Magento Open Source vs Adobe Commerce in 2026: The Real Differences

Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce are built from the same code. Adobe Commerce adds modules, Adobe-hosted services, hosting options and Adobe’s support, for a licence fee Adobe does not publish. Open Source is the free core that you host and support yourself.

That much is well known. The details have moved, though. Page Builder is no longer exclusive to Adobe Commerce, Adobe now sells a software as a service edition, and security patches for the two editions part ways at a fixed point. Here is where they differ in 2026, checked against Adobe’s documentation and the Magento repository on GitHub in October 2026.

Is Magento still open source, and is it free?

Yes. Magento Open Source is published at github.com/magento/magento2 under the Open Software License (OSL) 3.0. That licence grants “a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sublicensable license”, so there is nothing to pay Adobe to download, run or change it.

The latest version is 2.4.9, released on GitHub on 12 May 2026, the same date Adobe lists for Adobe Commerce 2.4.9. The two editions share one system requirements page, which lists PHP 8.5, OpenSearch 3 and MariaDB 12.3 or MySQL 8.4 for 2.4.9 on-premises. The repository’s README describes Open Source as software that “delivers basic eCommerce capabilities”, and points anyone who needs more to Adobe Commerce.

Free to license is not free to run. You still pay for hosting, extensions, development, and the patching and upgrades every Magento store needs.

One licence detail is worth knowing. OSL 3.0 is a copyleft licence: copies of the code or derivative works that you distribute must also be under OSL, and its External Deployment clause treats making the software available “over a network” as distribution. If that matters to your business, it is a question for a lawyer.

How Adobe Commerce is licensed and priced

Adobe Commerce is the same code base with Adobe’s paid modules on top, under a commercial licence. The Magento README says each source file is licensed under OSL 3.0 “or the terms and conditions of the applicable ordering document” with Adobe, and that once the customer pays, those terms “supersede the OSL 3.0 license for each source file.”

Adobe publishes no prices. Its pricing page lists Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service, Adobe Commerce on Cloud and Adobe Commerce Optimizer, each with a “Get pricing” button, and offers “customized pricing for Adobe Commerce.” On-premises does not appear on that page, although Adobe’s documentation still names it as one of three deployment models. We found no Adobe page that explains how the quote is calculated, so we won’t repeat the figures that circulate online.

The old names survive in Adobe’s own files. Its patch files label the Adobe Commerce component “Enterprise Edition (EE)” and the open source core “Community Edition (CE)”, which is why a search for Magento Enterprise leads to the same product.

Feature comparison

Adobe marks edition-specific pages in its documentation with a note: “This is an exclusive feature that is available only in Adobe Commerce and is not available in Magento Open Source.” The table uses only features where an Adobe page says which edition has them.

Feature	Magento Open Source	Adobe Commerce	Where Adobe says so
B2B: company accounts, shared catalogues, quotes, requisition lists, payment on account	No	Yes, as an extension	B2B install guide
Content staging and scheduling	No	Yes	Exclusive feature note
Customer segments	No	Yes	Exclusive feature note
Visual Merchandiser	No	Yes	Exclusive feature note
Reward points	No	Yes	Exclusive feature note
Gift card products	No	Yes	Exclusive feature note
Returns (RMA)	No	Yes	Exclusive feature note
Live Search, Product Recommendations, Catalog Service, Data Connection	No	Yes	Commerce Services Connector
Payment Services	Yes	Yes	Commerce Services Connector
Page Builder	Yes, since 2.4.3	Yes	2.4.3 release notes
Inventory Management (multi-source)	Yes	Yes	Inventory Management guide
Admin two-factor authentication	Yes, required since 2.4.0	Yes	2.4.0 release notes

The features only Adobe Commerce has

B2B. Adobe’s B2B extension adds company accounts with buyer roles and permissions, company hierarchies, shared catalogues with company-specific pricing, quotes, requisition lists and payment on account. Its install guide lists “Adobe Commerce, all supported versions” as the requirement, and Adobe Commerce on Cloud and on-premises as the supported platforms.

Content staging. Adobe describes it as the ability to “create, preview, and schedule a wide range of content updates” from the Admin. Changes to products, categories, price rules, CMS pages and blocks are grouped into campaigns, and when a scheduled change expires the content reverts to the previous version.

Customer segments. Segments update as customers shop, based on things like address, order history and cart contents. You can use them in cart price rules, related product rules and dynamic blocks, and export the list of customers in a segment.

Merchandising and loyalty. Visual Merchandiser, reward points, gift card products and returns all carry Adobe’s Adobe Commerce-only note.

Commerce Services. Adobe’s Commerce Services Connector page lists Live Search, Product Recommendations, Catalog Service and Data Connection as available on “Adobe Commerce”. The keys come from the licence holder’s account: “Only the Commerce license owner can generate these API keys.”

The features both now share

The line between the editions moves. Comparisons written before 2.4.3 still list Page Builder as Adobe Commerce only. Adobe’s 2.4.3 release notes say: “Page Builder is now available as a bundled extension in Magento Open Source.” It is now the default content editor in both.

Other shared features:

• Payment Services is listed for “Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source”.
• Inventory Management is, in Adobe’s words, “installed with Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce, with all features enabled by default.”
• Admin two-factor authentication has been required in both since 2.4.0.
• The clearCart GraphQL mutation moved down in 2.4.9. Adobe’s notes say it was “only accessible in Adobe Commerce” before that release.

Check the release notes for your version rather than an old comparison table.

Hosting: self-hosted, Cloud or Cloud Service

Magento Open Source is self-hosted, on your own servers or a hosting provider’s. Adobe’s documentation groups it with on-premises: its badge for Cloud and on-premises content “also includes self-hosted projects based on the Magento Open Source code base.”

Adobe’s feature comparison lists three deployment models for Adobe Commerce:

• On-premises, on infrastructure you manage.
• Adobe Commerce on Cloud, which Adobe calls platform as a service: single-tenant infrastructure Adobe manages, with Fastly included.
• Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service, software as a service on multi-tenant infrastructure.

On-premises and Cloud run the same versioned application as Open Source. Adobe’s comparison says the model “Requires manual upgrade and patching”, with six patch releases and one minor release a year.

Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service, briefly

Cloud Service is “Automatically upgraded by Adobe through a versionless SaaS model.” The trade-off is how you customise it: extensibility is “Out-of-process only (APIs, events, App Builder)”, so PHP modules have to be rebuilt as apps. It is an Adobe Commerce edition, so it comes with an Adobe licence. Our Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service post covers what migrates and what doesn’t.

Support

Adobe’s support comes with Adobe Commerce. Its lifecycle policy says standard support includes “full Adobe Commerce on-call support”, with quality fixes available “by contacting Adobe Commerce Support or through the self-serve Quality Patches Tool.” Its pricing page lists 24x7 support as part of each Adobe Commerce package. Adobe’s Magento Open Source page points you to the community forum and the Magento Association instead.

On Open Source, support is your own team, your host or an agency. We provide Magento and Adobe Commerce support for both editions. It often starts as a takeover of a platform another agency built, and it begins with an audit, not a rebuild. It covers security patching, including Adobe’s out-of-band hotfixes, and upgrades scoped as projects.

Security patches and the lifecycle policy

While a version is in regular support, the two editions get the same releases on the same day. GitHub shows Open Source 2.4.9, 2.4.8-p5, 2.4.7-p10 and 2.4.6-p15 published on 12 May 2026, the dates Adobe lists for Adobe Commerce. Adobe’s article on the September 2026 bulletin, APSB26-138, says Adobe “released a regularly scheduled security update for Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source.”

After regular support, they split. Adobe’s lifecycle policy is written for Adobe Commerce and doesn’t mention Open Source. It gives each release three years of standard support, plus one more year “at no additional cost for Adobe Commerce customers on versions 2.4.6 and 2.4.7.” Adobe’s security patch notes are explicit: “Extended support security patches are available to Adobe Commerce customers only. They are not available for the Magento Open Source code base.”

The September 2026 bulletin shows the effect. Its isolated patches covered 2.4.4 to 2.4.9 for Adobe Commerce, but it notes: “Open Source merchants can only download patches for version 2.4.7 or later.” 2.4.6 left regular support on 11 August 2026.

In practice:

• Open Source on 2.4.6 or older is past regular support and was left out of the September isolated patches. Plan as if support has ended.
• Open Source on 2.4.7 should plan around 31 May 2027, when regular support ends. Adobe Commerce on 2.4.7 has extended support to 31 May 2028.
• 2.4.8 and 2.4.9 are in regular support on both editions.

Every date is in Magento 2.4 end of life dates, and how to apply Magento security patches covers the steps for both editions. Our Magento security tracker lists each 2026 bulletin.

What about Mage-OS?

Mage-OS describes itself as “a community-owned e-commerce platform”. Its distribution is built on Magento, currently based on 2.4.9, and its releases port Adobe’s security fixes. Mage-OS 3.5.0, released on 8 September 2026, ported Adobe’s StyleSmuggler hotfix. It is run by its community, not by Adobe.

When moving to Shopify is the better question

If you are comparing editions because Open Source upgrades keep landing in your budget, or because an Adobe Commerce quote is hard to justify, step back a question. On-premises, Cloud and Open Source all leave you with patching and upgrade projects. Cloud Service removes them, at the cost of rebuilding your customisations.

Adobe Commerce earns its licence when the B2B module, staging, segments and Adobe’s services are in daily use. When the value of the store is in its products and customers rather than in custom commerce logic, Shopify is usually the better platform to run, and it takes hosting and upgrades off your list. Our Adobe Commerce vs Shopify Plus comparison sets out the test.

We look at it from the store’s side. Two of our developers hold Adobe Commerce certifications and three hold Shopify certifications. We have run Aelia Duty Free’s Adobe Commerce platform since 2021, where duty and tax logic, real-time inventory and SAP exports are the reasons the platform fits. Our free stay-or-move assessment gives you a written recommendation, the main risks and the items that decide it.

---

Sources: Magento 2 README, LICENSE.txt (OSL 3.0), COPYING.txt and Releases (magento/magento2 on GitHub), Adobe Commerce packages and pricing, Magento Open Source, Install the Adobe Commerce B2B extension, Introduction to Adobe Commerce B2B, Content staging, Customer segments, Create and delete customer segments, Visual Merchandiser overview, Reward and loyalty programs, Gift card product, Configure returns, Commerce Services Connector, Introduction to Inventory Management, Magento Open Source 2.4.0 release notes, Adobe Commerce 2.4.0 release notes, Magento Open Source 2.4.3 release notes, Magento Open Source 2.4.9 release notes, System requirements, Adobe Commerce product solutions, Adobe Commerce SaaS vs PaaS comparison, Adobe Commerce lifecycle policy, Released versions, Security patch release notes and Security update available for Adobe Commerce, APSB26-138 (Adobe), and Mage-OS.