In 2026, choosing a Magento-based platform is no longer a simple binary decision. There are now four serious options within the ecosystem — Magento Open Source, Adobe Commerce (on-premises or cloud), the new Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service (SaaS)
The Platform by the Numbers 2026
| ~119,000 live stores globally | Magento Open Source & Adobe Commerce combined |
| $173B annual GMV | +11.6% year-over-year |
| #3 global ecommerce platform share | Behind Shopify and WooCommerce |
| 5,000+ stores running Hyvä | Free and open-source since November 2025 |
| 480,000+ active community members | Adobe Commerce community forum |
The Four Paths in the Magento Ecosystem
| Best for | Cost | |
|---|---|---|
| Magento Open Source | Dev-led teams, custom builds, infrastructure control | Free |
| Adobe Commerce | Enterprise B2B/B2C, Adobe stack users | From ~$22K/yr |
| Adobe Commerce SaaS | Enterprises wanting zero infrastructure overhead | Custom pricing |
| Mage-OS | Open-source independence, long-term community governance | Free |
Magento Open Source
Magento Open Source is a self-hosted, PHP-based ecommerce platform with no licensing fees and complete access to the codebase. It powers some of the web's busiest stores — Harbor Freight runs over 40 million monthly visitors on it; Sinsay handles over 25 million. It is not a platform for small, simple stores. It is a platform for teams that want to build something completely tailored to their business.
What you get
- Full codebase access — customise every layer of the stack
- No vendor lock-in — host anywhere, on any infrastructure
- 4,900+ verified extensions on the Adobe Commerce Marketplace
- 480,000+ active community members
- Magento 2.4.8 (April 2025): 497 core bug fixes, OpenSearch as default, PHP 8.x stack
- Works with Hyvä (free since November 2025) for modern, high-performance storefronts
What it lacks natively
- No built-in B2B suite — company accounts, shared catalogs, and quote workflows require extensions or custom development
- No Content Staging or Visual Merchandiser
- No AI-powered Live Search or Product Recommendations
- No native customer segmentation or automated promotions
- No Business Intelligence dashboards
- No included support — you rely on your own team or a partner
Total Cost of Ownership — 2026
| Cost Category | Approximate Annual Range |
|---|---|
| License | Free |
| Hosting (cloud or VPS) | $500 – $5,000+ |
| Development & Support | $15,000 – $100,000+ |
| Extensions / Modules | $500 – $5,000 |
| Maintenance / DevOps | $5,000 – $25,000 |
| Estimated TCO | $20,000 – $130,000+ / year |
Adobe Commerce (On-Premises & Cloud)
Adobe Commerce is the commercial evolution of the same codebase — it adds a wide layer of enterprise functionality on top of the Magento foundation. It can be deployed on your own infrastructure or on Adobe's managed cloud (PaaS, with Fastly CDN and New Relic built in). Brands like Nike, Nestlé, Helly Hansen, Moschino, Canon, Olympus, and Liverpool FC run on it.
According to IDC research (2025), enterprise clients see a 516% ROI over three years on Adobe Commerce.
Enterprise features exclusive to Adobe Commerce
- B2B Suite: company accounts, shared catalogs, quote requests, purchase orders, approval workflows — all native
- Content Staging & Preview: schedule content changes without touching code
- Visual Merchandiser: drag-and-drop product placement on category pages
- Page Builder: drag-and-drop content editor for landing pages and CMS blocks
- Adobe Live Search: AI-powered SaaS search with real-time personalisation (Adobe Sensei)
- Adobe Product Recommendations: AI-driven upsell and cross-sell, surfaced natively in the storefront
- Customer Segmentation & Personalisation: rule-based targeting and automated promotions
- Business Intelligence: 75+ reports, 5 pre-built dashboards, SQL builder, Analytics integration
- Gift Cards, Store Credits, RMA, Reward Points: all built-in
- Adobe Experience Cloud integration: Analytics, Target, Experience Manager
Important technical notes for 2026
- OpenSearch is the default search engine (replaced Elasticsearch from 2.4.6 onwards)
- Split Database architecture was deprecated in 2.4.2 and fully removed — do not plan around it
- Adobe Commerce Cloud (PaaS) uses Fastly CDN by default — no Varnish configuration needed
- Current stack: PHP 8.2/8.3, MariaDB 10.6, Composer 2
- 116+ security patches released for Magento 2 to date — active patching cadence
Total Cost of Ownership — 2026
| Cost Category | Approximate Annual Range |
|---|---|
| Adobe Commerce License (GMV-based) | $22,000 – $125,000+ |
| Hosting (if self-hosted) | $5,000 – $15,000 |
| Adobe Commerce Cloud (PaaS hosting) | Included in license if selected |
| Development & Support | $25,000 – $150,000+ |
| Maintenance / Extensions | $5,000 – $20,000 |
| Estimated TCO | $50,000 – $250,000+ / year |
Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service (SaaS)
Generally available: June 2025
Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service (ACCS) is the newest tier in the ecosystem — a fully managed, versionless SaaS platform. No upgrade cycles, no patching, no infrastructure management. Updates are delivered continuously. It is designed for enterprise merchants who want the full power of Adobe Commerce without the operational overhead of running it.
What makes ACCS different
- Versionless architecture: new features and security patches ship continuously, zero-downtime upgrades
- AI-native: built-in generative AI tools for product discovery, content creation, and merchandising
- High-performance storefront: significant measurable impact on Core Web Vitals, SEO, and conversion
- Zero DevOps burden: no server management, no patching, no CDN configuration
- Adobe Commerce Optimizer: a modular add-on that plugs Adobe's AI storefront and merchandising engine into any existing backend — without a full platform migration
Note on Adobe Commerce Optimizer: This is not a full platform replacement. It lets brands plug Adobe's high-performance storefront and AI features into their existing system — useful for merchants who want the performance benefits of ACCS without replacing their current ecommerce engine.
Hyvä: The Frontend Story of the Decade
Hyvä (Finnish for "good") launched in 2021 as a modern replacement for Magento's ageing default Luma theme. By late 2025 it had become the de-facto standard for performance-focused Magento development — and it is now completely free and open-source following a landmark November 2025 announcement.
Performance by the numbers
| Metric | Hyvä | Standard Magento (Luma) |
|---|---|---|
| Core Web Vitals pass rate (mobile) | 65% | 41% |
| Page requests | 5 | 230 |
| Page weight (uncompressed) | 0.4 MB | 3 MB |
| Google Lighthouse score | 90–100 | 30–60 typical |
| Conversion uplift (typical post-migration) | 15–30% | — |
For context: WordPress passes Core Web Vitals 46% of the time; Shopify 77%. Hyvä-powered Magento stores at 65% have closed the gap dramatically and surpassed WordPress.
Adoption in 2026
- 5,000+ live stores running Hyvä globally
- 700+ agencies licensing Hyvä — a 75% increase year-on-year
- 4,300+ developers in the official Hyvä Slack community — 53% YoY growth
- 800+ compatible Magento 2 extensions and growing
- Major brands include Dunkin', Volkswagen, Purina, Samsonite, and American Tourister
Free and open-source since November 2025
From November 10, 2025, the Hyvä theme became fully open-source and free. This removes the previous license cost and makes performant Magento development accessible to every merchant regardless of scale or budget — fundamentally changing the economics of building on Magento Open Source.
Hyvä Commerce — what's coming
Hyvä is expanding beyond just a theme. The Hyvä Commerce product suite includes:
- Hyvä CMS: a fully reimagined content editor with live preview, replacing the default Magento CMS
- Hyvä Admin: a modern, widget-based admin dashboard with per-user customisation
- Hyvä Checkout: lightweight, optimised checkout with native PSP integrations
- Hyvä UI: a growing component library for faster page building
- Category Merchandising, Image Editor, WebP/AVIF media optimisation — all on the 2025/2026 roadmap
Eltrino is a certified Hyvä Silver Partner. We have been building Hyvä-powered stores since the theme's early releases — for both Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce clients.
Mage-OS: Open Source, Independent
Mage-OS is a nonprofit, community-governed fork of Magento Open Source. Fully compatible with all Magento 2 extensions and integrations, it provides a development roadmap driven by merchants and developers — not by Adobe's commercial priorities.
Why it exists
With Adobe's roadmap increasingly focused on Adobe Commerce Cloud and its new SaaS products, Magento Open Source has received primarily security patches and minor maintenance rather than meaningful new features. The Mage-OS community — formed by developers, agencies, and merchants who depend on Magento Open Source — stepped in to fill that gap. The effort traces back to an open letter signed by 1,641 developers, agencies, and merchants in 2021.
What Mage-OS delivers
- Faster security patch releases driven by community contribution
- Community-led feature development: PCI DSS 4.0 compliance tooling, AI-powered translation, performance optimisations
- Full upstream compatibility — migrating from Magento Open Source is a drop-in replacement
- No vendor dependency — roadmap, governance, and releases are entirely community-controlled
- Transparent governance: open roadmap, public Discord, regular release notes
- Mage-OS Distribution 2.1.0 (2025): bug fixes, performance improvements, expanded database compatibility, new developer tooling
Is Mage-OS production-ready? Yes. It is actively maintained and in production use. If open-source independence and community governance matter to your organisation, it is a serious option alongside standard Magento Open Source. Migration is seamless — full extension compatibility is maintained.
Full Comparison 2026
| Feature | Magento Open Source | Adobe Commerce | Adobe Commerce SaaS |
|---|---|---|---|
| License Cost | Free | ~$22K–$125K+/yr | Custom pricing |
| Hosting | Self-hosted | Self-hosted or PaaS | Fully managed SaaS |
| Upgrades | Manual | Manual / PaaS-assisted | Versionless, continuous |
| B2B Features | Custom dev / extensions | Full native suite | Full native suite |
| Content Staging | Not included | Included | Included + AI |
| Visual Merchandiser | Not included | Included | Included + AI |
| AI Search & Recommendations | Extensions only | Adobe Live Search (SaaS) | Adobe Live Search (SaaS) |
| Page Builder | Extensions / custom | Included | Included |
| Customer Segmentation | Extensions / custom | Included | Included + AI |
| Business Intelligence | Not included | Included | Included |
| Gift Cards / RMA / Store Credits | Extensions | Included | Included |
| Multi-site / Multi-brand | Yes (custom config) | Yes (native tools) | Yes |
| Adobe Ecosystem Integration | Not available | Full (Analytics, Target, AEM) | Full + Generative AI |
| Search Engine | OpenSearch (default) | OpenSearch / Live Search | Adobe Live Search |
| CDN / Caching | Varnish (configurable) | Fastly CDN on PaaS | Managed, built-in |
| Hyvä Frontend | Full support, free | With Hyvä Enterprise add-on | N/A (SaaS storefront) |
| Mage-OS Compatible | Yes (drop-in fork) | No | No |
| Infrastructure Responsibility | You manage everything | You or Adobe (PaaS) | Zero — Adobe manages all |
| Estimated TCO / year | $20K – $130K+ | $50K – $250K+ | Custom enterprise pricing |
| Ideal For | Dev-led teams, custom builds | Enterprise B2B/B2C, Adobe stack | High-scale, zero-maintenance |
How to Choose
You're a growing brand with a strong dev team and want full control → Magento Open Source + Hyvä. Maximum flexibility, zero license cost, modern performance out of the box.
You have complex B2B needs — quote workflows, company accounts, approval routing → Adobe Commerce. The native B2B suite is a genuine differentiator that would take significant effort to replicate on Open Source.
You're already on Adobe Experience Cloud (Analytics, Target, AEM) → Adobe Commerce or ACCS. The Adobe ecosystem integrations are the strongest argument for the commercial tier.
You want zero infrastructure overhead and continuous innovation → Adobe Commerce SaaS (ACCS). Versionless, AI-first, fully managed. Available since June 2025.
Open-source independence is a priority — no Adobe dependency → Mage-OS. Community-governed, fully Magento 2 compatible, production-ready. Drop-in replacement.
Your current Magento site has poor Core Web Vitals or slow load times → Add Hyvä before considering a platform change. It works on both Open Source and Adobe Commerce and often delivers more impact than a full re-platform.
You're on Adobe Commerce and questioning the license ROI → Audit which Adobe Commerce features you actually use. Many merchants find that Open Source + Hyvä Commerce covers their real needs at significantly lower total cost.
The Bottom Line
The Magento ecosystem in 2026 is more capable, more diverse, and more interesting than at any point in its history. Hyvä has solved the frontend performance problem. Mage-OS has secured a long-term open-source path independent of Adobe's roadmap. Adobe Commerce SaaS brings a genuinely new model to the enterprise market. And Magento Open Source continues to power some of the world's most complex storefronts, completely free of charge.
The right answer depends on your team's capabilities, your feature requirements, your B2B complexity, and your appetite for infrastructure ownership. There is no universally correct choice — but there is almost certainly a right one for your business.