If you are still on Magento 1, leaving is no longer optional, but where you go is a real decision with lasting consequences. Magento 1 has been end-of-life since June 2020, so the move itself is settled. The harder question is the destination: stay in the Magento family with Adobe Commerce, or replatform entirely to Shopify Plus or BigCommerce. Each is a defensible choice for a different kind of business, and choosing on hype rather than fit is how stores end up migrating twice.
The pressure to decide is real. Roughly 14 percent of Magento-based stores still run on Magento 1, according to Magento statistics from WiserReview, carrying years of accumulated security and compatibility risk. The good news is that the replatforming decision has a clear logic once you frame it around your actual requirements, complexity, B2B depth, operational capacity, rather than around which platform is fashionable this year.
When does Adobe Commerce make the most sense?
Adobe Commerce makes the most sense when your store is complex, B2B-heavy, or deeply customized, because it keeps your investment in the Magento model while removing the Magento 1 risk. The migration path is the most natural one: the data structures, the concepts, and often much of the logic carry forward, and a large share of old customizations can be replaced with native Adobe Commerce features. For a store that genuinely uses Magento’s depth, multi-store, complex catalogs, native B2B, deep ERP integration, staying in the family is usually the lowest-risk, best-fit move.
The trade-off is operational weight. Adobe Commerce is powerful and flexible, which also means it needs real technical capacity to run well, whether in-house, through an agency, or both. If your store’s complexity justifies that, the power is worth it. The full Magento 1 to Magento 2 and Adobe Commerce migration is a known, scoped project, and for complex stores it preserves the most value while closing the end-of-life risk.
When is Shopify Plus the better destination?
Shopify Plus is the better destination when you want lower operational overhead and faster simplicity, especially for DTC or moderately complex B2B. As a fully managed platform, it removes the hosting, scaling, and patching burden entirely, which is a genuine relief for teams without a deep technical bench. For a store whose Magento complexity was more burden than benefit, replatforming to Shopify Plus can be a simplification rather than a compromise.
The honest limit is depth. Shopify Plus has closed much of the B2B gap, but it still hits ceilings on the most complex multi-tier catalogs, account hierarchies, and approval workflows that Adobe Commerce handles natively. So the decision turns on how complex your requirements truly are, the same analysis behind any Shopify Plus versus Adobe Commerce comparison. For DTC brands and moderately complex B2B that value speed and low overhead, Shopify Plus is a strong answer. For deeply complex operations, it can mean trading capability for simplicity in a way you will feel later.
Where does BigCommerce fit, and how do you decide?
BigCommerce fits in the middle ground, offering strong native B2B with less operational overhead than Adobe Commerce, and you decide among all three by mapping your real requirements before you fall for a pitch. BigCommerce is worth evaluating for businesses that want solid B2B capability without the full operational weight of Adobe Commerce, sitting between Shopify Plus’s simplicity and Adobe Commerce’s depth. For some mid-market B2B stores, it is the balance that fits.
The decision method is the same regardless of which platform wins. Write down what your store actually needs, the catalog complexity, the B2B workflows, the integrations, the operational capacity you have, and choose the platform that fits natively, because the wrong fit shows up as expensive workarounds and a second migration. Weigh the switching cost too: a full replatform off Magento 1 is a significant project on any destination, so it is worth getting right once. A serious Magento and Adobe Commerce partner should be willing to tell you honestly when the answer is a platform other than its own, because that honesty is the clearest sign you are getting real advice rather than a sales pitch.
