What is Magento? Ecommerce platform guide

Magento naming can get confusing because people often use “Magento” to describe a few related products.

• Magento is the original platform name many merchants and developers still use. 
• Magento 2 is the modern version of the platform. 
• Magento Open Source is the free, community-supported version. 

Adobe Commerce is the paid enterprise version with additional features, support, and cloud options.

A brief history of Magento

Magento launched in 2008 and became a widely used ecommerce platform for businesses that needed more customization and control. Adobe acquired Magento in 2018, and the Magento name remains common among merchants, agencies, developers, and hosting providers.

What is Magento used for?

As an advanced ecommerce platform, Magento enables entrepreneurs or business owners to create and launch a full-featured online store. Merchants gain access to an enhanced shopping cart and control over their web store’s design, functionality, and user experience within the Magento ecosystem.

Merchants can also use built-in tools within Magento to create impactful marketing campaigns, optimize content for search engines, enhance customer service, and manage product catalogs.

Magento is especially useful for stores that need custom workflows, B2B ecommerce, multi-store selling, or more complex buying experiences.

Key Magento features

• Catalog and product management. Magento gives merchants detailed control over products, categories, attributes, pricing, inventory, and product types. Stores can sell physical products, digital goods, configurable products, bundles, grouped products, and services. 
• Checkout, payments, and shipping. Magento supports shopping cart and checkout functionality, payment integrations, tax settings, shipping methods, and order workflows. Businesses can configure checkout around their store needs, payment providers, shipping rules, and customer experience goals.
• SEO and marketing tools. Magento includes ecommerce SEO and marketing features, including product metadata, URL controls, redirects, sitemaps, category content, promotions, coupons, and pricing rules. SEO performance still depends on site structure, content quality, speed, and technical implementation, but Magento gives merchants a strong base to work from.
• Extensions and integrations. Magento can connect with tools for payments, shipping, analytics, email, inventory, search, ERPs, CRMs, and customer support. 
• Multi-store and international selling. Magento can support multiple storefronts, languages, currencies, customer groups, and regional settings from one admin environment, depending on setup. This can help businesses manage different brands, regions, product catalogs, or customer segments without running separate ecommerce platforms for each one.
• B2B ecommerce functionality. Magento can support B2B ecommerce needs such as customer-specific pricing, company accounts, quote workflows, purchase approvals, and bulk ordering, especially in Adobe Commerce. This makes it useful for wholesalers, manufacturers, distributors, and businesses with complex buyer relationships.

Magento Open Source vs Adobe Commerce

There are two different versions of the Magento ecommerce platform available: Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce. Understanding which one is best for you depends on the size of your business and your unique needs.

Magento Open Source is a free version of the Magento ecommerce platform that includes several of the same features as Magento Commerce. Until recently, Magento Open Source was known as Magento Community Edition.

Because Magento Open Source is free to download, it can be appealing to businesses that want control over their ecommerce platform. Still, free software doesn’t mean a free store. Businesses need to plan for hosting, development, extensions, updates, security, and support.

Adobe Commerce is designed for businesses that need more advanced commerce features. It may be a better fit for enterprise retailers, B2B sellers, and businesses with more complex requirements.

Is Magento right for your business?

Magento is a strong fit for mid-market and larger ecommerce brands, B2B sellers, stores with complex catalogs, merchants with multiple storefronts, international sellers, and businesses with custom checkout or integration needs. Smaller businesses with technical support and clear growth plans can also get value from it.

It may be more than a very small store needs. If your store sells a few simple products and you want a low-maintenance setup, a simple platform like WooCommerce will be easier to launch and manage. Magento gives you more control, but that control comes with more responsibility around hosting, development, extensions, updates, and security.

Magento hosting requirements

Running a Magento ecommerce store means you’ll need a powerful hosting provider that can meet the demands it requires. This means cheaper hosting solutions such as shared hosting might not be equipped to handle a Magento site. You’ll need a virtual private server (VPS), a dedicated server, or a cloud hosting solution for your site to operate properly.

Magento can be resource-intensive, especially for stores with large catalogs, high traffic, multiple extensions, layered navigation, custom checkout, or multiple storefronts. Performance depends on server resources, caching, PHP and database performance, security updates, backups, uptime, monitoring, and Magento-aware support.

When a Magento store outgrows basic hosting, customers can feel it during product searches, checkout, traffic spikes, and backend updates. 

Magento security and maintenance

Magento stores need regular updates, security patches, extension reviews, backups, monitoring, and strong access controls. Ecommerce security matters because checkout issues, downtime, or weak security practices can affect revenue and customer trust.

A strong maintenance plan should include Magento core updates, extension updates, PHP compatibility checks, admin access controls, HTTPS, malware monitoring, and reliable backups. Hosting also plays a role because server security, firewalls, monitoring, and support help protect the environment Magento runs on.

Magento migration and growth considerations

Businesses often consider Magento when they outgrow a simpler ecommerce platform. Common reasons include needing better catalog control, more flexible product structures, B2B functionality, multiple storefronts, international selling, or deeper integrations with business systems.

Magento can support growth, but migration takes planning. Businesses should review product data, URLs, SEO, order history, customer accounts, integrations, themes, extensions, hosting, and checkout requirements before moving.

Magento ecommerce extensions

Magento is a complete ecommerce solution, but retailers can add extra functionality by installing Magento Extensions created by third-party developers. Magento Extensions extend or enhance the platform’s existing features.

There are thousands of Magento extensions available, both free and premium. Magento users should only install extensions from reputable developers or marketplaces.

Extensions can add useful functionality, but too many extensions can affect performance and maintenance. Review each extension for quality, compatibility, update history, and actual business need before installing it.

Magento ecommerce themes

Magento themes are collections of design files that control how a Magento store looks and feels. They shape the storefront’s layout, colors, typography, product pages, navigation, and overall visual experience. Every Magento store uses a theme, and options include free themes, paid premium themes, and custom themes developed for specific retailers.

Themes affect more than the look of the store. They can influence mobile usability, page speed, product page structure, navigation, checkout experience, and SEO performance.

What is the Magento Commerce Marketplace?

The Magento Commerce Marketplace (now the Adobe Commerce Marketplace) is an officially supported repository of extensions and themes you can add to your Magento ecommerce store. Magento thoroughly vets all extensions and themes it distributes in their marketplace, so you can be sure everything you find in their library is secure and useful.

The Magento Commerce Marketplace isn’t the only trustworthy source for Magento extensions and themes. Many reputable developers have their own sites and stores that offer Magento extensions and themes.

If you use extensions or themes from outside the marketplace, review the developer’s reputation, support policy, update history, and compatibility with your Magento version.

Managed Magento ecommerce hosting

Every ecommerce store needs a hosting provider. The hosting provider ideally takes care of the store’s connection to the internet, the server the Magento platform and its database run on, and the support retailers need to provide a fast, personalized shopping experience to their users.

Managed Magento hosting can reduce the amount of server work your team handles directly. Depending on the provider, it may include server management, monitoring, backups, security tools, performance support, and access to teams familiar with Magento hosting needs.

Magento FAQs

Getting started with Magento

Magento is a strong platform for businesses that need catalog control, custom workflows, B2B functionality, and room to grow. 

Start by reviewing your catalog size, traffic expectations, customization needs, and technical resources. That will help you choose the right version, hosting setup, and extensions for your store. 

Liquid Web Magento hosting gives ecommerce businesses the performance, support, and reliability they need to run Magento with confidence. Explore Liquid Web Magento hosting to find the right fit for your store.