A detailed analysis of the administrative features in Adobe Commerce and BigCommerce

In this article, we discuss the differences between Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento 2) and BigCommerce in relation to the administration. You will see how each system behaves so you can determine which is a better fit for your needs.

Predefined reports

Adobe Commerce

Reports are the heartbeat of an ecommerce experience.

While Adobe Commerce does have a list of reports available, many could be more helpful. Additionally, these reports are not configurable. However, most installations come with a license to Business Intelligence, a SQL-powered system for creating custom reports. Many reports have been defined out of the box with unlimited opportunities beyond this.

Report highlights:

• Number of orders, amount of tax, amount of shipping
• Orders by customer
• Bestselling products
• Low stock products

BigCommerce

While BigCommerce has what seems to be comparatively few reports, they are quite flexible. For example, highlights are shown, and most reports can be filtered by customer, product, or order. Additionally, an additional suite of reports is unlocked for a small upcharge. A low-stock product report is also available.

Report highlights:

• Marketing and Purchase funnel
• Orders and sales tax
• Merchandising

Using the admin interface

One of the first things you will notice in Adobe Commerce is the common grid component (also known as uiComponents in the developer community). Developers can easily create new grids and can heavily customize the grid.

For the sake of simplicity, we will compare the Order grid controls. Grids are similar across the board in Adobe Commerce. They aren’t as consistent on the BigCommerce side, but it’s fairly close.

Note that we aren't going to comment on the inline edit capabilities of Adobe Commerce. In our experience, few use this feature and it often causes trouble.

Grid filters

Adobe Commerce

Any column’s value can be filtered. There are rich capabilities for dropdown lists and date ranges—in context.

BigCommerce

Columns are filterable, along with easy search options. While visually different, the net result is the same. Note that this is not in-context and you are directed to a different page.

Columns

Adobe Commerce

Any column can be shown or hidden.

BigCommerce

No control over what columns are shown. This has a more rich display of order information as the order view is integrated into the order grid.

Save grid view

Adobe Commerce

You can save the current view selection (filters, columns, sort) for easy future retrieval.

BigCommerce

Create a custom view with advanced search and sort order.

2-factor authentication

Adobe Commerce

Adobe Commerce provides 2FA capabilities through authenticator codes (Google Authenticator, but this also works with 1Password and LastPass), Duo and Authy.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce supports 2FA through authenticator codes (Google Authenticator, but this also works with 1Password and LastPass), Duo and Authy. They also support email verification.

Access roles

How do you control which areas a store administrator has access to?

Adobe Commerce

Adobe Commerce separates users and roles. Roles provide centralized control over what users can do. Users are assigned to roles. Feature control within roles is very granular.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce supports 2FA through authenticator codes (Google Authenticator, but this also works with 1Password and LastPass), Duo and Authy. They also support email verification.

BigCommerce provides default sets of permissions: Sales Staff, Sales Manager, Store Administrator, and Store Owner. Once the default is selected, the Store administrator can further customize which features are allowed.

Admin action logging

Having logs of what is done in the admin can be a lifesaver. "How did that product disappear?" We aren't recommending this for pointing fingers, but...

Adobe Commerce

Adobe Commerce provides extensive logging. Specific actions can be selected for logging. They can be archived after a set number of days. These logs can be exported.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce logs all admin actions into a searchable grid. Unfortunately, these logs are not exportable.

Import/Export

What control do administrators have about pushing and pulling data into the platform?

Adobe Commerce

Store administrators can export the following entities:

• Products
• Inventory
• Pricing
• Customers and addresses
• Orders (from the order grid)

Everything can be imported except for orders. Administrators can control basic CSV settings. Exports are a bulk action and can be delayed while the system builds the file in the background. One thing to note is that product exports merge all custom attributes into one field, making editing almost impossible.

BigCommerce

Store administrators can export the following entities:

• Products
• Inventory
• Pricing
• Customers and addresses
• Orders

Orders cannot be imported by CSV. Exports can be customized through templates. This makes repeating operations faster and more reliable.

Import/Export Scheduling

Adobe Commerce

Store administrators can import or export any of the standard import/export entities from the local hosting environment or via FTP. This can be done daily, weekly, or monthly. The Store administrator can be notified upon failure.

BigCommerce

This functionality does not exist natively

URL Control

How much control do Store administrators have over the URL structure of their website?

Adobe Commerce

Store administrators can control the URL suffix of products and categories (ie, to add a ".html" suffix). They can also allow product URLs to include the category path. Past that, all customization requires a developer.

BigCommerce

Using some seemingly basic configuration, Store administrators can completely customize URL formatting for products, categories, and pages. There are some additional placeholders for further customization. In other words, BigCommerce can accommodate almost any URL structure, reducing the complexity of this area of migration.