actually leave Magento

I've spent the last few years shipping the integrations that connect AI support to store platforms, which means I've had a front-row seat to a lot of replatforming projects. The reason people leave Magento is almost never "it can't do the thing." Magento can do almost anything. The reasons are cost, time, and the fact that doing the thing requires a developer.

Start with cost. Adobe doesn't publish a price, and that's the first tell. Adobe Commerce is a custom, GMV-tiered quote, and the commonly-cited third-party estimates put licenses at roughly $22k to $190k+ per year before you add hosting, extensions, and the developers to run it. Total cost of ownership routinely lands in the six figures. I go deeper on this in our Adobe Commerce pricing breakdown, but the headline is that this is not a sign-up, it's a capital project.

Then time. G2's own "value at a glance" data pegs the average Adobe Commerce implementation at about five months. Compare that to a hosted platform you can have live in days. And then the developer dependency, which is the complaint I hear most often from teams mid-migration:

"The developer dependency is the most frustrating part honestly. A lot of customizations that feel like they should be manageable through the admin panel end up requiring developer involvement, which slows things down and adds cost."

Praney M., Product Design Manager, G2

None of this makes Magento bad. It makes it a specific tool for a specific buyer: large, high-SKU, multi-brand, B2B-heavy operations with dev resources to spare. If that's not you, one of the eight below almost certainly fits better.

How I ranked these

I weighted four things a merchant leaving Magento actually cares about: real total cost (not the sticker), how much of the store you can run without a developer, hosting model (fully managed vs. bring-your-own), and how far it scales before you outgrow it. I pulled every price and limit from each vendor's own pricing page, and the sentiment from G2, Capterra, and vendor community forums.

Here's roughly where each option lands. The left side is simpler and more DIY, the right is enterprise scale, and the vertical axis separates design-first site builders from commerce-first platforms.

The 8 best Magento alternatives at a glance

A quick note on that "extra transaction fee" column, because it trips people up: it's the platform's cut on top of your card processor's normal rate. It's the single biggest hidden cost difference between these platforms, so I've called it out explicitly.

Which Magento alternative fits you?

If you don't want to read all eight, tell the picker below what matters most and it'll point you at the right one.

1. Shopify

Best for: most merchants leaving Magento who want the smoothest all-round platform.

Shopify is the incumbent among the alternatives, and it earns it. Merchants have collectively done $1.1 trillion in sales on the platform, per its pricing page, there are 21,000+ apps in the Shopify App Store to fill any gap, and the checkout is the best-converting in the category. Where Magento is a build, Shopify is a setup. It's also leaning hard into agentic commerce, with products getting discovered and bought inside AI channels like ChatGPT.

Features: highest-converting checkout (Shop Pay), a huge theme and app ecosystem, built-in Sidekick AI in the admin, strong multichannel and POS, and Shopify Markets for international selling.

Pros: easiest setup and admin in the category, the biggest ecosystem by far, and a proven checkout. If you want AI support on top of it, there's a deep bench of Shopify AI tools to choose from.

Cons: the cost creeps. As one G2 reviewer put it:

"Monthly costs add up quickly. The base subscription is only one part of the total cost, and merchants often end up paying extra for premium themes, apps, transaction fees, email tools, additional subscriptions, and advanced analytics."

Shopify review, G2

The one that stings most is the third-party transaction fee of up to 2% if you don't use Shopify Payments.

Pricing: Basic $29/mo, Grow $79/mo, Advanced $299/mo, and Plus from $2,300/mo (annual billing), per the Shopify pricing page. Card rates run from 2.9% + 30¢ down to 2.25% + 30¢ on Plus.

Verdict: For the large majority of teams leaving Magento, Shopify is the move. You give up some deep customization, but you gain a platform your team can actually run without a developer on standby. Skip it only if zero transaction fees are a hard requirement, in which case read on.

2. BigCommerce

Best for: merchants who want a Shopify-class SaaS without the transaction fees.

BigCommerce positions itself as "open by design," with full API access, headless storefronts, and B2B tooling built into the core rather than bolted on. It's the closest structural match to Shopify, and its calling card is that it charges no card transaction fee on 20+ embedded payment providers. Adobe's own agentic-commerce push has a mirror here too, with BigCommerce's Companion AI and brand agents.

Features: Makeswift drag-and-drop builder, Catalyst headless storefront, native B2B (quotes, account pricing, buyer roles), multi-currency on every plan, and 600+ integrations.

Pros: genuinely strong B2B out of the box, no card fees, and an open, developer-friendly architecture. If you're evaluating support tooling alongside it, we have a guide to the best AI for BigCommerce support.

Cons: BigCommerce renamed its plans in 2026 and tied them to trailing-12-month GMV, with auto-upgrades when you cross a threshold. That change has hurt loyal customers:

"My June invoice was $111.83. My July invoice was $521.84, consisting of a new $399 Scale subscription plus $91 in prorated Plus charges. This represents a 366% month-over-month increase... I'm getting away from BigCommerce."

Sci-Supply.com merchant, BigCommerce Community

Pricing: Core $29/mo, Growth $79/mo, Scale $299/mo (annual), and Performance from $1,499/mo, per the BigCommerce pricing page. An Open Payment Provider Fee (2.0% Core / 1.0% Growth / 0.6% Scale) applies only if you use a processor outside the embedded list.

Verdict: Pick BigCommerce over Shopify if you have real B2B needs or you want to avoid gateway fees. Just go in clear-eyed about the GMV auto-upgrade model, and model your bill at next year's sales, not this year's.

3. WooCommerce

Best for: teams that want total control and no platform fee, and have the resources to run it.

If you're leaving Magento because you want control rather than because you want less of it, WooCommerce is the natural home. It's the free, open-source commerce plugin for WordPress, and it powers 31% of the top 1 million ecommerce sites, per Store Leads. Like Magento, you own the code and the data. Unlike Magento, the community and hosting around it are enormous and cheap.

Features: an open-source core with unlimited products, orders, variants, and API calls; a massive extension and theme marketplace; bring-any-payments with no gateway penalty; and deep WordPress content and SEO integration.

Pros: no platform fee and 0% revenue share, total control, and no lock-in. It's the closest philosophical match to Magento Open Source, minus most of the weight. For the support layer, there's a roundup of the best AI for WooCommerce support.

Cons: you own hosting, security, backups, and updates. WooCommerce's own TCO examples show a $2M-revenue store spending ~$139,000 in year one, mostly on development and payment fees. A serious Woo store is a build project, just a cheaper and more flexible one than Magento.

Pricing: core is $0. Realistic costs are hosting ($25-350/mo), payments (WooPayments ~2.5-2.9% + 30¢), and extensions ($29-299/year each), per the WooCommerce pricing page.

Verdict: The right call if you have (or will hire) technical resources and want to avoid SaaS caps and fees entirely. If you want the control of Magento without the license and the five-month build, this is it.

4. Wix

Best for: small, design-led stores run by non-technical owners.

Wix is a design-first website builder that also sells. Its calling card is a freeform drag-and-drop editor with more layout freedom than anything else here, plus a genuinely useful set of AI setup tools. For a boutique or a maker running a few dozen to a few hundred SKUs, it's a much friendlier home than Magento ever was.

Features: the most flexible no-code editor in the category, hundreds of templates, built-in payments with no added Wix fee, and bundled site + blog + bookings + marketing.

Pros: fastest, most flexible design experience, a real all-in-one on one bill, and no Wix transaction fee on business plans. It rates 4.2/5 across 1,883 reviews on G2.

Cons: commerce depth is shallower than Shopify or BigCommerce, the cheapest "Light" plan can't sell online, and support is a recurring gripe in reviews. It's not built for large catalogs or high volume.

Pricing: real ecommerce starts at Core $29/mo, then Business $39/mo and Business Elite $159/mo (annual), per Wix's plans.

Verdict: A great Magento alternative if your store is small and the brand's look matters more than catalog scale. If you're doing serious volume, you'll outgrow it, and Shopify is the safer landing spot.

5. Squarespace

Best for: creators and brand-led stores where presentation is the product.

Squarespace is the other design-led all-in-one, and its templates are the best-looking out of the box, full stop. It's the pick for artists, photographers, coaches selling courses, and limited-release brands, where the store is one module inside a beautiful content-rich site. Over 14 million entrepreneurs have used Squarespace.

Features: best-in-class templates, selling for physical goods, digital content, memberships and subscriptions, built-in AI copy tools, and POS for in-person sales.

Pros: unmatched design polish, a true all-in-one, and 0% platform transaction fee from the $29 Core plan up. Strong for digital products and memberships, not just physical goods.

Cons: it's not built for large-catalog or high-volume operations, and its Commerce APIs are gated to the top $99 Advanced plan. The community consensus is blunt: Shopify and BigCommerce for selling, Squarespace for showing.

Pricing: Basic $19/mo (with a 2% store fee), Core $29/mo (0% fee, recommended), Plus $49/mo, and Advanced $99/mo (annual), per the Squarespace pricing page.

Verdict: If your store leans creator or brand-first and your catalog is modest, Squarespace is a lovely place to land. For a warehouse-scale operation, look elsewhere.

6. Ecwid by Lightspeed

Best for: adding a store to a website you already have, and the cheapest entry point.

Ecwid is the odd one out, in a good way. It's an embeddable store widget rather than a full platform: you drop a snippet into an existing WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace site and manage everything from one dashboard. If your problem is "I have a site, I just need to sell," and you don't want to replatform at all, Ecwid is the least disruptive answer here.

Features: add-to-any-site embed, a code-free Instant Site builder, omnichannel selling across Instagram, TikTok, Amazon, and more, and POS on the top tier.

Pros: the cheapest entry in this set and 0% transaction fees on every plan. It rates 4.6/5 across 582 reviews on Capterra, the highest here. Easy setup, strong omnichannel reach.

Cons: it's not a full website platform, SEO controls are basic, and there are product caps on lower tiers (10 / 100 / 2,500). Reviewers flag store-management friction at scale.

Pricing: Starter $5/mo, Venture $29/mo, Business $49/mo, and Unlimited $119/mo (annual), per the Ecwid pricing page, all with no transaction fees.

Verdict: The smart, low-drama pick when you don't want a migration at all. If you're outgrowing Magento's scale, though, Ecwid is a step down in commerce depth, not a lateral move.

7. Shift4Shop

Best for: US merchants willing to use Shift4 Payments in exchange for a free platform.

Shift4Shop (formerly 3dcart) has an unusual pitch: the store software is free when you process payments through Shift4. Because Shift4 makes its money on processing, it gives away a genuinely feature-rich platform, framed as a $229/month value at $0.

Features: unlimited products, categories, variants, and staff users; a built-in CRM; real-time shipping; 100+ free themes; and free SSL and domain registration.

Pros: an enterprise-grade feature set at $0 with no revenue caps, if you meet the terms. The free plan is the real draw for budget-conscious US sellers.

Cons: the strings are significant. The free tier requires a minimum monthly processing volume with Shift4, it's effectively US-only, and there are post-acquisition reports of downtime and stalled development. As one Capterra reviewer summed up the appeal (and its condition):

"They had an excellent plan where you got the cart free if you used their payment processor."

Kelly H, Web specialist, Capterra

Pricing: the End-to-End plan is free with Shift4 Payments (above a monthly processing threshold); non-US or non-Shift4 merchants fall back to paid monthly plans, per the Shift4Shop pricing page.

Verdict: A real deal for US sellers who don't mind the processor lock-in and want a lot of features for nothing. Everyone else should treat the "free" with healthy skepticism and read the processing terms first.

8. Salesforce Commerce Cloud

Best for: true enterprises already living in the Salesforce ecosystem.

If Magento felt too heavy, Salesforce Commerce Cloud is heavier still, and that's the point for the brands it serves. It spans B2C, B2B, order management, and in-store POS, all wrapped in Salesforce's AI layer and tied natively into Salesforce CRM, Marketing, and Data Cloud. Salesforce says it powers commerce for over two billion shoppers and has been a Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader for 10 straight years.

Features: enterprise B2C and B2B storefronts, distributed order management, Retail Cloud POS, composable/headless options, and Agentforce guided shopping.

Pros: enterprise-grade scale and omnichannel depth, and unmatched integration if you're already a Salesforce shop.

Cons: pricing is entirely quote-gated and historically a percentage of your GMV (partner estimates run ~1-3%), so your bill scales with your sales. It needs specialized developers and long implementations, and it's overkill for anyone below roughly $10M in online revenue.

Pricing: every edition on the Commerce pricing page says "Contact for pricing." Budget for the license plus an implementation partner.

Verdict: The only pick here if you're a genuine enterprise with a dev team and a Salesforce footprint. For everyone else, it reproduces the exact cost-and-complexity problem you're trying to leave Magento to escape.

A quick worked example

Say you're a mid-market brand doing ~$2M a year online, currently paying a mid-five-figure Adobe Commerce quote plus hosting and a part-time developer. On Shopify Advanced ($299/mo) with Shopify Payments, your platform cost is roughly $3,600/year plus card fees you'd pay anywhere. On WooCommerce, you might spend more like $10-20k/year once you count managed hosting and a couple of key extensions, but you own the whole thing. Either way, you're trading a six-figure line item and a dev dependency for something a two-person team can run. That gap is the whole reason this post exists.

The one thing that shouldn't move: your support

Here's the mistake I watch teams make during a replatform: they treat customer support as part of the store, so when the store moves, they rip up their support setup too. It doesn't have to work that way. Your AI support agent should sit above the platform, connected to both your helpdesk and your store, so it keeps running no matter what you switch to. It's the same logic behind picking an AI chatbot for ecommerce: tie it to your data, not your storefront.

That's exactly how we built eesel. It plugs into Zendesk, Gorgias, and Freshdesk on the support side, and into Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento on the store side. So the migration that changes your store doesn't touch the AI answering "where's my order?" at 2am. If you're weighing this, we keep a running guide to the best AI helpdesk for ecommerce.

Try eesel with your store

Whichever platform you land on, eesel AI turns your past tickets and help docs into an AI teammate that drafts replies, triages, and resolves tier-1 questions inside the helpdesk you already use. On a real rollout, Gridwise saw eesel resolve 73% of tier-1 requests in the first month, and because it runs on your store data, "where's my order?" and "how do I return this?" get answered without a human touching them.

The part that makes it a genuine fit for a replatforming team: it's usage-based at $0.40 per resolved ticket, with no per-seat fees and no platform minimum, so it scales with your volume instead of your headcount. You can simulate it against your historical tickets before it ever answers a live customer, and it's free to try with $50 of usage and no card required.