This article is part of a series exploring the key differences between Magento 2 and Shopify, looking at the factors that really matter when choosing an e-commerce platform.
A few months ago, a client of ours came to us asking if they should move from Magento 2 to Shopify. It was quite a surprise question. After some back and forth it was established that the main reason was the perceived ease-of-use of Shopify’s page building tools compared to Magento 2. While it’s easy to focus on features like page builders when comparing e-commerce platforms, factors such as catalogue complexity, integrations, scalability, and long-term cost are just as important.
That said, regularly updating your storefront—especially key pages like the homepage—is essential. Most customers visit multiple times before making a purchase, so keeping content, layouts, and promotions fresh helps keep the site relevant and engaging.
This is where page builder functionality becomes meaningful. It’s not just about how a page looks on launch day, but how easily it can be edited with graphic banners, products, promotions and seasonal updates.
This article focuses specifically on page builder functionality and layout personalisation, but these are only one part of the wider decision when choosing an e-commerce platform.
Magento 2 vs Shopify Page Builders
Magento and Shopify approach layout and page customisation differently. In Magento, page building exists at platform level, so the core Page Builder functionality stays the same regardless of theme. The theme mainly controls styling such as fonts, colours, and layout rules applied to Page Builder content.
Magento is also more limited in where Page Builder can be used. Homepages and CMS pages are editable through the builder, but product and category pages are not. You can insert CMS blocks into these pages, but deeper layout customisation is usually handled in code.
Shopify, on the other hand, places front-end design responsibility within the theme itself – with predesigned and built sections. You can edit almost every page template through the Shopify admin, including product pages, collection pages, the homepage, and CMS pages.
Because layout functionality is theme-driven, available sections can vary between themes. Changing themes may therefore require rebuilding or replacing certain sections.
This difference—flexibility versus structure—is central to how each platform handles layout personalisation.
Creating custom layouts with Magento 2 Page Builder
Magento 2 Page Builder operates on a hierarchy of Rows, Columns, Tabs, and (limited) content blocks that you can arrange with a high degree of freedom to create a page layout from the ground up rather than being forced into a pre-existing template.
How the Process Works
In Magento you build the structure of your page. You can nest images within columns, adjust padding and margins for specific device breakpoints, and set background images for individual rows. While Magento offers a solid set of content types—such as product carousels, banners, and video sliders—the real power lies in the layout flexibility.
Managing global templates in Magento 2
One area where Magento 2 is particularly distinct is how it handles “fixed” templates like the Cart and Checkout pages. Because Magento’s architecture is highly decoupled from the theme’s visual layer, adding a Page Builder block to the checkout isn’t a simple drag-and-drop task.
If you want to add a promotional banner or a “Frequently Bought Together” block to the cart page, it often requires a developer to create a reusable CMS block and then manually assign it to a specific layout container via the admin panel. While this offers incredible power to customise the journey, it introduces a layer of complexity that can feel “heavy” to a marketing team looking for a quick update.
Shopify Theme Editor and Sections
Shopify takes a fundamentally different approach, prioritising speed and structural integrity. Its editing experience revolves entirely around “Sections”—pre-built, theme-specific content blocks that are designed to look perfect the moment they are added to a page.
How the process works
The Shopify Theme Editor is a sidebar-driven experience. Rather than constructing layouts from scratch, you select from a library of pre-configured sections (e.g., “Image with Text” or “Featured Collection”), and the theme handles the spacing, responsiveness, and alignment automatically. For a marketing team, this is incredibly efficient: you add the section, drag it into the desired vertical order, update the text/images, and hit publish. When creating the theme your developer will often create the sections your business needs, adding to a library of prebuilt, predesigned sections.
Customising the Shopify checkout and cart
Unlike Magento, where you are working within a complex layout system, Shopify allows you to add “App Blocks” or specific theme sections to the cart and, for Shopify Plus users, within the checkout journey itself via Checkout Extensibility. While you have less freedom to move elements by a single pixel than you do in Magento, the process of adding a promotion or a trust badge to the checkout is significantly faster and less prone to breaking the site’s responsiveness.
Magento vs Shopify: Flexibility vs Simplicity
The choice between these platforms isn’t just about “more” or “less” features—it is about how your team manages the relationship between design and data.
Magento 2: flexibility backed by structured data
While Magento 2 is often described as “flexible,” it is more accurate to say it is structurally capable. It isn’t a free-form design tool, but it allows you to achieve complex layouts that would be challenging on more rigid platforms.
- Achievable custom layouts: By leveraging the row and column system, you can build non-standard page structures. It requires more effort to get right, but it allows for a level of design variation that goes beyond basic templates.
- The PIM advantage: This is where Magento 2 truly shines for enterprise businesses. Because of its robust architecture, Magento is the ideal partner for a PIM (Product Information Management) system. By centralising your product data in a PIM and syncing it with Magento, you ensure that even the most complex promotions or layout updates remain data-accurate. Your Page Builder blocks pull “source of truth” data, ensuring consistency across every SKU.
Shopify: simplicity and speed for content teams
Shopify’s strength lies in its theme level content blocks (“sections”). It trades structural customisation for a simplified, “pre-built” editing experience.
- Design consistency: Because you are working within curated, custom-built theme sections, it is almost impossible for a user to accidentally break the site’s responsiveness or visual identity.
- Rapid content deployment: The primary benefit is speed. For a marketing team, the ability to swap out banners, rearrange homepage sections, and update seasonal messaging without technical assistance is a significant operational win.
- Lower management overhead: Shopify removes the “technical weight” of managing a page. It is a streamlined tool for teams whose priority is high-volume content updates rather than complex architectural changes.
Final thoughts
Magento 2 is a strategic choice for businesses with complex data needs. It requires more “intent” to build a layout, but when integrated with a PIM, it provides a level of data integrity and structural depth that Shopify’s section-based logic cannot match.
Shopify, by contrast, is a tool for marketing agility. It streamlines the editing process so you can spend less time engineering a page and more time executing marketing campaigns. The right choice depends on whether your bottleneck is design freedom or operational speed.
| Feature | Magento 2 Page Builder | Shopify Theme Editor |
| Philosophy | Total Design Flexibility | Structured Efficiency |
| Control | Granular (Rows/Columns) | Section-based (Stacks) |
| Ideal For | Complex, Bespoke Layouts | Rapid, Accurate Updates |
| Team Skill | Technical / Experienced | Marketing / Non-technical |