Magento Open Source is the free, self-hosted core. Adobe Commerce adds a licensed layer (native B2B, Live Search, Sensei recommendations, staging, advanced reporting) on the same codebase, priced on gross merchandise value. Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service is the SaaS edition Adobe runs for you. Pick by feature need, budget, and hosting control.
The three editions you are actually choosing between in 2026
The old two-way split (Open Source vs Enterprise) is now a three-way decision, and confusing the options costs real money. Here is what each one is today.
Magento Open Source is the free, downloadable platform. You own the code, you host it wherever you want, and you pay nothing for a license. It ships with the full catalog, checkout, promotions, and multi-store engine that made Magento the default for serious catalogs. You are responsible for hosting, security patching, and any premium feature you need beyond the core.
Adobe Commerce (self-hosted, also sold as Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure or PaaS) is the same codebase with a commercial feature layer bolted on and a paid license. You still control the server, the deployment, and the extensions, but you get Adobe’s B2B suite, content staging, customer segmentation, and support included. This is what most people meant by “Magento Enterprise.”
Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service (ACCS) is Adobe’s fully managed, multi-tenant SaaS edition. Adobe runs the infrastructure, applies updates continuously, and keeps the platform versionless, so there are no self-managed upgrade projects. It pairs with Edge Delivery Services for fast storefront rendering. If you want the Adobe feature set without owning servers or upgrade cycles, this is the target. We covered the tradeoffs in depth in our guide to Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service.
The single fact that most comparison articles bury: Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce run on the same PHP codebase. Same admin, same extension ecosystem, same upgrade cadence, same developer talent pool. You are not choosing between two different products. You are choosing how much of the commercial feature layer and managed service you want to pay for.
Is Magento Open Source really free?
The license is free. The platform is not costless. Open Source has no per-year license fee, and you can download, install, and run it in production without paying Adobe anything. What you pay for instead is hosting, a development partner, and any premium capability you add on top.
For a mid-sized merchant, realistic Open Source running costs land in these ranges: managed hosting from roughly $500 to $5,000 per month depending on traffic and server footprint, plus development and maintenance retainers, plus third-party extensions for features Adobe Commerce includes natively (B2B, advanced search, staging). The “free” edition is genuinely free to license, but you are assembling a stack rather than buying one.
There is also a fourth path worth naming. Mage-OS is a community-maintained nonprofit fork of Magento Open Source with a faster release cadence. It stays API-compatible with the mainline, so most extensions and themes work unchanged. It matters mainly to teams that want a community-governed distribution and quicker releases, and it does not change the core Open Source vs Adobe Commerce math below.
The feature differences that actually change your build
Both editions share the entire commerce core: catalog, cart, checkout, tax, promotions, multi-store, multi-currency, and the same admin. The differences are the commercial layer. Here is where the money goes.
| Capability | Magento Open Source | Adobe Commerce (self-hosted / PaaS) | Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service |
|---|---|---|---|
| License fee | Free | GMV-based annual license | GMV-based annual license |
| Native B2B (company accounts, shared catalogs, quotes, requisition lists, purchase orders) | Not included (extension or custom) | Included | Included |
| Page Builder (drag-and-drop content) | Not included | Included | Included |
| Content staging and preview | Not included | Included | Included |
| Customer segmentation and targeted rules | Not included | Included | Included |
| Advanced reporting and dashboards | Basic reports only | Included | Included |
| RMA (returns management) | Not included | Included | Included |
| Product Recommendations (Sensei AI) | Not included | Included (SaaS add-on) | Included |
| Live Search (AI search) | Available as free SaaS add-on | Included | Included |
| Reward points and store credit | Not included | Included | Included |
| Hosting and infrastructure | Your responsibility | Your responsibility (Adobe-provisioned on PaaS) | Adobe-managed |
| Security patching | Your responsibility | Shared, Adobe issues patches | Adobe-managed, continuous |
| Support SLA | Community | Adobe support included | Adobe support included |
A few of these rows deserve a closer look because the popular comparisons get them wrong.
B2B is the biggest single reason to license Adobe Commerce. The native B2B suite includes company accounts with buyer hierarchies, shared catalogs with per-company pricing, negotiable quotes, requisition lists for repeat ordering, purchase order approval workflows, and payment on account. On Open Source you can rebuild pieces of this with extensions or custom code, but you are stitching together and maintaining what Adobe ships as one tested module. For a distributor or manufacturer, that gap is decisive. Adobe’s own enable B2B features documentation lists the full set, and shared catalogs alone (gated pricing visible only to specific company accounts) is hard to replicate cleanly on Open Source.
Live Search is the exception that trips people up. Adobe Live Search is a SaaS search service, and it is available to Magento Open Source merchants at no license cost, not only to Adobe Commerce. So “AI search” is not strictly Adobe Commerce only. Product Recommendations, the Sensei-powered recommendation engine, does require an Adobe Commerce license. If a comparison tells you all of Adobe’s AI is locked behind the paid edition, it is out of date.
Staging and Page Builder are quality-of-life features that merchandising teams feel daily. Content staging lets you schedule and preview catalog and content changes (a sale that flips on at midnight and off Monday) without a developer. Open Source has neither natively. For a lean team that ships content weekly, these are worth real money.
How Adobe Commerce pricing works in 2026
Adobe does not publish a public price list. The license is quoted per merchant and scales with gross merchandise value (GMV), average order value, and the deployment model you pick. As your trailing revenue grows, your license tier and fee grow with it. You are paying a percentage of success rather than a flat SaaS seat.
Do not trust any article that quotes you an exact license number, because the real figure comes from negotiation and your GMV band. What we can share responsibly are the ranges that appear consistently across public estimates in 2026:
- Adobe Commerce license (self-hosted / PaaS): roughly $22,000 to $125,000+ per year depending on GMV tier.
- Adobe Commerce Cloud (infrastructure included): roughly $40,000 to $200,000+ per year for the license and cloud bundle, with total program costs (license, hosting, implementation, maintenance) reaching well into six figures for large merchants.
- Magento Open Source license: $0. Your spend is hosting plus partner plus extensions.
Treat those as order-of-magnitude bands, not quotes. The honest way to budget is to get an Adobe quote for your GMV, then compare it against the fully loaded cost of an Open Source stack that adds the specific commercial features you actually need. Often the deciding line item is B2B: if you need the native B2B suite, Adobe Commerce is usually cheaper than building and maintaining an equivalent on Open Source. If you do not, Open Source frequently wins on total cost.
Support, security, and hosting responsibility
This is where the editions diverge in operational risk, not just features.
On Magento Open Source, everything is yours. You pick the host, you apply security patches on Adobe’s schedule, you own uptime, and your support is the community plus whatever your development partner provides. That is total control and total responsibility. A missed patch or a stale PHP version is on you, and version transitions can break things if you are not careful. We wrote up one common example in upgrading to Magento 2.4.8 and what breaks with PHP and OpenSearch.
On Adobe Commerce (PaaS), Adobe issues patches and provides a support SLA, but you still own the deployment, the environment, and the upgrade execution. It is a shared model.
On Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service, Adobe owns the infrastructure, scaling, patching, and continuous updates. You trade control and deep customization freedom for the removal of the upgrade treadmill. For teams tired of running upgrade projects every few months, that trade is the entire point.
Where Hyva fits, on both editions
Here is the part that reframes the whole decision: the frontend theme is a separate choice from the edition. Hyva is a modern, Tailwind-based frontend that replaces the aging Luma theme and the heavy Knockout/RequireJS stack. It runs on both Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce, and it works with the native B2B suite. So a merchant on free Open Source and an enterprise on Adobe Commerce can both ship the same fast, maintainable storefront.
Why this matters for the comparison: a lot of the “Adobe Commerce is faster” or “Open Source feels dated” perception is really about the frontend, not the edition. Move either edition to Hyva and you get dramatically lower JavaScript payloads, better Core Web Vitals, and a codebase your team can actually work in. The Hyva documentation covers the compatibility details. As the first US-based and leading official Hyva Gold Partner, Bemeir builds Hyva storefronts on whichever edition fits the business case, which means the edition decision can be made on features and cost rather than on frontend performance fears.
When each edition is the right pick
Choose Magento Open Source when: you are B2C or light B2B, you have (or hire) a capable development partner, you want to control hosting and cost, and you are comfortable owning security and upgrades. Pair it with Hyva and you have a fast, modern, low-license-cost store. This is the right call for a large share of mid-market merchants.
Choose Adobe Commerce (PaaS) when: you need the native B2B suite, content staging, segmentation, or RMA, you want Adobe support and patch SLAs, and your GMV justifies the license against the cost of building those features yourself. This is the default for distributors, manufacturers, and complex B2B catalogs.
Choose Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service when: you want the Adobe feature set with zero infrastructure and zero upgrade projects, you value the managed SaaS model over deep server-level customization, and you are planning a multi-year horizon where the versionless model pays off.
The platform is not the only axis, either. Some catalogs are better served elsewhere entirely, and a good partner will tell you so. Bemeir also builds on Shopify and Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, and Shopware when those platforms fit the roadmap better than Magento. For deep Magento and Adobe Commerce builds specifically, our Magento development services cover both editions end to end. You can see the full technology partner roster and read more about Bemeir and 16+ years of Magento work.
FAQ
What is the difference between Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source?
They run on the same PHP codebase and share the same admin, extensions, and upgrade cadence. Magento Open Source is free to license and ships the commerce core. Adobe Commerce adds a paid commercial layer (native B2B, Page Builder, content staging, customer segmentation, advanced reporting, RMA, Sensei recommendations) plus Adobe support, priced on gross merchandise value.
Is Magento Open Source still free in 2026?
Yes. Magento Open Source has no license fee. You can download and run it in production without paying Adobe. Your real costs are hosting (roughly $500 to $5,000+ per month by scale), a development partner, and any third-party extensions you add for features Adobe Commerce includes natively, such as advanced B2B or staging.
How much does Adobe Commerce cost in 2026?
Adobe does not publish list prices. The license is quoted per merchant and scales with your gross merchandise value and deployment model. Public 2026 estimates put the self-hosted license roughly between $22,000 and $125,000+ per year, and cloud bundles higher. Get a quote for your GMV, then compare it against a loaded Open Source stack with the same features.
Which edition is better for B2B?
Adobe Commerce, in most cases. Its native B2B suite (company accounts, shared catalogs with per-company pricing, negotiable quotes, requisition lists, purchase order approvals, payment on account) ships as one tested module. On Open Source you rebuild those pieces with extensions or custom code and maintain them yourself. If B2B is core to your business, the Adobe license usually costs less than the equivalent custom build.
Does Hyva work with both Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source?
Yes. Hyva is a frontend theme and it runs on both editions, including with the Adobe Commerce B2B suite. That means storefront performance is not a reason to pick one edition over the other. You can run a fast, modern Hyva storefront on free Open Source or on licensed Adobe Commerce, and decide the edition on features and cost instead.
