The story in 30 seconds
Magento was born in 2008 as a revolutionary open-source eCommerce platform for its time. In 2018, Adobe acquired it for $1.68 billion USD. In 2021, Adobe rebranded the commercial edition as Adobe Commerce to align it with Adobe Experience Cloud (Analytics, Campaign, Target, Real-Time CDP).
The free edition kept the name Magento Open Source. So today you have two platforms with the same core but different capabilities.
Comparison table
| Feature | Magento Open Source | Adobe Commerce |
|---|---|---|
| License | Free (OSL-3.0) | Paid (priced by GMV) |
| B2B (quotes, accounts) | Not included (3rd party modules) | Native |
| Visual Page Builder | No | Yes |
| Adobe BI (Business Intelligence) | No | Yes |
| Live Search with Adobe Sensei (AI) | No | Yes |
| Official Adobe support | Community | 24/7 by Adobe |
| Security patches | Community + delay | Prioritized + 24h SLA |
| AI Product Recommendations | No | Yes |
| Staging for content/pricing | No | Yes |
| Open source code | Yes | Yes (same core) |
| 3rd party module ecosystem | Massive | Massive (same) |
| Native multi-store | Yes | Yes |
| Ideal for | SMBs with tech team or partner | Enterprise, complex B2B |
Which one to choose?
Choose Magento Open Source if…
- • Your annual GMV is < $2M USD
- • You don't need native B2B
- • You have an internal tech team or a willing partner
- • You want full control over the code and stack
- • You can handle patching yourself
Choose Adobe Commerce if…
- • Your GMV is > $5M USD/year
- • You need B2B (quotes, accounts)
- • You want Adobe BI + AI Live Search
- • You need official Adobe 24/7 support
- • You already use other Adobe tools
And what about Adobe Commerce Cloud?
Adobe Commerce Cloud is the hosted version of Adobe Commerce. Adobe manages the infrastructure (AWS), patching, scaling and 24/7 support. Ideal if you don't want to run DevOps in-house. It costs ~$25-50k USD/year extra but saves you a DevOps team.
Alternative: self-hosted on AWS with a partner managing the infrastructure. More control, lower base cost, but requires technical maturity from the partner (that's us).
Which edition fits your case?
In a 30-minute call we'll assess your project, projected GMV and technical needs, and recommend the right edition — objectively, even if that means Shopify Plus or VTEX.
Book a call →