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E-Commerce · head to head

commercetools vs Magento

commercetools logo

commercetools

E-Commerce

The Digital Commerce AI Company

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Magento logo

Magento

E-Commerce

Open core commerce platform, free as Magento Open Source and licensed by revenue as Adobe Commerce

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Magento has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: commercetools no published pricing: customers cannot see costs, tier details, or feature breakdowns before contacting sales; Magento it is open core rather than open source, so B2B, customer segmentation, content staging and the Adobe analytics and recommendation services sit behind the Adobe Commerce licence, and discovering that mid-project converts a free platform into a revenue-banded contract.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which commercetools and Magento actually diverge.

Attributes where commercetools and Magento differ
AttributecommercetoolsMagento
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteopen-source
Free tierNoYes
FoundedUnknown2008

Identical on both: platforms (Web), user rating (Not yet rated), category (E-Commerce).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in commercetools

Nothing recorded that Magento does not also cover.

Only in Magento

  • Two editions
  • Complex catalogue handling
  • Multi-store and multi-website
  • Native B2B in the paid edition
  • Multi-currency and multi-region
  • Composer module system
  • GraphQL and REST APIs
  • Hyva and Mage-OS ecosystem

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

commercetools

  • Composable commerce platforms for enterprise retailersnot Magento
  • B2C and B2B commerce API infrastructurenot Magento
  • Multi-region commerce operationsnot Magento

Magento

  • A retailer with tens of thousands of SKUs and attribute-heavy catalogue logic that SaaS platforms restrictnot commercetools
  • A multi-brand or multi-region group needing separate websites, currencies and tax treatment from one back officenot commercetools
  • A B2B seller needing company accounts, negotiated pricing and quoting inside the storefrontnot commercetools
  • An enterprise with an in-house or retained development team that treats commerce as owned softwarenot commercetools

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

commercetools

  • No published pricing: customers cannot see costs, tier details, or feature breakdowns before contacting sales
  • Order-based pricing opacity: described as 'transparent' but actual fee structure per order is undisclosed
  • Free trial time-gate: 60-day trial does not reveal production pricing for ongoing operations
  • Marketplace distribution unclear: availability on Google Cloud and AWS Marketplaces implies pricing varies by channel without transparency

Magento

  • It is open core rather than open source, so B2B, customer segmentation, content staging and the Adobe analytics and recommendation services sit behind the Adobe Commerce licence, and discovering that mid-project converts a free platform into a revenue-banded contract.
  • The Adobe Commerce licence is priced on bands of gross merchandise value, so the platform bill increases as the store succeeds and is largely unrelated to the infrastructure or support you consume.
  • A production installation needs a search engine, a cache, a reverse proxy, a message queue and a database tuned together, so hosting is a DevOps engagement rather than a plan, and the first serious traffic event is where under-sizing becomes visible.
  • Minor version upgrades regularly break third party modules, so staying current means a regression testing and remediation project several times a year, and merchants who skip upgrades to avoid that end up running software with unpatched vulnerabilities.
  • The specialist developer market is small and expensive relative to other platforms, so an agency retainer becomes a permanent operating cost and losing that agency is a genuine business continuity problem rather than a procurement inconvenience.

Pricing, plan by plan

commercetools

On request

No published plan breakdown. See the commercetools review.

Magento

Free
  • Magento Open SourceFree
    • Unlimited products
    • Multiple storefronts
    • Advanced marketing
  • Adobe Commerce$20000/year
    • All Open Source features
    • 24/7 enterprise support
    • Managed cloud hosting

Which should you pick?

Choose commercetools if

Nothing in the data separates commercetools from Magento on the points above - pick on price and on how each one feels to use.

commercetools review

Choose Magento if

  • You need two editions.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want complex catalogue handling.
Magento review

Questions people ask

Is commercetools or Magento better?
Neither clearly leads. commercetools starts at On request and Magento at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, commercetools or Magento?
Magento has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for commercetools and Free for Magento.
Does commercetools or Magento run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
Can I use Magento for free?
Yes. Magento has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. commercetools starts at On request.
What is commercetools best used for?
commercetools is most often used for composable commerce platforms for enterprise retailers, b2c and b2b commerce api infrastructure, multi-region commerce operations. Of those, composable commerce platforms for enterprise retailers and b2c and b2b commerce api infrastructure are not what Magento is typically brought in for.
What can commercetools do that Magento cannot?
Magento covers Two editions, Complex catalogue handling, Multi-store and multi-website, Native B2B in the paid edition.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

commercetools: Does commercetools publish pricing online?

No. Pricing is not published on their website. Customers must contact sales, start a free 60-day trial, or purchase through Google Cloud or AWS Marketplaces to discuss pricing.

Source
Magento: Is Magento free?

Magento Open Source is. Adobe Commerce is not, and it holds back B2B, segmentation, content staging and the Adobe analytics and recommendation layer. Establish which edition a requirement needs before you commit.

commercetools: What is the pricing model for commercetools?

commercetools uses order-based pricing (not Gross Merchandise Value dependent) described as 'transparent and growth-friendly' with 'no hidden fees or penalties for scaling,' but exact per-order costs are disclosed only through sales consultation.

Source
Magento: How is Adobe Commerce priced?

On bands of gross merchandise value, so the licence grows with revenue rather than with usage. Model it against your three year forecast, not this year's turnover.

commercetools: Does commercetools offer a free trial?

Yes. A 60-day free trial includes full access to production-ready infrastructure, APIs, tools, and preloaded sample B2C/B2B data, with the option to move MVP to production without setup costs.

Source
Magento: What does it really cost to run?

Licence if applicable, plus tuned infrastructure, plus a specialist agency or in-house team. For most deployments the people and hosting exceed the licence.

Magento: Why do agencies keep mentioning Hyva?

The stock front end stack is slow to develop against, so Hyva, a commercially licensed replacement front end, has become a common default. It is another licence to budget for.

Magento: What happened with Magento 1?

It reached end of life and left merchants on unsupported, unpatched software facing a full replatform. It is the reference point for how long to assume support for any edition you adopt.

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