Adobe Commerce (Magento) Review — All the Key Pros and Cons

In this Adobe Commerce (Magento) review, I break down the key pros and cons of this powerful ecommerce platform — and help you decide if it’s right for your business. I also highlight some key competing platforms to consider.

Let’s begin with a look at how Adobe commerce works.

How Adobe Commerce works

There are three versions of Adobe Commerce available:

These versions of the Adobe Commerce software are all made available at different price points.

Pricing for the premium versions of Adobe Commerce isn’t made publicly available by Adobe, but my research suggests a pricing range of $22,000+ per year for access to Adobe Commerce, and $40,000+ per year for access to Adobe Commerce Cloud.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that Adobe Commerce Cloud’s pricing is based on Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) — sales price of goods x number of goods sold. So pricing can vary enormously for this version of the software and, if you’re a successful merchant, end up being a lot higher than $40,000 per year.

As the main selling features of all three versions of Adobe Commerce are similar, in this comparison I’ll generally be using the phrase ‘Adobe Commerce’ to cover all three. However where appropriate I’ll refer to individual versions of the software.

Let’s move on, starting with a look at the advantages of using Adobe Commerce; I’ll follow this up by highlighting its drawbacks.

Advantages of using Adobe Commerce

1. It gives you total control over store customization

For me, the biggest advantage of using Adobe Commerce involves the huge degree of control it gives you over both its front end (visuals) and back end (functionality).

Where the front end is concerned, Adobe Commerce lets you fully design your store’s appearance without the limitations of rigid templates. While many platforms use proprietary theme frameworks that restrict certain modifications, Adobe Commerce’s PHP-based templating system allows for complete creative freedom.

It lets you build a store design from scratch, tweak existing themes however you like, or use progressive web app (PWA) technology for a more dynamic, mobile-friendly experience.

The back end is just as flexible. Unlike platforms that limit code access or enforce specific development tools, Adobe Commerce’s open-source architecture lets you customize core functionality, third-party integrations and workflow automations without restrictions.

Whether you need to build unique product configurations, create custom admin tools, or fine-tune website performance settings, Adobe Commerce gives businesses the freedom to tailor their store to meet their precise needs.

Of course, with this level of flexibility comes added complexity. Adobe Commerce requires quite a high level of technical expertise to get the most out of it — and many businesses will need developers or an in-house IT team to fully leverage its capabilities.

But for those who need absolute control over their store visitors’ ecommerce experience, few platforms come close to matching what Adobe Commerce offers.

2. It scales well for large businesses

Adobe Commerce is designed to support high-traffic, high-volume ecommerce operations, making it a popular choice for major global brands — big-name users of the platform include Nike, Ford, HP, Coca-Cola, Tommy Hilfiger and ASUS.

These companies rely on Adobe Commerce to handle massive product catalogs, complex inventory structures and millions of customers across multiple regions.

Unlike hosted ecommerce solutions that restrict server control and database management, Adobe Commerce gives businesses full autonomy over their hosting infrastructure. This means enterprise-grade users can optimize performance, customize server configurations and scale resources based on demand.

While some hosted platforms — Shopify being a key example — have made significant strides in improving scalability, these ‘out-of-the-box’ type solutions usually impose fairly strict limits on checkout customization, API request rates and bulk product updates. Adobe Commerce by contrast gives you complete freedom in all these areas.

So for enterprise users that need full flexibility when it comes to handling traffic spikes, global operations and complex data structures, Adobe Commerce is an excellent choice.

3. It’s excellent for managing multiple stores

If your business needs to operate multiple brands, regional storefronts, or different pricing structures, Adobe Commerce will likely be a good fit.

Unlike many hosted ecommerce platforms, Adobe Commerce enables businesses to run multiple storefronts from one account. These storefronts can all have their own currency, language, product pricing and tax settings applied to them individually.

Most hosted store builders don’t provide this sort of flexibility — but that said there are a couple of exceptions that do — BigCommerce and Shopify.

BigCommerce offers a ‘Multi-Storefront’ feature, which allows merchants to manage multiple stores from a single account.

Shopify Plus — Shopify’s enterprise level offering — allows for nine expansion stores and up to 25 “headless” storefronts (where the front-end experience is separated from the backend infrastructure for greater customization).

4. You’re not locked into a specific payment provider

One of the biggest advantages of Adobe Commerce is the freedom it gives you over payment processing.

It supports a very large range of third-party gateways — 370 in total (the largest selection I’ve come across so far when testing ecommerce platforms). This gives businesses the flexibility to choose the payment processor that best suits their needs.

And, unlike some platforms that impose extra transaction fees for using external processors, Adobe Commerce doesn’t. You only pay the standard credit card processing fees applied by your chosen provider.

For context, competing ecommerce platforms generally give you far fewer options.

For example, Squarespace only supports Stripe, PayPal and Square.

And although Shopify integrates with over 100 payment providers, if you don’t use its own one — Shopify Payments — you’ll pay between 0.6% and 2% in extra fees per transaction. And frustratingly, this payment processor is only available in 23 countries.

So if your business handles high transaction volumes, or needs specialized payment solutions, Adobe Commerce’s broad gateway support and lack of platform-imposed fees make it a very flexible, cost-effective choice.

5. It gives you complete checkout flexibility

Most ecommerce platforms limit checkout customization, restricting changes to basic branding, payment options and layout tweaks. That’s fine where simple stores are concerned, but if you need custom payment flows, multi-step verification, or industry-specific checkout processes, these limitations can be frustrating.

Helpfully Adobe Commerce doesn’t apply these restrictions — it lets you modify layouts, add fields, adjust payment logic and integrate third-party services to your heart’s content. This is especially useful for industries like automotive, healthcare and B2B, where complex configurations, approvals, or localized payment options are essential.

6. It gives you a lot of SEO flexibility

When it comes to SEO, Adobe Commerce gives you far more control than many competing platforms. From URLs to metadata to technical optimizations, you can fine-tune your site’s search performance without restrictions.

Hosted platforms often dictate URL structures, adding obligatory prefixes that can limit SEO flexibility.

For example:

With Adobe Commerce, by contrast, you can structure URLs however you like, optimizing them for search visibility without platform-imposed rules.

Metadata control is just as extensive. While many platforms cap title tag lengths or enforce rigid formatting, Adobe Commerce lets you freely edit page titles, meta descriptions and alt text at both the product and category level — giving you full control over how your store appears in search results.

On top of that, Adobe Commerce makes adding Schema markup easy. Schema helps search engines understand your content and display rich snippets — like product ratings or pricing — in search results. While some platforms require you to turn to coding or apps to add Schema, Adobe Commerce gives you direct access to structured data settings.

And finally, because Adobe Commerce is self-hosted, you’re in full control of technical SEO too. You can fully optimize page speed, caching and redirects, rather than relying on whatever setup a hosted platform decides is best for you.

7. You can choose your own hosting setup

Adobe Commerce differs from many ecommerce platforms in that it gives you full control over how and where your online store is hosted.

Unlike hosted solutions like Shopify and BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce lets you choose your own hosting provider, configure caching strategies and fine-tune server performance to match your exact needs. It also allows you to set up your own content delivery network (CDN) for improved global site speed, and choose your PHP version.

For high-traffic stores or businesses with complex infrastructure requirements, this level of control can be a game-changer.

That said, self-hosting isn’t for everyone. If you don’t have the technical expertise — or a reliable hosting provider — it can be tricky to configure servers, optimize performance and ensure uptime. But if you have the right skills (or developer support), Adobe Commerce gives you the freedom to build an infrastructure that’s fully tailored to your business — from custom database setup to advanced security configurations.

8. It handles complex product catalogs well

Many ecommerce platforms impose strict limits on how many product options and variants you can make use of.

(A product option is an attribute of a product — for example, size, color or material — and a product variant is a combination of options. For example, a blue suede shoe would be one variant, a red leather shoe would be another and so on.)

Here’s how some of Adobe’s competitors restrict use of product options and variants:

Adobe Commerce, by contrast, places no limits on product options, variants or SKUs, making it an excellent choice for businesses with large, complex catalogs.

Adobe Commerce also lets you work with an unlimited number of products and doesn’t restrict the number of bulk updates you can carry out on them. This makes it a highly scalable ecommerce solution.

9. It’s a strong choice for regulated industries

For businesses in healthcare, finance and government, meeting strict compliance standards isn’t optional — it’s essential. But most hosted ecommerce platforms restrict access to the critical security and data storage settings needed to do so.

Adobe Commerce, by contrast, allows businesses to fully configure security measures and data management practices to meet industry-specific regulatory requirements. Whether you need to comply with healthcare regulations, financial transparency laws, or government security standards, the platform provides the flexibility to implement the necessary safeguards.

It supports a range of compliance frameworks, including:

These compliance measures can be met natively, through add-ons, or via custom configurations, depending on the specific requirements of each business.

So if your business requires more than a one-size-fits-all approach to compliance, Adobe Commerce may well give you the flexibility you need.

OK, so those are the key pros of using Adobe Commerce. But what are its downsides?

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Disadvantages of using Adobe Commerce

1. It has a very steep learning curve

Adobe Commerce is an incredibly powerful and flexible platform, but that flexibility comes at a cost: it’s not at all easy to set up or manage without technical expertise or developer support.

While platforms like Shopify, Wix and Squarespace offer very intuitive content management systems, Adobe Commerce requires a deeper level of technical involvement. Even basic tasks like configuring product attributes, setting up payment gateways, or adjusting tax settings often require manual configuration or code-based modifications.

Theme customization is another area where the Adobe Commerce learning curve is significantly steeper. Many platforms let users tweak store designs using visual theme editors, but in Adobe Commerce, making design changes often involves editing code in PHP, XML and CSS (programming and markup languages respectively used for functionality, structure and styling).

And if you’re hoping to find quick answers in the Adobe Commerce help center, be warned: the support pages generally read more like developer documentation than step-by-step guides for everyday users. If you’re keen on using Adobe Commerce, but phrases like “modify the layout XML to extend the block class” make your eyes glaze over, it’s time to get a developer in!

2. An Adobe Commerce site can take a long time to go live

The complexity of Adobe Commerce means that getting your store live with the platform can take significantly longer than with many competing ecommerce platforms.

While some platforms allow businesses to launch in a matter of hours or days, an Adobe Commerce store can take weeks or even months to deploy — especially if your setup involves custom features and integrations. Adobe Commerce itself estimates that most stores take up to six months to be fully launched.

And after launch, expect to find that routine tasks — like adding products, managing inventory, or updating site content — aren’t as straightforward to perform as they are on competing platforms. Adobe Commerce offers extensive flexibility, but mastering its interface, settings and customization options takes time, experience and often a skilled development team.

3. The total cost of ownership is high

Adobe Commerce is an expensive platform to run, especially compared to hosted competitors like Shopify, Wix and BigCommerce.

While the ‘Magento Open Source’ version of the platform is free to download, the two enterprise-level Adobe Commerce versions — ‘Adobe Commerce’ and ‘Adobe Commerce Cloud’ come with significant costs — not just for licensing, but also for hosting, development and ongoing maintenance.

Adobe Commerce Cloud’s pricing is based on gross merchandise volume (GMV), meaning the more you sell, the more you pay.

Pricing is negotiable — and therefore not publicly available — but my research indicates that the paid-for versions of Adobe Commerce start at a reported $22,000 per year for businesses earning under $1 million, and reach $125,000 or more annually for those generating over $25 million. And that’s just the licensing fee — costs for hosting, development and maintenance can push expenses significantly higher.

By comparison, hosted platforms like Shopify, Wix and BigCommerce offer far more predictable and affordable pricing.

For example, Shopify’s core plans range from just $29 to $299 per month, a fee that covers access to themes, hosting, security and a full suite of ecommerce features. And Shopify Plus — Shopify’s enterprise-grade version — typically involves a price tag of $2,500 per month, which is still significantly lower than the fees involved when you use Adobe Commerce.

And it’s worth noting that the complexity of Adobe Commerce brings with it significant additional costs. Because it’s not a fully managed solution, you’ll need to handle hosting, security and platform updates yourself (or hire dedicated IT teams or external developers to do this for you). All this makes the total cost of ownership high — and often unpredictable, with expenses shifting depending on maintenance, customizations and scaling needs.

Ultimately if you need complete control and deep customization, these costs may be worth it. But if you’re simply looking for a scalable, feature-rich online store, a hosted solution will save you a lot of time and money.

4. There are fewer ready-made themes than hosted ecommerce builders

When it comes to pre-designed themes, Adobe Commerce offers significantly fewer options than hosted ecommerce platforms. Currently, the Adobe Commerce Marketplace features just 11 themes — 3 free and 8 paid-for — which pales in comparison to the extensive libraries of other platforms.

(There are some paid-for Adobe Commerce themes available on third-party marketplaces too, but these are not officially developed or supported.)

For context, Wix offers more than 900 free templates, while Squarespace provides over 185, all free to use. Shopify and BigCommerce each include around a dozen free themes, but also offer over 200 fully-supported paid-for templates via their official theme stores.

This lack of theme choice from Adobe Commerce means that it’s often a case of having to modify a template fairly extensively to get it to meet your requirements.

And as I’ve mentioned previously, customizing themes in Adobe Commerce is a complex endeavor. Doing so often involves editing code files such as PHP, XML and CSS — instead of using a simple drag-and-drop editor (as you would with many competing solutions).

5. Responsibility for store security lies with the merchant

Many hosted platforms, like Shopify and BigCommerce, handle security for you, ensuring PCI DSS Level 1 compliance — a set of security standards that all businesses processing credit card payments must adhere to — along with free SSL certificates and built-in fraud protection. This means merchants don’t have to worry about managing these elements themselves.

With Adobe Commerce, things work differently. Security is a shared responsibility, meaning that Adobe maintains PCI certification for its infrastructure and services, but you’re responsible for securing your own store. This involves maintaining PCI compliance for your specific implementation, securing custom code and third-party integrations and ensuring that SSL certificates and security patches are up to date.

This level of responsibility can be a major challenge for businesses that don’t have a dedicated IT team or in-house security expertise: if security updates and compliance requirements aren’t managed properly, stores can become very vulnerable to cyberattacks and data breaches.

Ultimately Adobe Commerce gives you a lot of control over security configurations — but you need to be a lot more proactive when it comes to managing risk.

6. There’s no built-in email marketing tool

Email marketing is a hugely important driver of ecommerce sales. Accordingly, many hosted platforms — with Shopify, Wix and Squarespace all being key examples — now include built-in e-newsletter creation tools.

You won’t however find this functionality in Adobe Commerce. To run email campaigns, you’ll need to integrate a third-party service like Mailchimp or GetResponse into proceedings, or use ‘Adobe Campaign’ — Adobe’s own (separate) marketing automation platform.

Pricing for Adobe Campaign starts at around $9.99 per user per month, but larger businesses can end up paying as much as $12,000 to $25,000 per year to use it. And it requires considerable technical expertise to set up and manage.

It’s a similar situation when it comes to abandoned cart recovery — a feature that most hosted ecommerce platforms provide by default. Adobe Commerce doesn’t facilitate the sending of abandoned cart reminder emails — to get your hands on this functionality, you’ll have to either use ‘Adobe Journey Optimizer,’ a high-end enterprise solution, or install a third-party extension like MageDelight Abandoned Cart Emails or Aheadworks Abandoned Cart Reminder.

While these extensions can automate cart recovery, they come at an extra (in some cases significant) cost and require manual setup.

7. It’s not ideal for dropshipping and print on demand

If you’re planning to run a dropshipping or print-on-demand business, Adobe Commerce isn’t the most convenient option. Currently, only three dropshipping integrations are provided for Adobe Commerce (and significantly, none of these involves a native connection with the big-hitter in this field, Ali Express).

(For context, arch-rival Shopify lets you integrate your store with hundreds of dropshipping platforms.)

Print-on-demand options are even more limited — only Printful and Hit Promo Products are supported by Adobe Commerce.

And the integrations that are available aren’t terribly easy to implement. For example, the Printful integration isn’t a direct Adobe Commerce extension but a third-party tool developed by Webkul. (It also comes with a one-off fee ranging from $299 to $598, depending on which version of Adobe Commerce you’re using).

Ultimately if you’re looking for a quick, hassle-free entry into dropshipping or print-on-demand, a hosted ecommerce platform will get you there much faster.

8. Support is limited for open-source users

Adobe Commerce’s support options vary greatly depending on which version you’re using.

If you’re using the free open-source version of Adobe Commerce — Magento Open Source — you’re largely on your own. Unlike hosted platforms that provide 24/7 customer support, Magento Open Source doesn’t include official support at all. Instead, users must rely on community forums, documentation and third-party developers to troubleshoot issues.

While there’s an active developer online community for the product, finding fast, reliable help can still be a challenge — and you’ll need to have technical skills to make the most of that help.

For enterprise users on the paid Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento Commerce) plans, official support is included, but only for merchants paying at least $22,000 per year for their subscription.

To access the full range of Adobe support services, including planned event management support, upgrade / patching development assistance, go-live process coaching and application monitoring assistance, you’ll need to be on Adobe’s most expensive ‘Managed Services’ package. Pricing for this tier starts at $40,000 per year for businesses making under $1 million GMV and can go as high as $200,000 per year for those generating $25 million+ in sales.

That’s a steep price to pay for assistance — especially when competing platforms include support as standard.

9. There are no built-in point-of-sale features

A point-of-sale (POS) system allows businesses to sell in physical locations while keeping inventory, orders and customer data synced with their online store.

Unlike several competing platforms, Adobe Commerce doesn’t include a native POS system — meaning you’ll need to rely on third-party software to process in-person transactions.

There are currently around 70 POS extensions available in the Adobe Commerce extensions directory; these include well-known solutions including Square, PayPal Zettle and ConnectPOS. While this third-party approach gives businesses the flexibility to choose a system that fits their needs, it also means extra costs, additional setup time and potential compatibility issues.

Hosted solutions like Shopify and Wix offer built-in POS systems on all plans, allowing merchants to sell in physical locations using smartphones, tablets, barcode scanners and tills — all while keeping inventory automatically synced with their online store.

Verdict

Adobe Commerce is a seriously powerful platform, offering a level of customization and scalability that few other ecommerce solutions can compete with. If you need total control over your store’s design, backend functionality and hosting setup, or you’re running a large, complex business with multi-store operations and unique checkout requirements, it’s hard to find a more flexible solution.

This flexibility also makes it a strong choice for businesses in highly regulated industries, where compliance and security customization are essential. The ability to deeply configure hosting, security measures and data management ensures that businesses operating under strict legal requirements can tailor their store to meet industry standards.

But that flexibility comes at a cost — and not just a financial one.

Because of Adobe Commerce’s very steep learning curve and the fact that getting a store live with the platform typically requires developer support, go-live can take a significant amount of time — up to six months. And when you factor in hosting, security, maintenance and potential licensing fees, the total cost of ownership can end far higher than using platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, or Wix: all-in-one packages that provide a far easier setup and management approach.

So, who is Adobe Commerce really for? If you have a large business, a capable development team and the budget to support ongoing customization and maintenance, it’s one of the most powerful ecommerce platforms available. But if you’re just looking for a quick, cost-effective way to start selling online, a hosted platform is probably going to make a lot more sense for you.

(I’ve highlighted some alternatives below.)

Alternatives to Adobe Commerce

Shopify is one of the most user-friendly ecommerce platforms available, making it a strong alternative for those who want to launch a store quickly without dealing with hosting, security, or complex development work.

It provides built-in payment processing, multi-channel selling and 24/7 customer support, all within a managed infrastructure. It’s also great when it comes to selling internationally thanks to built-in multi-currency and multi-lingual selling.

While it doesn’t offer the same level of backend customization as Adobe Commerce, Shopify significantly reduces technical overhead and is ideal for small to mid-sized businesses. You can learn more about the platform in our in-depth Shopify review, our Shopify pricing guide and our Shopify vs Adobe Commerce comparison.

For those who like the idea of open-source flexibility but would prefer to use WordPress, WooCommerce is a natural alternative. As a self-hosted WordPress plugin, it offers plenty of customization and control but like Adobe Commerce also requires you to manage your own hosting, security and software updates.

And WooCommerce integrates well with WordPress’s vast ecosystem of plugins and themes, making it a good choice for content-heavy ecommerce sites. See our WooCommerce vs Shopify and WooCommerce vs BigCommerce comparisons to learn more about it.

BigCommerce is a strong hosted alternative to Adobe Commerce, offering strong multi-storefront capabilities and advanced selling features. It provides more built-in features than Shopify when it comes to product variations and B2B functionality, making it a good choice for growing businesses that need a scalable but user-friendly solution. Check out our BigCommerce review to learn more about this platform.

If you’re looking for an easier, design-focused platform with built-in ecommerce tools, Squarespace and Wix are well worth considering. Both offer intuitive drag-and-drop website builders, making them ideal for small businesses, creatives and solopreneurs who need a stylish online store without the complexity of Adobe Commerce.

While they don’t match Adobe Commerce or Shopify in terms of scalability, they provide a streamlined and beginner-friendly approach to selling online. You can explore their features further in our Squarespace review and our Wix review.