Some Key Considerations Regarding Magento and Adobe Commerce

Magento had long been a favourite platform for all kinds of businesses operating in the ecommerce sector, and the company was acquired by Adobe in 2018 to the tune of US$1.68 billion, an undeniably impressive sum. This decision made a lot of sense, especially because Adobe were looking to implement an ecommerce offering to complement the business solutions they’ve been providing for years. All in all, the final aim that Adobe hopes to achieve with this initiative is to provide a complete data and intelligence platform that will give in depth data on behaviour and customer interactions.

As such, it is no surprise that Magento has been incorporated into the Adobe suite of solutions, and in fact, many industry leaders suspected the move was in the pipeline well before the acquisition was made public. Adobe carried out a purchasing and acquisition strategy that means disruption to each of their products, both old and new, has been kept to a minimum, allowing customers to benefit from a seamless transition due to the high levels of integration that have been made possible.

Magento has long been the platform of choice for businesses of all sizes and in all industries, with many preferring it due to its open source system. Initially, some existing users were concerned that the open source nature of the platform would be altered or compromised in some way, thus affecting their usual operations. Not only this, but users who had migrated from Magento 1 to Magento 2 were concerned that the plugins running their sites would no longer be compatible with an Adobe product.

To allay these concerns it is helpful to understand that Magento Enterprise is the product that is now called Adobe Commerce, and Magento Open Source is still unchanged for the most part. These are two separate ecommerce solutions with some key differences that we will look at in this article.

Adobe Commerce is an enterprise platform solution that was formerly known as Magento Commerce and some people are still using the old name. It is a feature rich platform that gives you all the functionality you expect from a Magento or Adobe product and it is perfectly suited to businesses and enterprises that require more in depth support from their Adobe Commerce partner. Adobe Commerce has some excellent features and benefits including:

Detailed dashboards

Marketing tools

WYSIWYG editors

Performance monitoring tools

Customer segmentation

Content staging and preview functionality

Cloud based operation

Also known as the Community Edition, Magento Open Source (or Adobe Open Source, to some) is free to use and is a favourite among developers with lots of technical knowledge. Sites built using this platform and Adobe Commerce provide unlimited scope for customisation and bespoke functionality. There are plenty of features and benefits associated with this, including the following:

Mobile optimisation

Site search function

Access to global markets

Wide range of plugins

While these are all great to have, the Open Source version cannot provide the power, flexibility and functionality of Adobe Commerce, which makes Adobe Commerce the preferred choice for SMEs and large companies and organisations alike. Sites built using the Adobe suite of products benefit from professional support and the services of an experienced web developer due to their relative complexity.

One of the key differences between Open Source and Adobe Commerce is the cloud based functionality of Adobe Commerce. In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of cloud computing for a variety of purposes. One common application is web hosting. By storing website data on remote servers, businesses can enjoy a number of benefits, including increased flexibility, scalability, and reliability. Cloud-based hosting also offers key advantages in terms of security and cost-efficiency.

Perhaps most importantly, however, is the fact that cloud hosting can help businesses to better meet the needs of their customers. By making it easier to scale websites up or down as needed, businesses can ensure that their site is always accessible, regardless of spikes in traffic. In today's increasingly competitive marketplace, the ability to offer a high-quality customer experience is crucial for success. As more and more businesses look to the cloud for their web hosting needs, those who fail to do so may find themselves at a disadvantage.