Ebook | 26 minute read
Discover the pros and cons of 8 leading eCommerce software solutions
Every day, we talk with business and technology leaders at brands that have unique commerce challenges. Talking about unique commerce challenges inevitably means talking about commerce software – and the evaluation process, technology types, pros, and cons associated with popular eCommerce solutions.
Here’s some of what we’ve heard in the past few months:
If any – or all – of those quotes resonate with you, scroll on to learn more about leading eCommerce solution providers. Whether you’re actively searching for new commerce software, newly launching online selling, or just want a sense of what’s out there, our eCommerce solution guide will help you identify the right commerce solution – and explain how you can avoid a full-on replatform.
Years ago, companies undertook what we call the traditional commerce platform evaluation process. Over the span of months – sometimes, years – brands came up with a lengthy, rigid checklist of must-haves. Attached were appendixes full of timelines, pricing, alignment meeting cadences, and more. Improving commerce performance was by nature a wholesale overhaul, in which every decision had to be made before anything could move forward.
The world has changed. Now, instead of a traditional RFP, many brands are looking for a proof-of-concept (POC), so they get fast, hands-on access to a solution before making a larger investment.
Overall, in the past year, when we’ve talked to brands evaluating a new commerce solution, we’ve heard that they:
Whether through an RFP, a POC, or testing new technology for a specific market or business line, the changed nature of commerce innovation should inform your eCommerce solution comparison.
Enter any conversation about commerce solutions and you’re likely to hear some variation of this question: “What type of platform is that?”
You’ll hear different (and sometimes misleading) terms and phrases when this question is asked. We think of commerce solutions as roughly fitting into three categories, each with unique strengths, weaknesses, and architectures:
Below, you’ll see an explainer and strengths and weaknesses of these different commerce technology categories.
Traditional monolithic solutions are the purest form of the feature-heavy, tightly knit “all-in-one” offerings that became popular two decades ago. Traditional monoliths have a tightly connected frontend and backend – make a change to your commerce backend or customer experience frontend, and that change will ripple across to the other part of your system. Monolithic platforms allowed companies to sell online within a single platform, and were at their peak when the brands using them had fairly simple commerce needs.
Monolithic platforms come with challenges. They are known for having a high TCO and limited functionalities. Monoliths are supposed to come with everything brands need to run commerce, but when needs change and customer expectations evolve, monoliths lack the agility to permit tech stack changes. Just getting basic third-party integrations is often challenging.
Typical all-in-one, monolithic commerce platforms include Salesforce Commerce Cloud and SAP Commerce (Hybris).
Taking a monolithic approach limits your flexibility and ability to be agile and refine as you go. It’s a more arduous tech stack. Taking a composable commerce approach with Elastic Path will allow us to tap into legacy systems with ease but also have the flexibility to integrate with other best-in-class software as our business evolves.Rebecca Hicks eCommerce Product Leader
Taking a monolithic approach limits your flexibility and ability to be agile and refine as you go. It’s a more arduous tech stack. Taking a composable commerce approach with Elastic Path will allow us to tap into legacy systems with ease but also have the flexibility to integrate with other best-in-class software as our business evolves.
Benefits of Monoliths
Drawbacks of Monoliths
Basic commerce needs are available with out-of-the-box features.
The platforms are expensive, especially if you are paying for features that you don't need or use.
If your needs are simple, you don’t have to manage or buy from separate, specialized providers.
Customization is difficult. That includes integrating with third-party providers. You may be told that getting the site search or CMS or payments processor you want will be simple, but you’re going to have to inject plugins or extensions.
If you have a simple catalog and consistent, non-differentiated routes to market, management should be easy.
You don’t have much room for innovation or changes in the future. What you have now is what you’ll get in one, five, and ten years. Swapping vendors or running experiments is difficult, and when customer expectations change, you’ll fall behind.
The next commerce technology category is what we refer to as “retrofitted headless” solutions.
A retrofitted headless offering has the architecture of a tightly coupled monolith, but the “head,” also known as the frontend or customer experience interface, is detached. With a retrofitted headless architecture, you can make changes to your customer interface without having to do backend work. In theory, a retrofitted headless architecture gives brands options to elevate the out-of-the-box, cookie-cutter experiences common with monoliths.
The issues with this approach are indicated by the term retrofitted. Retrofitted headless platforms were once pure monoliths that bolted on an API layer to expose core frontend features. The backend remains tightly bound and difficult to customize.
The result is that swapping, adding, and testing new features and technologies remains slow, difficult, and often prohibitive. Unique commerce experiences are arduous to unlock. Managing multiple catalogs, for instance, would likely take significant backend customization from a systems integrator or in-house development team. Over time, the costs and delayed time to market fuel high TCO.
Common retrofitted headless commerce solutions include Shopify, Adobe Commerce (Magneto), WooCommerce, and BigCommerce.
Benefits of Retrofitted Headless Solutions
Drawbacks of Retrofitted Headless Solutions
Freedom to choose a frontend and make changes means more control over your customer experiences.
It’s difficult to add new features or experiences fast. Costly customizations delay launch times and lead to a ballooning TCO for any brand with unique, complex commerce needs.
Brands with standard D2C or simple B2C business models and commerce needs can get frontend customization without needing to orchestrate backend components.
Launching unique commerce experiences in different markets and business lines will require a large amount of arduous customization. Having B2B and B2C business lines, for example, will require at least twice the time spent managing separate catalogs and twice the cost paying to host different products.
The third commerce solution technology category is composable commerce. Composable commerce is an approach that empowers business and tech teams with the agility and speed to innovate by using API-first best of breed technologies to meet their unique business needs. Unlike other commerce solution types, composable commerce is made to use various vendors to fuel a commerce solution.
Composable commerce is distinct from headless commerce, as headless means decoupling the frontend presentation layer from the backend commerce engine layer. Composable commerce expands on headless technology, as the frontend and backend are decoupled and brands access a fully modular approach to solving business problems and arranging a tech stack.
Three tenets set composable commerce apart from monolithic and retrofitted headless commerce architectures:
The benefits of composable commerce include driving business impact, getting to market fast, innovating over time, getting access to multi-vendor solutions, and making changes to a tech stack without disrupting an entire commerce solution.
Elastic Path and Commercetools are two well-known composable commerce solutions.
There’s no way any of us know how commerce technology will look five years from now, but having a flexible, composable commerce core will make it easier to adjust when we need to.Jeff Neil CTO
There’s no way any of us know how commerce technology will look five years from now, but having a flexible, composable commerce core will make it easier to adjust when we need to.
Benefits of Composable Commerce Solutions
Drawbacks of Composable Commerce Solutions
Flexibility: You choose the vendors that fit your brand's goals and get to build a “best-for-me” solution for your brand.
In the past, some business leaders were concerned about managing a multi-vendor solution. With the right approach, this is a legacy concern. A composable provider that provides strong integration and orchestration capabilities can assure success with a multi-vendor solution. In particular, capabilities such as integrations monitoring are made possible with a supportive vendor and a commerce iPaaS.
Scalability: A flexible, modular solution means you can quickly launch and change experiences to meet customer expectations and business requirements.
There is a dated perception that adopting composable commerce requires a huge up-front investment and considerable digital maturity.
Speed: Having fully modular components means that getting a new vendor integrated into your solution can take minutes – no clunky customization required.
Leaders at some brands still have the mistaken idea that going composable means embarking on a full-scale replatform.
Cost and time to value: Composable commerce reduces resource cost by allowing you to leverage any developer talent, not just platform specialists. Composability eliminates the need to pay double for a mediocre platform and preferred third-party technology. Over time, your commerce TCO will likely be 2X lower than other solutions.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud, once known as Demandware, is an all-in-one, monolithic commerce platform.
Salesforce Commerce Cloud Strengths
Salesforce Commerce Cloud Weaknesses
Out-of-the-box support for B2C brands.
Requires multiple instances to support catalogs with different hierarchies.
Offers different solutions for different business lines (B2B, B2C, D2C).
High TCO and expensive, time-consuming customization. With Salesforce, the rigidity of the system often means that merchandising teams are waiting on IT teams to make and publish changes to the customer-facing website or app.
Can support large catalogs, as long as they do not need frequent updates.
It’s difficult to support both B2B and B2C within a single platform instance. You can support B2B and have mediocre (at best) B2C or you can do B2C and have weak B2B. But you can’t get both strong, full B2B and B2C channels within Salesforce Commerce Cloud.
Getting commerce integrations outside the Salesforce ecosystem is arduous and expensive.
It takes years to learn the platform, so using Salesforce typically requires specialized architects and developers. These staff are expensive to recruit, onboard, and retain.
Page speed is persistently slow across commerce sites.
SAP Commerce, previously known as Hybris, is an all-in-one, monolithic commerce platform.
SAP Commerce (Hybris) Strengths
SAP Commerce (Hybris) Weaknesses
Support for operating in multiple geographies.
Slow time to launch customizations when brands need to add features that aren’t supported out-of-the-box.
Extensive support for integration partners
High overall TCO, blanket contracts do not allow pay by features.
Out-of-the-box support for B2C and B2B brands.
Difficult to integrate best-in-class components (search, OMS, CMS, etc.) from third-party vendors.
Shopify is one of the largest and most prominent commerce solutions on the market. Traditionally, Shopify merchants have been small or medium-sized businesses with smaller catalogs and B2C needs. Shopify now counts larger brands as customers, but comes with limitations when it’s time to sell in multiple geos, across multiple business lines, or to meet extensive capabilities.
Shopify Strengths
Shopify Weaknesses
Years of experience supporting commerce needs for B2C-only brands.
Struggles to support brands that sell across multiple channels, or need extensive B2B capabilities.
A vast network of 10,000+ supported apps in the Shopify App Store for additional features.
Difficult & expensive to customize to fit your unique needs.
Extensive out-of-the-box features for a simple webstore.
Pricing tiers benefit small to medium size brands. Once brands reach $10 million in yearly GMV, they must shift to a more expensive premium tier.
Limited SEO functionalities and URL structure.
Over time, app plug-ins can degrade site speed and performance. One British manufacturer had a 9.42s speed index on a commerce storefront – well above the 3.4s industry benchmark.
The first site we launched with Elastic Path didn’t just better support and model complex, information-rich products – it was more than 400% faster than the Shopify sites we had in other markets. It was a no-brainer to move our entire digital commerce operation to Elastic Path’s flexible, API-first platform.Stephen Cope CIO
The first site we launched with Elastic Path didn’t just better support and model complex, information-rich products – it was more than 400% faster than the Shopify sites we had in other markets. It was a no-brainer to move our entire digital commerce operation to Elastic Path’s flexible, API-first platform.
Adobe Commerce, popularly known as Magento, is an open-source commerce platform. Magento is a monolithic platform that has a retrofitted headless architecture and bolted-on APIs.
Magento is often managed by developers, who are themselves Magento platform specialists. Brands that we talk to often describe Magento as a neglected, end-of-life, “dead” commerce platform. Common challenges of Magento include:
Recently, one brand told us that when they told Magento about a plan to expand from one to 12 markets, Magento told them it would take years of custom development work.
Perhaps the most serious concern for brands that stay on Magento isn’t a specific tactical shortcoming, but a broader opportunity cost of missing out on innovation and testing – effectively trading today’s cost for tomorrow’s business success.
Magento Strengths
Magento Weaknesses
Adequate at managing large catalogs that do not need frequent updates
Tightly-connected backend components make adding capabilities a long, expensive, development-heavy process.
Offers open-source platform for brands with dedicated Adobe developers.
It is challenging to accommodate unique brand requirements due to a rigid structure within features.
Localization support and some support for multiple touchpoints.
Site and page speed is often slow or clunky, which can depress conversions and revenue.
Scaling to new business lines or geographies is time-consuming, expensive, and development-heavy.
High and compounding TCO, as complex customizations and site upkeep mean throwing more money at a withering commerce platform.
A single failure can bring down the entire platform or commerce site, resulting in more downtime and lost revenue.
Security, as Magento’s dated, open-source architecture has made it subject to numerous hacks. In one, thousands of Magento stores were infected, exposing a huge amount of private customer information.
Compared to other commerce platforms, like WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento, Elastic Path allowed us to get new experiences live and in front of customers fast. Our in-house team hasn’t had to learn complicated, new technology – we can make changes and get site experiences live in minutes and days instead of weeks and months.Stephen Cope CIO, Astrak Group
Compared to other commerce platforms, like WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento, Elastic Path allowed us to get new experiences live and in front of customers fast. Our in-house team hasn’t had to learn complicated, new technology – we can make changes and get site experiences live in minutes and days instead of weeks and months.
WooCommerce is an open-source commerce plugin only available for sites powered by WordPress. Similar to Magento, WooCommerce has a retrofitted headless architecture.
Brands that use WooCommerce frequently identify a handful of pain points, including:
The allure of WooCommerce is that it’s easy to launch commerce experiences if you use a WordPress site. The challenge is that WooCommerce doesn’t scale, is reliant on the WordPress environment, and can’t meet unique commerce needs.
WooCommerce Strengths
WooCommerce Weaknesses
Fast to launch for brands powering their site on WordPress.
WooCommerce is a commerce plugin that is only available for sites powered by WordPress.
Can be an effective starting point for brands that use WordPress and have basic, limited commerce needs.
Relies on plugins and software extensions that depress site speed when traffic spikes.
Large number of commerce plugins available in the WordPress ecosystem.
Shopper experience tends to be mediocre and cookie-cutter, fitting dated, slow WordPress user interface and reliance on plugins.
Developer work is required to bring new, innovative, unique experiences to market.
TCO rises as commerce needs expand and become more unique, due to constant maintenance costs and IT support.
BigCommerce is SaaS commerce platform designed for mid-market brands that need fast time-to-launch and a broad set of native features. It offers basic headless capabilities, a B2B Edition plugin, and a large app marketplace to extend core functionality.
While BigCommerce can be effective for straightforward B2C or lighter B2B use cases, enterprises with complex catalogs, multi-brand operations, or automation goals often encounter structural limitations.
BigCommerce Strengths
BigCommerce Weaknesses
Basic features come out-of-the-box. BigCommerce offers a wide range of built-in B2C and light B2B capabilities, which helps smaller teams get started quickly without custom development.
High TCO to run multiple catalogs. BigCommerce cannot support multiple catalogs within a single instance. Brands must create separate stores for each region, brand, or catalog strategy — multiplying cost, complexity, and data fragmentation.
Has a dedicated B2B commerce offering through B2B Edition, which provides account management, quoting, and buyer portals for simpler B2B needs.
BigCommerce cannot support concurrent B2B and B2C catalogs in a single backend. Teams must operate the standard BigCommerce platform and the B2B Edition add-on, which increases overhead and limits flexibility for hybrid models.
SaaS simplicity that fits mid-market needs. BigCommerce’s managed SaaS model delivers predictable operations, reduced maintenance, and an easy starting point for mid-market brands with straightforward B2C or lightweight B2B requirements.
App-store dependency increases risk and slows innovation.
Many core enterprise needs (subscriptions, advanced promotions, search, loyalty, complex shipping, and more) require multiple apps.
These apps can conflict, lack unified monitoring, and create brittle infrastructure as complexity increases.
Rigid catalog and product modeling limits growth. BigCommerce lacks first-class support for SKU-level metadata, variant-level descriptions, dynamic bundles, or contextual catalog visibility. Complex merchandising and B2B structures are difficult to model and maintain.
Not built for AI or agentic commerce. With partial API coverage, limited data structure, and reliance on third-party AI tools, BigCommerce is not architected for autonomous agents, MCP-style access, or AGNTCY-aligned interoperability.
Projects often require net-new builds, extending time-to-value. BigCommerce offers themes and a Catalyst starter, but most complex implementations still require starting from scratch. The absence of a native orchestration layer means integrations must be built and maintained manually, leading to slower launches and higher long-term TCO.
Commercetools is a microservices-based composable commerce solution. Commercetools is best suited for brands with a high level of technical maturity and in-house development teams.
Commercetools, like Elastic Path, uses MACH architecture. Many brands we talk to say that an engagement with Commercetools involves being handed provisioned instances and other technology components and then working with a systems integrator to build the solution. Orchestration is also do-it-yourself. Commercetools does not come with a commerce iPaaS, the gold standard for managing a multi-vendor commerce solution fast and without risk.
Commercetools Strengths
Commercetools Weaknesses
Microservices-based integrations with third-party vendors allow customization based on your brand's needs.
Commercetools does not allow for multiple catalog hierarchies that cater to the unique needs of your customers.
Can support multiple touchpoints and geographies from a single catalog.
Brands are often given a set of provisioned APIs and instances and made responsible for building and composing the solution themselves.
No guidance on API volume, which raises the risk of decreased performance.
Only provides a marketplace listing for integrations, and doesn’t provide code or support for them.
Elastic Path is an intelligent commerce platform built for organizations with complex catalogs, multi-brand operations, and evolving digital requirements. It delivers the modularity and flexibility commerce teams need to move fast, without the replatforming pain, rigid templates, or architectural limits of monolithic or SaaS-first platforms.
Elastic Path offers API-first products and solutions designed for merchandisers and developers alike. Unlike traditional platforms, Elastic Path does not force brands into all-or-nothing migrations. Instead, teams can adopt products incrementally to modernize checkout, catalogs, promotions, product data, or integrations — accelerating time-to-value while reducing risk, cost, and disruption.
Elastic Path Composable Commerce includes…
Elastic Path also provides advanced cart and checkout services, Intelligent Commerce capabilities, MCP support for agentic experiences, and AGNTCY-aligned API architecture.
Beyond the product suite, Elastic Path offers an industry-leading customer success team, hands-on onboarding, and a centralized vendor management model that simplifies running a composable ecosystem.
Elastic Path Strengths
Elastic Path Weaknesses
Highly flexible, API-native architecture designed for ongoing innovation. Elastic Path enables brands to evolve their commerce stack over time through modular adoption and incremental modernization.
Composable solutions require thoughtful integration planning. While Composer reduces complexity, brands still need a strategy for integrating third-party systems in a modular environment.
Robust product data, catalog, and merchandising capabilities. Elastic Path natively supports complex catalogs, multi-brand environments, contextual pricing, dynamic bundles, and B2B2C commerce, use cases that most platforms cannot model.
Not always ideal for brands with extremely simple needs. Organizations with basic catalogs, limited customization requirements, or minimal internal resources may prefer all-in-one SaaS platforms.
Commerce-intelligent iPaaS that de-risks composability. Composer centralizes integration orchestration, hosting, and monitoring, reducing operational overhead while providing instant-on, low-code integrations.
Agent-ready, future-focused architecture. With MCP support, agent-safe endpoint separation, and AGNTCY-aligned APIs, Elastic Path is engineered for the next era of AI-driven and agentic commerce.
Strong support, customer success, and centralized service offerings. Elastic Path helps brands manage vendors, integrations, and ongoing optimization across a composable ecosystem.
Significant long-term TCO reduction. Because changes are low-code, incremental, and isolated, customers often achieve up to 50% lower TCO compared to monolithic or multi-instance platforms.
Low- and no-code tooling for rapid experimentation. CX Studio and Composable Frontend help teams launch new experiences quickly, test new concepts, and accelerate revenue initiatives.
If you’ve reached the end of this guide, you’re likely eager to uplevel your commerce performance. A few years ago, you would have used this guide to evaluate your commerce solutions options, and then, after some time, done one of these two things:
Really, doing everything or doing nothing was once the basic commerce proposition. You could either risk your job by plowing a bunch of time, money, and organizational capital into a replatform… or you could risk your job by standing pat with a mediocre or underperforming commerce solution.
Today, and with Elastic Path, that miserable trade-off no longer exists. We offer the Unplatform™, a flexible approach that empowers your merchandisers and developers to solve commerce challenges one at a time – no replatform required.
Unplatforming is made up of modular, standalone products and a connective framework. The result is a business project that can power advanced merchandising, help launch personalized, and even escape the rigidity of a monolithic or retrofitted headless architecture gradually and without disruption.
Unplatforming meets the new priorities for commerce innovation (getting value fast, scalability and flexibility, starting with smaller investments), and is the modern approach to getting a commerce solution that fits your business needs and boosts conversions and revenue.
To discuss Unplatforming, the world of commerce solutions, or your brand’s commerce desires, get in touch with our team.
Talk to an expert to learn how Elastic Path can help your brand Unplatform and unlock commerce success.