Shopware or Magento (Adobe Commerce) – which e-commerce platform fits?

Shopware vs. Magento: the fundamental decision

Shopware and Magento are both PHP-based e-commerce platforms with open-source roots, but they address different target groups. Shopware has evolved from a German mid-market store system into a platform with an API-first architecture. Magento grew large internationally and, since the acquisition by Adobe, has been part of a comprehensive marketing and commerce portfolio as Adobe Commerce. Both systems are mature; the question is which one fits your company's size and market.

In practice, this means: if you sell mainly in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with Shopware you will find many suitable plugins for payment methods, legal texts and merchandise management systems, as well as numerous agencies. If you operate in many countries with separate stores, price lists and warehouses, you benefit from Magento's mature multi-website structure – but pay for it with higher complexity.

Shopware or Magento for B2B

In B2B, customer-group pricing, company accounts with multiple buyers, approval processes, quote requests and quick order by item number count. Shopware offers these features in the higher paid editions, Adobe Commerce through its B2B module. Both cover typical wholesale requirements; Community Edition and Magento Open Source need extensions or custom development for this. Check in advance which edition covers your requirements so that no expensive extra effort arises later.

What is usually decisive is the connection to the ERP: products, prices, stock levels and orders must be synchronized reliably. Here, the store system matters less than a clean integration architecture. So decide early which system is the leading data source for prices and stock and how errors in the transfer are detected. Monitoring the interface prevents customers from seeing wrong prices or stock levels.

Shopware or JTL, Sylius, PrestaShop – and Shopware 5 or 6?

JTL-Shop is particularly interesting if you already work with the JTL-Wawi merchandise management system, as the two are tightly integrated. Sylius is a Symfony-based commerce framework for development teams with highly individual processes. PrestaShop is common mainly in France and Southern Europe. WooCommerce suits smaller WordPress-based stores better – you can find the comparison with Shopify in our magazine.

The question “Shopware 5 or 6” no longer arises for new projects: Shopware 5 has reached the regular end of its life cycle and is no longer being developed. If you still run a Shopware 5 store, you should plan the migration soon, because Shopware 6 is a new development with a new architecture and not a simple update.

Migration: from Magento to Shopware or the other way around

A system change affects products, customers, order history, URLs and integrations. There are tools for data transfer, such as Shopware's migration assistant, but custom extensions, templates and integrations are rebuilt. Allow enough time for testing with real order flows and for training your team. A step-by-step process with a test store, trial migration and final data transfer reduces risk on switchover day.

Particularly important for visibility are clean 301 redirects from old to new product and category URLs; otherwise rankings built up over years are lost. A platform change is also a good opportunity to clear out legacy baggage: unused plugins, duplicate attributes and processes that exist only for historical reasons. Before go-live, you should also fully test tracking, payment methods and email templates.