What is Adobe Commerce as a Service

What is Adobe Commerce as a Service?

Adobe Commerce as a Service is Magento 2, but Adobe maintains it with no capability to change the core application, similar to Shopify and BigCommerce. It is entirely scalable to handle any amount of traffic. Adobe owns the security, reducing merchant risk. Customization is still a core competency, but it's done through API communication instead of modifying the code package.

While this represents a significant change, this solution solves Magento 2's biggest pain points: complex upgrades, security concerns, and site performance issues. It also aligns the Magento 2 platform with modern development practices.

The business case for Open-source vs Software-as-a-Service
We recognize that Magento 2's pillar is "open-source." However, open source is a means to an end. There are very few cases where open source matters to a merchant. Merchants are in the business of making money. Open-source software brings additional risks, and risks mean the possibility of less money.
Software-as-a-service has seen explosive growth partially because it represents less risk: security, costs, scaling, and technical debt. There is less for a merchant to think about. Remember that Shopify doesn't just appeal to small brands. They are making massive headway with the biggest names in eCommerce.

Doesn't Adobe Commerce as a Service eliminate the customization that Magento is known for?

It's critical to note that Adobe is changing how customization happens instead of eliminating customization. And in many ways, this new approach actually makes development more manageable and more scalable. There are three key implications:

Complete Headless Architecture: Commerce as a Service is entirely headless. The browseable customer experience is a completely separate website and code base. There is no more Luma, and Hyva won't work with it either. You can use the frontend experience provided by Adobe or bring your own. This means faster deployments, much less to break, and a significantly smaller learning curve.
Adobe Controls Code and Infrastructure: Adobe entirely controls the code and infrastructure. There are no more painful upgrades, security concerns, or potentially unlimited speed. The result is a dramatic reduction in your risk as a merchant.
Accelerated Core Development: Adobe promises to continue developing on the core because of this control. They can iterate quickly, with the promise that there are no breaking changes. They anticipate having weekly feature releases. While Commerce as a Service is NOT Magento 3, it is the pathway to drastic but backward-compatible transformation of the application.

The result is an entirely different development process from a developer's perspective. While the application remains almost the same, it will eventually feel like a new system.

How will I customize Adobe Commerce as a Service?

This is the key question, and the answer revolves around three main approaches:

AppBuilder: Instead of putting your changes in the same code base as Magento, customizations happen in a separate system called AppBuilder. AppBuilder can modify your admin panel, listen to events from Adobe Commerce, and add extra functionality.
Adobe Exchange Apps: From the Adobe Exchange, customizations are now called "apps" instead of modules. These run from AppBuilder, too.
Separate Frontend: Adobe Commerce as a Service is only available headless, meaning the frontend is an entirely separate website. Of course, the entire frontend experience is open source so developers have no limits. Combined with AppBuilder, you have almost the same flexibility as the old Magento; only now is the blast radius for security and performance problems significantly less.

You might ask, "What if I want to make a deep customization, like keeping an order open after placing it so it can be easily edited?" This is one of the very few potential requirements that doesn't seem possible out of the box. Remember that this customization is extremely invasive with Magento's source code accessible and creates significant maintenance headaches (although it is still likely warranted).

Here's the thing: At the most basic level, an eCommerce platform is just a big database. Even Shopify and BigCommerce store data the same way. That means you can create custom processes that modify how things work—you just have to think about it differently.

Technical Lingo

Adobe is making several changes that will make development much more straightforward:

All entities are now EAV-enabled. Orders, quotes, B2B-entities, etc.
The Adobe Commerce Admin UI SDK provides the capability to add new admin areas as well as hook into customer, order and product views.

To summarize, Adobe's only change is making the source code and database unavailable. Customization happens differently.

Is Adobe Commerce as a Service Right for Me?

If you're already using Adobe Commerce:

There's nothing to change or even consider—with one exception. Your agency partner should leverage React for major frontend customizations and AppBuilder for new features. We at SwiftOtter would love to help you with this. The benefit of this methodology is that it almost entirely eliminates double work with the distant move to Adobe Commerce as a Service.

I'm not worried about Adobe dropping support for your current Commerce configuration. Remember years ago when they said they wouldn't keep supporting Luma? It's still here and has been kept up-to-date. Adobe stresses that its support for existing Commerce configurations will not change.

If You're Considering Adobe Commerce

If you're considering Adobe Commerce, we need to discuss its pros and cons concerning your brand. It's not right for everyone, but it's a slam dunk when it is.

If you are going with the paid version, I strongly discourage launching a new website using the old open-source methodology (on-premise or cloud-hosted): go with Commerce as a Service. Don't even consider open-source, as it will eventually be discontinued—not for many years, but it will happen. You want a platform that will grow with you and not have a deadline, even if it's far in the future.

The Bottom Line

Adobe Commerce as a Service represents a significant shift in the core capability to customize Magento.

This is necessary because tools like Shopify and BigCommerce have stolen a significant portion of Magento's market share. And Adobe has to respond. And they have.

Merchants have long complained about expensive upgrades, "whack-a-mage" and slow performance. By separating the frontend, making Adobe responsible for core code maintenance, and providing new customization tools, Commerce as a Service could offer the best of both worlds: Magento's flexibility with SaaS-like reliability and performance.

For merchants, this means reduced technical debt, faster innovation, and potentially lower total cost of ownership – without sacrificing the ability to create unique customer experiences.