Magento vs. Mage-OS vs. Adobe Commerce

Magento, Mage-OS and Adobe Commerce all share the same origins. In 2007, the market was primarily characterized by existing store systems such as XT-Commerce, launched as a fork and potential successor to OSCommerce, Zen Cart, PrestaShop and Shopify.

Under the leadership of Roy Rubin, the founder of Varien, and with the significant involvement of Yoav Kutner, Magento was developed with the aim of offering a flexible, scalable and user-friendly solution for online retailers.

However, with a first public beta version in March 2008, the small but innovative software company Varien showed an interesting and completely new approach. Even enterprise functions such as multi-store capability, APIs and import and export standards were available out-of-the-box for everyone immediately and free of charge as an open source solution.

The success of Magento under Varien was not only a milestone in the history of e-commerce, but also a testament to the power of open source software and community-driven development. Magento established itself as a platform that not only provided powerful tools for merchants, but also fostered a vibrant community of developers and users who contributed to the constant improvement and expansion of the platform.

Magento's history is characterized by several significant company and brand acquisitions for the "Magento" brand, which have significantly influenced the development and direction of the platform. These acquisitions not only reflect the growing value of Magento in the e-commerce sector, but also the changing trends in the technology and business world.

The first major turning point in Magento's history was its acquisition by eBay in 2011. eBay initially acquired a 49% stake in Magento before taking over the platform completely. This acquisition was part of eBay's strategy to strengthen its eCommerce and online payment platforms, in particular PayPal. Under eBay, Magento received additional resources and support to further develop the platform. However, this acquisition also led to initial concerns about Magento's independence and open source philosophy.

In 2015, as part of a comprehensive restructuring, eBay divested Magento as part of eBay Enterprise. The private equity company Permira thus also took over Magento. At the time, Magento Commerce was ranked #1 in the Internet Retailer Top 100,000, the B2B 300 and the Top 500 Guides for Europe and Latin America.

Magento was reincorporated as an independent company, Magento Inc. This spin-off was well received by the Magento community as it marked a return to a stronger community orientation and a focus on open source development.

The Magento community simply saw Adobe's marketing stunt as an imposition and a threat to their business models, which culminated in Adobe eliminating the popular magento.com loading page. From then on, the name Magento simply no longer existed there, although the Magento code base was still available as an open source solution on GitHub was and is still available.

Adobe could have foreseen that this was perhaps not the best idea, as there were already other prominent open source projects at the time of the changes that had undergone similar changes and had successfully "gone down the drain". Examples include the takeover of MySQL by Oracle, which resulted in the compatible MariaDB, or Elasticsearch, which was also forked as the open source search engine OpenSearch following Amazon's involvement.

In the meantime, the Magento Association, which is financed and controlled by Adobe, was able to recruit the former CEO of TYPO3 GmbH, Matthias Schreiber, as Executive Director in December 2022. Since November 2023, Matthias Schreiber has been trying to unite the commonalities of Mage-OS and the Mag ento Association and coordinate cooperation in various community projects.

Mage-OS has now transformed from a pure community project to the Mage-OS Association. The Mage-OS Association and the TYPO3 Association have now established contact with each other and are engaged in a lively exchange of experiences, accompanied by web-vision Managing Director and TYPO3 Association Vice President Boris Hinzer.

Disadvantages:

• Resource-intensive: Magento can be resource-intensive, which requires powerful hosting solutions to ensure optimal speed and performance. Furthermore, the Magento service provider and hoster should be able to handle this.
• Costs: Although the Community Edition is free, the costs for additional extensions or customizations can be high, but this ultimately depends on the requirements and wishes of the online store operator. Store operators should always ensure that efficient and modern theme approaches such as Hyvä are used. In this way, costly developments and optimization for better loading times or to achieve Google Core Web Vitals can be avoided.
• Complexity: The complexity of Magento can be overwhelming for beginners. Setting up and managing a Magento store requires technical know-how, which can be obtained from service providers, freelancers or a Magento agency such as web-vision.

Disadvantages:

• Higher costs: Adobe Commerce is significantly more expensive than Magento open source, which makes it less accessible for smaller companies. Extensions such as third-party extensions are also generally more expensive than for Magento open source, as developers must have the testing infrastructure, the Adobe Marketplace procedure and also corresponding code tests ready for the less widespread Adobe Commerce platform.
• Complexity: Like Magento, Adobe Commerce can be complex to set up and manage. Since only Adobe Commerce partners should be selected for support and expansion, the number of service providers is reduced in contrast to Magento. However, web-vision, as an Adobe Commerce Bronze Partner, also provides services optimized for Adobe Commerce.
• Resource intensive: Similar to Magento, Adobe Commerce requires powerful servers and optimization for optimal performance.
• Less distribution and less development: Almost all developments for Adobe Commerce originate from the Magento open source version. Enterprise features are rarely ported back to Magento Open Source. Due to the lower distribution, third-party extensions in particular are more expensive and less frequently available.

Disadvantages:

• Younger community: Compared to Magento, the community around Mage-OS is younger, which can lead to fewer available resources and support. It remains to be seen whether the current initiatives for a Mage-OS Association (similar to the TYPO3 Association) and the planned collaboration with the Magento Association will bear fruit.
• Uncertainty: As a newer player on the market, there is some uncertainty regarding the long-term stability and support of Mage-OS. The Mage-OS Association will have to work hard in the coming months and years to transport the broad approval from the Magento community into the Mage-OS community, to generate the financial basis via the member status and thus create a foundation for the further development of Mage-OS.
• Possible compatibility issues: Compatibility issues with some Magento extensions and tools may arise if the Mage-OS code continues to evolve from Magento open source. Here the Mage-OS community is required to weigh up compatibility and functions or offer possible migration paths.