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Adobe Commerce vs HCL Digital Commerce vs Salesforce Commerce Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the eCommerce Platforms category, the mindshare of Adobe Commerce is 7.2%, down from 14.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HCL Digital Commerce is 2.8%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Commerce Cloud is 5.4%, down from 16.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
eCommerce Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Salesforce Commerce Cloud5.4%
Adobe Commerce7.2%
HCL Digital Commerce2.8%
Other84.6%
eCommerce Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Andrew Christodoulou - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Product Manager at Swoon
Customization supports complex needs, though speed challenges persist
We don't use the reporting tools from Adobe Commerce as we have our own reporting infrastructure. Adobe Commerce can be complex in terms of ease of use, as it's such a large platform. From the development side, you can customize everything, but that does require substantial resources. When working on Adobe Commerce, I would want Adobe Commerce specialist developers. Although it's all built in PHP, and there are many PHP developers, I would want Adobe Commerce specialist developers working on it because they have knowledge about what to customize and more importantly, what's best not to touch. There are always site speed issues with Adobe Commerce. It seems to be an ongoing issue with performance. When comparing it to Shopify, you don't tend to need to worry about that, but with Adobe Commerce, it remains an ongoing issue. Additionally, there are all the upgrades, which can be quite painful, including the regular patches, both on the open-source and licensed version, on-premises. The initial setup for migrating to Adobe Commerce from another e-commerce platform is not straightforward; it's a very big job. The pricing for Adobe Commerce varies dramatically. Quite often, you see their list prices and then you are able to negotiate very hefty discounts. My understanding is that they're moving away from heavily discounting. Although our license where I am at the moment is heavily discounted, I'm hearing that they're trying to move away from that practice.
NP
Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Unified complex B2B commerce has streamlined workflows and now supports faster global ordering
While there are no specific pain points, HCL Digital Commerce's complexity does require a unique architecture, and it would be beneficial to have an integrated architecture that simplifies end-user integration with other AWS cloud services. Additionally, an improvement in speed would be advantageous; for example, if orders could be processed within a minute instead of three to four minutes, we could boost selling time.Optimizing for sales productivity to minimize processing time while maximizing sales time would also be valuable. Regarding challenges, the complexity of the structure due to large product catalogs, complex pricing, multiple brands, and regional requirements does create challenges. Reducing these complexities through HCL Digital Commerce's features could streamline our operations, particularly regarding ERP, CRM, payments, security, performance, and scalability.
Deena Dayalan K - PeerSpot reviewer
Global Leader Application Operations & Operational Excellence at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Unified commerce platform has streamlined direct sales and integrated promotions and billing
One of the most valuable features in Salesforce Commerce Cloud is that it helps me avoid storing credit card information, with a vault function taken care of. Salesforce provides this vault feature, enabling me to bill my D2C customers directly and also feeding data into my Marketing Cloud and Services Cloud. For visibility features in Salesforce Commerce Cloud, I might need to schedule a separate meeting as I can only share certain levels of information. Experience-wise, it is very good; the platform helps identify promotional opportunities and integrates well with Salesforce's Trade Promotion Management. The main benefits Salesforce Commerce Cloud provides are significant process improvements. If we did not have it, I would need to establish a separate D2C portal such as Magento Commerce and integrate with Salesforce for some data. Having Salesforce Commerce Cloud is essential as it integrates very quickly and is part of the entire ecosystem.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"On the plus side, when you build everything from scratch in Magento, you can do magic with it."
"Now with the website, all of their offline orders have been converted into the store business and their sales are improving 60% year on year and now they are one of the premium brands selling gym equipment across Australia."
"The open-source PHP code allows our developers to customize pretty much anything on the platform, including allowing us to add some of the most complex shipping and inventory features for clients who have very specific, industry-related business specifications."
"Magento is generally considered to be the most advanced e-commerce program available in the market."
"Magento is very user friendly due to its various functionalities like one page checkout, comparison between products and also gives liberty to users to share the reviews on purchased products."
"The platform provides an easy way to customize its features."
"The most valuable feature in this solution I have found to be that I have the ability to find all the analytics that I need, and it has very good integrations with social media platforms and other tools."
"As compared to platforms such as ATG or Commerce Cloud, its interface is easy to use, Magento also provides seamless administration for business users, and you can leverage the out-of-the-box features of Magento, which is very valuable for startups."
"Has all the modules needed for an order management solution."
"The promotion engine is definitively one of the highlights, facilitating precision marketing and dynamic segmentation based on shopper insights and behavior, with business users able to set up promotion and segmentation rules simply by dragging and dropping the component icons."
"It is a very mature product. It has a lot of features. It can also be very easily customized in order to reach goals or features that are not available, but mainly the fact that it's a very mature platform with all major features that are normally required by the clients is most valuable."
"HCL Digital Commerce has automated customer self-service and contract pricing, allowing approximately 80 to 90% time saving per order."
"I haven't faced any issues with the product's stability."
"It is a very mature product, it has a lot of features, and it can also be very easily customized in order to reach goals or features that are not available, but mainly the fact that it's a very mature platform with all major features that are normally required by the clients is most valuable."
"The tool is easy to use and flexible. It is flexible enough to tailor to your requirements."
"The most valuable feature is that it allows you to adapt it according to the customer's needs."
"The filters are very useful, and easy to customize. it's very easy to operate."
"I find the reports to be the solution's most valuable feature."
"The ease of customization is valuable and allows us to customize business process engines and set up data models efficiently."
"The conversion of opportunities and leads to accounts is one of the most valuable features."
"The ease of customization is valuable."
"It is a very flexible solution."
"Ability to quickly add content and manage products along with associated web content easily."
"The product is easy to use."
 

Cons

"The solution’s performance could be improved."
"The way that Magento is built isn’t the friendliest for this kind of thing."
"There are always speed issues with Adobe Commerce. It seems to be an ongoing issue with performance."
"The performance is a bottleneck in Magento and there is a lot of room for improvement in this regard."
"The analytics are good but there is room for improvement. There are some limitations due to new regulations causing customer data time delays."
"Magento 2 is only three to four years old, so it is an evolving technology."
"I am still playing around and trying to catch up with the latest version to understand all the features, but I do feel that its CMS can be much more streamlined. They provide a what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor, which many customers prefer, but based on the implementations that I have done for more than seven years, I have seen that many times, it is run by the marketing team, and they don't find it very comfortable to use. They feel uncomfortable managing and changing the content. As a business user, you need to have at least basic knowledge of HTML, which you cannot expect from all marketing teams. Some companies or organizations have that competency, but many organizations, especially in the Middle East, have a very small team, so it becomes quite difficult for them. This is a common challenge that I have seen across the platforms. Magento is better and easier than Oracle Commerce Cloud, but Shopify is much easier than Magento. A layman or my 10-year-old kid can go ahead and set up a store in Shopify in probably 45 minutes, which is not the case with Magento. Elasticsearch has really been a pain. It takes a toll on the performance. Starting with version 2.4, Magento requires Elasticsearch, which has been causing a lot of serious performance issues. We had a client in the US who was running a promo, and they lost a subsequent number of orders over one and a half hours. They were on the enterprise platform, not open-source. The team had to open a ticket with Magento. Its performance needs to be upgraded, or some kind of guidelines have to be provided for the setup. It looks like even Magento has no clue. When you go through the answers given in the online community, it seems that in spite of having the hardware configurations that they suggest, it is not performing at the optimal level. It should also have a better way to measure performance. Performance measuring has to be much easier. Many times, we see CPU utilization going up and down. We see spikes without any reason. Therefore, we need a better performance management system."
"The industry has evolved, and the main focus is composable solutions because of which now SAP and Magento are forced to tackle various aspects of commerce, including commerce tools and pricing strategies, among other things."
"While there are no specific pain points, HCL Digital Commerce's complexity does require a unique architecture, and it would be beneficial to have an integrated architecture that simplifies end-user integration with other AWS cloud services."
"Their support is not amazingly good. We had a lot of trouble moving from version 8 to version 9."
"The tool has a really rigid structure, so it is not something that has the simplicity to adapt to newer environments in a fast manner."
"Lacks option to purchase individual modules."
"The Product information Management is very basic, and the template for front-end coding could be improved."
"Another area of improvement is the user-friendliness of the back office stuff. This issue is still valid, and it is still a problem, but I know they are currently working on it."
"HCL Digital Commerce should improve its integration capabilities with other platforms."
"The product catalog is an area that needs improvement. It is forcing us to look and test other solutions."
"Salesforce Commerce Cloud could improve overall customization. Having a template deployment would be a useful feature."
"Pricing is a disadvantage because it is expensive."
"There is space to have better communication with other kinds of platforms."
"Needs better access to code and customizability of the solution."
"The solution should have more and faster reporting, as well as better performance."
"The performance of the solution has room for improvement. We sometimes experience some delays."
"We would like more interaction from Salesforce about new versions."
"What I don't like is the price. The solution is expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution increased after Adobe acquired Magento. At this point, we know the price of Magento and SAP, and while they may have lower entry tickets, they are ultimately comparable."
"The cost of implementation is cheap compared to other solutions."
"Many implementations were open-source. We also had a couple of enterprise-level implementations, but I didn't have visibility on the licensing cost."
"This solution is cheaper than some of its competitors. However, the price depends on which country you are in. In some countries, such as Greece or some Southeastern European countries, the price for the client can be expensive."
"We transitioned from the platform's commercial license to the open-source version, which helped optimize costs without affecting our sales."
"The product offers an open-source version, which is free. There are licensing options for Adobe Commerce's cloud version."
"HCL Digital Commerce's licensing costs are annual. It is expensive."
"For our companies and our users, the price is quite high."
"I believe that HCL Digital Commerce is one of the most expensive products on the market."
"Initially when we installed Salesforce, we thought that it was a bit pricey, but I think for the value that we're getting, it’s suitable."
"The pricing is fairly reasonable."
"Salesforce is not a cheap solution."
"I think price-wise, it's a little bit expensive. It can be made cheaper for smaller businesses. I understand that for larger businesses, it can be a payable amount. But for medium to smaller, it is kind of costly, and it might be difficult for them to pay."
"The licensing of Salesforce Commerce Cloud is something that will depend on the customer's usability. For us as a company, we are in a position where we will be paying the premium for licensing. If we go to the customer who is seeking a B2C solution quickly, we will definitely look at the pricing when it comes to the user base and receive good discounts. Discount is something that depends on the volume and that is where we need to work on. It is a little sensitive market when it comes to licensing procurement. There are some good competitors."
"The product is expensive."
"I give the price of the solution a three out of ten."
"There are no significant upfront license costs."
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Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Magento?
The customization capabilities of Adobe Commerce are great.
What needs improvement with Magento?
An additional feature I would want to see included in the next release relates to integrating or moving data from one...
What is your primary use case for Magento?
My use cases for Adobe Commerce involve projects with specific customers and different industries. Most of them were ...
What do you like most about HCL Digital Commerce?
I haven't faced any issues with the product's stability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HCL Digital Commerce?
Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, while I am not entirely certain of the specifics, I know that the setu...
What needs improvement with HCL Digital Commerce?
While there are no specific pain points, HCL Digital Commerce's complexity does require a unique architecture, and it...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Salesforce Commerce Cloud?
I am not involved in the pricing or licensing details, so I cannot provide specific insights into the setup costs.
What needs improvement with Salesforce Commerce Cloud?
If Salesforce Commerce Cloud could incorporate features such as Product Data Management and Customer Data Platform in...
What is your primary use case for Salesforce Commerce Cloud?
Salesforce Commerce Cloud's main use case is D2C and B2C, focusing on direct-to-customers. Salesforce Commerce Cloud'...
 

Also Known As

Magento, EPiServer Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce, IBM WebSphere Commerce
Demandware
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Magento has over 200,000 customers worldwide, including Bjorn Borg, Heath Ceramics, Harper's Bazaar, Kidstuff, International Military Antiques, Gifts That Gives, and Rovio Entertainment Ltd.
CEWE, J.J. Keller, Shop.ca, 360training.com, Bon-Ton, HH Gregg, Dahl Sverige AB, Terranova, Lindt
Adidas, Amercian Golf, Brooks, Browns, Burton, Butlers, Clarins Paris, ColeHaan, Columbia, Converse, Deckers, Hurley, Kate Spade, Labelux, Lacoste, Lush, Mothercare
Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce, Adobe, Shopify and others in eCommerce Platforms. Updated: March 2026.
885,444 professionals have used our research since 2012.