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Adobe Commerce is Adobe's enterprise eCommerce platform: the licensed, fully supported edition of Magento. It runs online stores for brands that have outgrown simpler platforms. That usually means big catalogues, trade and retail customers on one system, several sites or currencies, and a long list of integrations with ERP, PIM and fulfilment.
If you've been told "it's basically Magento", that's half right. The engine is Magento. What you pay Adobe for is everything around it: features the free edition doesn't have, support, and, increasingly, Adobe running the platform for you.
Adobe Commerce, Magento and Magento Open Source: what's the difference?
Adobe bought Magento in 2018 and, in April 2021, renamed Magento Commerce to Adobe Commerce. The free edition kept the old name. So there are two products today:
Magento Open Source is free to download, and you host and maintain it yourself. It's a capable platform. Page Builder, for example, has been in Open Source since 2.4.3.
Adobe Commerce is the licensed edition. It adds the features below, Adobe's support, and the option to have Adobe host or fully run it.
The things you only get with Adobe Commerce are the ones that matter to bigger, more complex businesses:
B2B out of the box: company accounts with roles and approval chains, shared catalogues with customer-specific pricing, quotes, requisition lists and purchase orders.
Merchandising and content tools: customer segments, and content staging so a sale or campaign can be scheduled and previewed before it goes live.
Adobe's SaaS services, such as Live Search and Product Recommendations, plus reporting through Adobe Commerce Intelligence.
Support from Adobe, and a direct line for your agency when a problem sits on Adobe's side.
Three ways to run Adobe Commerce
The same licence can be run three ways, and the difference is who looks after what.
On-premise | Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure | Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service (ACCS) | |
|---|---|---|---|
Who hosts it | You, or your hosting partner | Adobe | Adobe |
Who patches and upgrades it | You and your agency | You and your agency, on Adobe's infrastructure | Adobe, continuously |
How customisable | Fully | Fully | Extend through APIs and apps, not core changes |
Best for | Strict hosting or data requirements | Teams that want managed hosting but full control of the code | Teams that want to stop running a platform at all |
Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service is the newest of the three, and it changes the most. Adobe runs it as a fully managed service. Updates arrive continuously, each flagged in advance with 30 days to test before it reaches your live site. Security patches are applied for you behind a web application firewall. Storefronts run on Adobe's Edge Delivery Services, and Adobe backs the platform with 99.9% availability. We were one of the first agencies to put a site live on it, with David Nieper at the end of September, and we've written up what ACCS is and why we're building on it.
Who Adobe Commerce suits (and who it doesn't)
Adobe Commerce earns its licence when your business is genuinely complex:
B2B and B2C together. Trade customers with negotiated prices and approval chains, and retail shoppers, on one platform. Topps Tiles doubled its trade orders on a B2B build on Adobe Commerce.
Large or complicated catalogues, with configurable products, many attributes and stock across locations.
Several brands, sites or countries run from one instance. Sanderson Design Group's trade and D2C platform won Gold for Best eCommerce Replatform at the eCommerce Awards 2026.
Heavy integration with ERP, PIM, CRM, payments and fulfilment. See how we approach integrations.
Headless or composable storefronts, where Adobe Commerce runs the commerce engine behind a custom front end. That's our headless work.
Brands already invested in Adobe, using Experience Manager, Analytics or Target.
It's the wrong choice when the business is simple. A small D2C catalogue with standard checkout needs and no trade customers will usually be better served by a SaaS platform with a monthly fee, or by Magento Open Source if you have the development team to run it. We'd rather tell you that at the start than sell you a platform you'll resent paying for.
How is Adobe Commerce licensed, and what drives the cost?
Adobe doesn't publish a price list. Licences are quoted, and the main lever is the size of your business, usually your annual online revenue. The licence is only part of the total, though. The rest comes from:
The build: design, development, migration and integrations. This is usually the biggest line in year one.
Hosting, if you run on-premise. It's included with the cloud options.
Extensions for anything the platform doesn't do natively.
Ongoing support and upgrades. Even on ACCS someone still owns your customisations and integrations.
The useful question isn't "how much is the licence?" It's "what would it cost us to run, and what would it earn?" That's the conversation to have before anyone writes a line of code.
Versions, patches and support
Adobe Commerce runs on the 2.4.x line. The current release is 2.4.9, released on 12 May 2026. Since January 2026, Adobe has shipped security patches monthly, with May kept as the annual window for new features and bigger changes. Each release gets around three years of standard support, so staying current is planned work, not an emergency. Our post on the release schedule and end-of-support dates has the full table.
On ACCS, versions stop being your problem: Adobe keeps every site on the latest release.
Questions we get asked about Adobe Commerce
Is Adobe Commerce the same as Magento?
It's built on Magento. Adobe Commerce is the licensed edition of the platform formerly called Magento Commerce. Magento Open Source is the free edition. Same engine, different features, support and hosting options.
Is Adobe Commerce free?
No. Magento Open Source is free. Adobe Commerce is licensed, and Adobe quotes the price based on the size of your business.
Is Adobe Commerce SaaS?
It can be. Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service is the SaaS version, fully managed by Adobe. The other two options, on-premise and Adobe Commerce on cloud infrastructure, leave the code and upgrades with you.
Does Adobe Commerce do B2B?
Yes, natively: company accounts, shared catalogues with custom pricing, quotes, requisition lists and purchase orders, all alongside your B2C store.
Do I need an agency to run Adobe Commerce?
Most businesses work with one. Builds, integrations and upgrades need specialist developers, and a certified Adobe Commerce partner has direct support channels when a problem sits with Adobe. We're an Adobe Silver Solution Partner with 30+ certified specialists and 100+ projects behind us.
Choosing Adobe Commerce
If your business is B2B, multi-brand, integration-heavy or growing fast, Adobe Commerce is worth a serious look. And ACCS takes away much of the platform work that used to put people off. If it isn't, we'll say so.
Want a second opinion on whether it fits? Let's talk.
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