Summary: This article is for you if you are considering what platform to choose for your new eCommerce business or how to upgrade an existing one. Here we’ll discuss the differences between Sylius and Magento, two of the most popular eCommerce platforms, so you can make an informed decision.

According to experts, global eCommerce sales are expected to reach $7.3 trillion by 2025, with the overall online share of retail sales hitting 23.6%.

In the article, we’ll discuss the differences between Sylius and Magento, two of the most popular eCommerce platforms used to create online stores. Before we compare these two platforms, let's clarify some of the terms we will use to describe them.

eCommerce platform types: closed-source vs. open-source

Closed-source software is proprietary, with its code closed to the public. Such solutions are usually software designed for use within a particular organization.

Contrastingly, an open-source product has its source code freely available so that both individual developers and digital professionals can modify, add new features, and improve it. Usually, such products have a community of people who actively participate in upgrading them. For modern startups and emerging companies, open-source solutions are a better choice, since they are usually less expensive and more flexible than closed-source ones.

Modern hosting solutions for eCommerce

Website performance is one of the most important aspects of maintaining a loyal user base and attracting new customers. Therefore, choosing the right hosting provider for an eCommerce platform determines its future growth and scalability.

In the world of web-hosting there are plenty of solutions, from shared and virtual private hosting suitable for small websites to dedicated hosting that comes at a significantly higher price. These days, cloud hosting, which allows your online store to be located on multiple servers linked together, can arguably be named the best choice for an eCommerce platform. Thanks to its stability and flexibility in terms of scale and price, cloud hosting is suitable for online shops with special promotions and discounts, where the number of visitors can increase sharply, and it is important to ensure there is no server overload.

Magento: under the hood

Magento or Adobe Commerce is an out-of-the-box eCommerce platform that offers a complete set of ready-made features for launching an online shop. The initial version released in 2007 ran on Zend Framework, which was later substituted by its own PHP implementation to provide robust functionality and reduce the development effort for modules related to business logic.

Magento allows business owners to launch an online store in a short time, using hundreds of ready-made plugins and themes. Many additional modules extend the platform's capabilities even further but require experienced developers on board. Due to the legacy nature of the platform (a mix of Zend and Magento's own frameworks), extending existing features or changing the flow of standard processes can be tricky and time-consuming.

It is important to note that after Adobe acquired Magento and the second version of the platform, Magento 2, was released, the initial Magento 1 was no longer supported. Because of this, the online stores using the first version may face security and technical issues, which they have to solve on their own.

Sylius: a Symfony-based platform

Sylius is an open-source eCommerce platform based on the Symfony framework. The platform provides developers with numerous well-designed components for creating an online shop of any size and profile.

Symfony is a PHP framework for developing web applications. It has extensive functionality, solid architecture, and is supported by a large community of developers. The framework is like a library of ready-made solutions that anyone can re-use in their projects, focusing on custom functionality rather than developing core features such as user authentication and security or handling of HTTP responses and requests. With Symfony, developers can build projects of any kind and complexity, from simple websites to enterprise-level solutions.

Thanks to the solid Symfony basement, Sylius-powered projects can be easily scaled. With a wide variety of Symfony bundles and bundles specifically designed for Sylius, developers can extend or override any of the platform's functions and introduce a custom process flow (for example, checkout) that suits the business requirements. This makes Sylius a perfect choice for projects with custom requirements or those where it is important to adapt the business to changing market trends quickly. Find out more about Sylius in our dedicated article "Sylius eCommerce Platform — why choose it?".

Sylius vs Magento: differences to consider

Magento’s legacy monolithic architecture, which is typical for out-of-the-box solutions, comes with a lot of features, which is obviously good. However, these very features can cause slow downs and create a lot of dependencies between various, often distant functionalities. To achieve a high level of scalability with Magento, additional coding might be required, which increases the final price of the development. The Sylius framework, where every feature and element can be modified or even cut out, if necessary, has more scalability potential with less additional coding.

Summing things up

We hope that our short guide gave you valuable insights into the differences between Magento and Sylius frameworks. When choosing a platform for your eCommerce business, it is important to consider multiple factors, including the project’s format and scale, required degree of customization, the project budget, and expected business turnover.

With over two decades of custom web development experience and numerous successful projects in various industries under its belt, Vide Infra is always here to help with your eCommerce website development. Contact us and we’ll get back to you shortly to discuss the details.