Salesforce Commerce Cloud vs Magento: Picking the Right E-commerce Platform

Striving to find which eCommerce platform is the right choice for your business among Salesforce Commerce Cloud vs Magento? This detailed comparison helps you decide which is right for you.

When it comes to the best eCommerce platform– Magento and Salesforce are the two leading platforms that top the list. Both eCommerce systems are among the most highly sought-after cloud-based eCommerce platforms available, with comprehensive and cutting-edge capabilities.

Magento vs Salesforce Commerce Cloud, both platforms offer a wide range of customizable solutions for SMBs to large enterprises. Magento is a widely used eCommerce platform being used by business owners for years now; on the other hand, Salesforce is a more innovative and recently proposed alternative. It provides merchants and users with a highly optimized eCommerce experience that is second to none.

Let’s have a detailed comparison of these two prominent players to help you choose the best one for your business that can adapt to suit your needs to support the growth of your business.

So, let’s get started, with a brief introduction to Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Magento.

Magento vs Salesforce Commerce Cloud: Brief Overview

Magento Overview

Magento, now Adobe Commerce, is a highly customizable, open-source eCommerce platform. Acquired by Adobe Inc in 2018, the platform caters to businesses needing complex customizations from tailored storefronts to complex product workflows. While it lacks native AI, Adobe ecosystems support third-party integrations for scalability and automation. 

Magento requires self-hosting or third-party PaaS (such as Adobe’s cloud offering), making it ideal for teams with technical expertise. Its SEO-friendly architecture includes granular meta-tag controls, Google Sitemaps, and layered navigation optimization.

Brands like Coca-Cola and Ford use Magento for its customization capabilities, even though this requires developer expertise from setup to maintenance.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud Overview

Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFMC), originally Demandware, is a cloud-native SaaS platform designed for B2B and B2C commerce. It eliminates the need for third-party hosting with pre-built cloud infrastructure and offers built-in AI (Einstein GPT) for personalized shopping experiences, omnichannel order management, and global expansion tools (multi-language, multi-currency support).  

Its headless architecture allows businesses to manage multiple storefronts from a single backend with native integrations with Salesforce’s ecosystem.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud Vs Magento

Even though Salesforce and Magento are both well recognized for their comprehensive functions, which aid online merchants in efficiently setting up eCommerce businesses, there are some significant distinctions between the two platforms.

1. Internationalization

The internationalization capabilities of Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Magento Commerce are nearly identical, as both systems aim to serve merchants that generate a significant amount of revenue internationally.

A site built on Salesforce Commerce Cloud may be customized and modified to meet the diverse demands of customers from a variety of different geographic locations. It contains a range of localization capabilities to assist in the worldwide expansion of a company’s products and services. From the storefront to the Business Manager, you have the option to localize your store design.

Multi-site management allows for the development of several sites and their administration from a single interface. Furthermore, the Business Manager interface offers built-in language support for English, French, Italian, Chinese, and Japanese and the other supported languages. It will assist in including local individuals in the administration team, allowing for more tailored, localized material to be created.

Adobe Commerce Cloud also offers support for multiple languages, currencies, localized pricing, and tax rates to help businesses expand globally. From a single interface, an administrator can manage multiple eCommerce websites for multiple locations.

2. Architecture

When comparing Salesforce Commerce Cloud vs Magento based on architecture, both platforms have pros and cons.

Commerce Cloud is proposed as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), while Magento is offered as a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). Traditionally, Magento was stored on local servers and served as an on-premise solution, later on, it launched a cloud-based version. While, Commerce Cloud is a cloud-based solution that promises improved scalability, flexibility, and reliability compared to Magento.

Furthermore, Magento necessitates third-party hosting, which results in added complications and maintenance. Commerce Cloud has a pre-built hosting option to offer more security with no additional overhead.

3. Managed Services

Salesforce Commerce Cloud, as said earlier offered to businesses as Software-as-a-Service. This means all the accountability related to infrastructure management, security, and updates will be taken care of by Salesforce. As a result, businesses can emphasize more on achieving their business goals rather than sleight of hand in the technical complexities of the platform. Salesforce also holds accountability for the performance improvements, and new feature releases without asking businesses for additional investments.

Magento, on the other side, is a self-hosted platform relying on third parties for hosting. This might require businesses to invest additional resources to ensure the reliability of the hosting.

4. Integration Capabilities

Integration refers to the eCommerce platform’s compatibility to work with other systems to improve business performance. Salesforce Commerce Cloud offers a wide range of seamless integration capabilities with Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and so on to unify all business operations. Additionally, Salesforce AppExchange enables businesses to integrate Commerce Cloud with third-party solutions.

On the other hand, Magento also offers integration capabilities. However, the option of integrations and seamless compatibility is limited. This makes Commerce Cloud a better choice than Magento.

5. Pricing

Salesforce Commerce Cloud vs Magento, both adopt different pricing approaches, reflecting their users. 

Salesforce Commerce Cloud operates on a subscription-based and flexible model, depending on the editions included, such as Starter Suite, where costs start from $25/user/month. This edition offering includes out-of-the-box Sales processes, a simplified storefront builder, dynamic email marketing, and analytics with a free trial option. Additionally, you get pricing options as Pro Suite ($100/user/month) and Commerce Cloud Pay-As-You-Go (1% gross merchandise value- GMV). 

Magento (Adobe Commerce) offers two tiers of pricing, including an open source version and Adobe Commerce as PaaS and SaaS. Its open-source version does not have licensing fees but requires self-hosting and developer resources for setup and maintenance. While Adobe Commerce pricing is flexible depends on business requirements and GMV. 

6. Developer Ecosystem

Salesforce Commerce Cloud comes with a Salesforce-backed ecosystem. It involves AppExchange for integrations and open-source flexibility (limited). It requires hiring a Salesforce developer (certified) for customization. On the other hand, Magento is known for the large open-source community (Adobe Commerce Marketplace) that includes free and premium plugins, forums, and custom solutions. It even gives flexibility to developers to get full code access for custom workflows.

Learn More: Salesforce commerce Cloud vs Shopify: Which is Better?

Salesforce Commerce Cloud vs Magento: Which One is the Right Choice?

Following your review of Magento vs Salesforce Commerce Cloud, it’s time to put the knowledge to work for you to decide which platform to choose. Salesforce Commerce Cloud emerged as the preferred choice over Magento for commerce. Be it internalization, architecture, managed services, and integration, Commerce Cloud has better offerings.

Do you want to build your business on the Salesforce Commerce Cloud? Cyntexa is a Salesforce Summit Consulting Partner with more than 400+ Salesforce experts. With our expertise, we can build a customized solution that will speak about your business.

AUTHOR

Priyanshu

Salesforce Commerce Cloud Expert

Priyanshu, a Commerce Cloud expert, has 6+ years of experience and 8+ certifications. He specializes in crafting seamless, scalable e-commerce solutions that enhance customer experiences, maximize conversions in the digital marketplace. His expertise ensures businesses stay agile, competitive, and customer-centric.