Between them, Magento Enterprise and Demandware power some of the largest online stores in the world. Fast-growing pure-play retailers such as Missguided, bigname multichannel merchants such as Harvey Nichols, Paul Smith and Agent Provocateur and such brands as NIke have chosen Magento Enterprise as their platform of choice, whereas Adidas, Lacoste, Kate Space, Brooks Brothers and House of Fraser represent a few of the household names using Demandware. There’s no question of their ability to provide a enterprise-level solution, but they’re both very different platforms and they offer different features, functionality and are suited to different types of merchants. The best choice for your brand will depend on your specific requirements, but this article will summarise each platform’s strengths and provide a starting point for comparison.
This section of the Demandware website provides more guidance around the core features that the platform offers and this PDF outlines all of the main features for Magento Enterprise. I also wrote this more comprehensive comparison, which details more of the functionality available on the two platforms.
Hosting / maintenance
Hosting is one of the most significant differentiators between the Demandware and Magento Enterprise—if you have a preference for a cloud-based or self-hosted platform, this distinction alone may help make your decision.
Demandware offers a fully hosted service meaning all infrastructure management is handled by Demandware itself, which is an attractive prospect if your development team or agency is unable to manage its own hosting and updates. Although this arrangement means you’ll never have to worry about scaling your servers or implementing a security patch yourself, this arrangement does have some drawbacks. Demandware operates an approval process for any major site customisation and does have some restrictions in place to ensure sites can still be supported. If you’re looking for complete control, flexibility, an open source solution, and the ability to roll out new changes quickly using your in-house development team or agency, Demandware may not be for you.
Although Magento Enterprise occasionally comes under fire for its upgrades, it gives store owners complete control over their platform (upgrades are also said to be less of an overhead in the recently released version 2). As a self-hosted solution, Magento Enterprise gives your technical team direct access to your infrastructure. Many Magento agencies have strong relationships with hosting partners for this reason and can act as an intermediary between you and your hosting provider to handle all upgrades and infrastructure changes. You could also use your own servers or manage AWS [Amazon Web Services] servers yourself.
Without the approvals of Demandware, Magento Enterprise allows its retailers to scale and customise as they see fit; an appealing prospect for agile retailers although it does demand a more hands-on approach. If your e-commerce team does not have the time to manage an agency and multiple third party vendors, Magento Enterprise may not be the best solution for you.
In recent years, Demandware has been considered leaps ahead of Magento Enterprise when it comes to scalability and performance at the real enterprise-level. That said, the newest edition of Magento, the aptly named Magento 2, has addressed criticism head on and purports to be able to handle up to 1 million unique visitors and 3.6 million British pounds ($5.4 million) in revenue per hour. Note: At the time of writing, Magento 2 is only just out of beta and will still be under considerable maintenance for the next few months.
Major features
Both platforms offer a comprehensive range of native features with opportunities for customisation and extensions.
Integration:
Magento Enterprise is an open source platform with the support of a global community that contributes to its upkeep and development. Part of its appeal is the access to a wide variety of plug-ins and modules that can be integrated with the platform. Magento is therefore much more likely to have an existing integration available for your third-party service of choice with a huge array of modules pre-built and available through the Magento marketplace.
Demandware approaches integrations from a different angle, positioning itself firmly as an omnichannel platform bringing e-ommerce, POS, and order management into one solution. To achieve the same level of seamless integration (with third-party software) with Magento Enterprise requires significant input from third-party vendors and an experienced development team, particular for offline integrations.
Support:
As part of its fully-hosted service, Demandware offers 24/7 support, though this does mean higher licensing costs. As a self-hosted platform, Magento Enterprise support packages are not as comprehensive. Many Magento agencies therefore offer additional support packages in addition to development services. If you select Magento, it is worth finding an agency or recruiting internal specialists that can provide the support you need.
Personalisation:
Its powers of personalisation are a key selling point for Demandware. The platform’s advanced data collection and analysis can be set up to feed directly into your email marketing service to send personalised messages. The same data can be used to deliver tailored product recommendations to your site’s users. As with integration, the same level of personalisation can be achieved with Magento Enterprise, but not out of the box, and not without significant investment from a skilled agency or third party. However, Magento Enterprise does offer customer segmentation and a strong loyalty scheme. The platform offers wish lists, gifting, and private flash sales as well as a well-established reviews platform, which are also in Demandware.
Multi-store:
Both Demandware and Magento Enterprise support large international retailers and can support your e-commerce operations in multiple markets. Both give merchant store administrators the ability to manage multiple stores with regional translations, product inventories, and promotions available at local, regional, or global levels.
Pricing
As a Demandware merchant, you will pay a standard licensing fee. Fees are likely to be a lot higher than Magento Enterprise, particularly the licensing. In addition, Demandware will take a percentage of your sales. Remember, Demandware offers a fully hosted service providing full omnichannel integration; it has a reputation as the platform of the high-tier retailers for a reason. Demandware is generally chosen because it’s proven at the highest level and it provides unrivalled reassurance around scale.
Magento Enterprise costs are much lower down the scale. For a Magento Enterprise license, you will be looking at $18,000 per year. However, it’s important to remember that this is for the platform license only and you’ll pay more if you use multiple servers. Development, hosting, and other third-party provider costs will sit alongside this, which will push up considerably the overall costs of your e-commerce operation
So which is best for business?
Although both platforms have proved they are capable of supporting high-trafficked, high-profile merchants online, Demandware and Magento Enterprise attract different kinds of retailers. Demandware still has a reputation as the platform of choice for higher-tier retailers, in part due to its fully hosted service and (relatively) pain-free integration capabilities, as well as the value around maintainability. That said, Magento Enterprise is shaking off its history as a platform for the masses. Magento 2 promises high-performance, extremely extendable, customisable e-commerce without such a high price tag.
The comparisons in this article are rudimentary, but there is a clear distinction between the two platforms. Both option are dependable, and well-established in the e-commerce industry, but ultimately the choice will come down your budget, need for flexibility, and your individual requirements.
Here are some more useful pieces that will help you to understand the platforms better:
- https://paulnrogers.com/magento-community-vs-enterprise-which-edition-is-right-for-you/ – information around Magento CE vs EE
- https://www.g2crowd.com/products/demandware/reviews – comprehensive review of Demandware
- http://www.demandware.com/why-demandware/ – more detail around why merchants choose Demandware
Paul Rogers provides enterprise-level Magento consulting and auditing services.