Sana vs. Adobe Commerce: Which B2B e-commerce platform should you build on?

Some platforms arrive as finished products, while others arrive as powerful toolkits. Adobe Commerce (Magento) is the most capable toolkit in B2B e-commerce. It can be turned into almost anything, provided you have the developers to make it so. Sana Commerce takes the opposite approach. You get a complete B2B manufacturing store, built directly on top of the SAP or Microsoft Dynamics ERP you already run, and have it ready before the first sprint is planned.

Both platforms handle B2B well on paper. Company accounts, quoting, customer-specific pricing, and self-service appear on both feature lists. The choice between them is really a choice about your team and what it wants to build. To help you decide, let’s explore how the two platforms compare.

Adobe Commerce at a glance

Adobe Commerce is one of the most established names in e-commerce. It's an open, highly customizable platform with Magento Commerce roots and a developer ecosystem to match. Its B2B credentials are native, not bolted on. The B2B module comes included in the Adobe Commerce license (it's not part of the free Magento Open Source) and covers company accounts, shared catalogs, negotiable quotes, requisition lists, quick order, and purchase order approvals.

Teams with development resources can shape nearly every part of the storefront, plug it in through a large marketplace of extensions, run complex multi-site and multi-brand operations, and connect it to the wider Adobe Experience Cloud. On the AI side, commercial editions include Live Search and Product Recommendations, both powered by Adobe Sensei's machine learning.

The flip side is that all of this assumes you have builders. Adobe Commerce is a platform you assemble. The native B2B toolkit covers the fundamentals out of the box. Making it work against a live ERP at real catalog scale, and adding anything parts-specific, is where the development dependency shows up.

Sana Commerce at a glance

Where Adobe Commerce hands you the toolkit, Sana Commerce hands you the store. Founded in Rotterdam in 2007, it was built for manufacturers and wholesalers running SAP or Microsoft Dynamics, all on the idea that an e-commerce solution should run on top of the ERP rather than next to it.

Sana Commerce creates a new future of connected commerce. The store arrives complete and already shaped for technical selling. Its complex product offerings centralize product management across catalogs with thousands of attributes, and guided buying tools get a parts buyer to the exact component. Content management, order management, and a self-service portal that takes routine order questions off your customer support team round out the store, all pulling live ERP data straight into the storefront. Gartner has named Sana in the Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce four years running, and the industries of our customers around the world include in manufacturing, industrial equipment and spare parts, construction, chemicals, medical supplies, and electronics.

Nothing is copied and nothing is synced, so what a buyer sees is what the ERP says at that moment. There's no connector app to choose and no sync schedule to watch. Sana Commerce Cloud is a SaaS platform and a certified SAP and Microsoft Gold Partner, with native, certified ERP integration for SAP and Microsoft Dynamics ERP systems, including:

• SAP ECC
• SAP S/4HANA
• SAP Business One
• Microsoft Dynamics AX, F&O/SCM
• Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Business Central

The first difference: A platform you build, or a platform built for you

Adobe Commerce gives you near-total flexibility, and that flexibility assumes you have developers to build, configure, and maintain what they create. Adobe's native B2B module genuinely covers company accounts, catalogs, quoting, and requisition lists without extensions. The development dependency starts the moment that toolkit meets a live ERP with thousands of SKUs, and it deepens with anything parts-specific, because none of that ships in the box.

Sana ships as a complete B2B manufacturing store. Parts buying, account complexity, and reorder behavior are built in rather than developed, which is the difference between a platform you assemble and one that arrives ready for how B2B manufacturers actually sell.

What this asks of your team

• Time to launch

  Sana is a ready-to-use B2B store. Adobe's native B2B module still typically requires significant implementation work to connect to a live ERP and scale to a full catalog before buyers see it.

• Team requirements

  Sana is configured by your team. Adobe depends on developers for ERP integration, catalog performance, and any parts-specific buying experience.

• B2B depth out of the box

  Visual and guided part search, exploded views, and BOM-style reordering are built into Sana. Adobe's native B2B module doesn't include them; that layer is custom development, even though company accounts and quoting are native.

• Ongoing ownership

  Sana maintains the product and the ERP connection. On Adobe, your team maintains the build, the extensions, and the integration through every upgrade cycle.

The second difference: An ERP connection you get, or one you build

Adobe Commerce connects to the ERP through middleware, extensions, or custom integrations. Adobe's own integration starter kit speeds this up with prebuilt data flows for back-office systems, from ERPs like SAP S/4HANA and Dynamics 365 to CRM platforms, but Adobe positions it as an accelerator for developers, not a finished connector. Whichever route you take, the result is bi-directional synchronization, and with webhooks and event-based flows, that synchronization can run in near real time. The platform still keeps its own copy of pricing, product, and customer data, and that copy has to stay in step with SAP or Dynamics.

Sana is built with the ERP as its foundation, reading directly from SAP or Dynamics at the moment a buyer requests it. Pricing, inventory, and account data are always current because the ERP stays the single source of truth and there's nothing to synchronize. Orders land in the ERP the moment they're placed, so order processing starts immediately instead of waiting on an import.

What this asks of your team

• Pricing accuracy

  Adobe integrations can be built to push updates in near real time through webhooks. Sana removes the copy that needs updating altogether, reading each customer's price live from the ERP at the moment of the request.  

• Data maintenance

  One database with Sana, so inventory management lives in one place. Two systems kept in step with Adobe, which is more work and more room for drift.

• Integration maintenance

  Sana's certified connectors are Sana's responsibility through every ERP and platform update. An Adobe integration needs attention from your team or integrator each time either side changes.

• Implementation

  Sana arrives with pre-built, certified connectors. Adobe's route runs through middleware and integration development, with the starter kit trimming the build time but leaving the design, the ERP-side work, and the ownership with your team.

The third difference: Growth tools out of the box, or from the ecosystem

Sana includes built-in analytics and a Commerce Console that surfaces reorder and replenishment patterns as they form, and Workflows turns them into action without a developer. Set a rule (say a buyer who hasn't ordered in 60 days or an account slipping below its usual spend), and the follow-up runs automatically. Sana's AI also pitches in behind the scenes, auto-generating product descriptions and attributes and powering guided part search.

Adobe's strength here is different. Deep customization, a large extension marketplace, and the AI-powered search and recommendations in its commercial editions give a well-resourced team plenty to build with. The capability is available, and the assembly is yours. With Sana, the same growth tooling comes wired in from day one, working from ERP data that's already live.

What this asks of your team

• Where insight lives

  Reorder and replenishment patterns appear in Commerce Console out of the box. Adobe offers reporting natively, and deeper or more tailored insight comes through extensions and the wider Adobe stack.

• Follow-up

  Sana's Workflows run without a developer. Adobe automation beyond the built-in rules is developer-configured.
  What the tooling assumes: Sana's growth tooling is ready to use. Adobe's growth capability must be assembled.

Sana Commerce vs. Adobe Commerce: Feature comparison

Here's a full look at how the two B2B commerce platforms compare:

Where Adobe Commerce has an edge

Adobe Commerce didn't become a market leader by accident. Before weighing it against Sana, it's worth being clear about what it genuinely does well.

• Open-source flexibility and deep customization

  If your requirements genuinely don't fit any standard product, Adobe can be shaped to match them. Few platforms can say that.

• A large extension and developer ecosystem

  Years of Magento history mean an enormous pool of extensions, agencies, and developers who know the platform.

• The Adobe Experience Cloud

  For companies already invested in Adobe's marketing and experience stack, the connection is a real asset.

• Account and quoting tools out of the box

  Company accounts, quoting, and requisition lists work without third-party extensions, included in the Adobe Commerce license.

The honest cost of all that capability is the build. More customization means a higher price to launch, a longer wait to go live, and upkeep that lands on your team rather than the vendor. The flexibility is real, and so is the work.

Where Sana Commerce has an edge

For manufacturers and wholesalers on SAP or Microsoft Dynamics, Sana delivers as a product what Adobe offers as a project.

• Parts buying without a build

  Visual and guided part search, exploded views, and BOM-style reordering ship in the box. On Adobe, that layer is custom development before the first buyer sees it.

• An ERP connection that's already done

  Certified connectors Sana builds and maintains, covering SAP from Business One to S/4HANA and Dynamics from AX to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, with no middleware to license, no third-party connector to manage, and no integration project on your roadmap.

• Accuracy nobody has to engineer

  Every price, stock level, and account term matches the ERP at that exact moment. That matters when 75% of B2B buyers say they'd switch suppliers for a better online experience.

• Faster time-to-value

  A complete store plus pre-built connectors means launching in a fraction of the time of an enterprise build, with your developers free for the work only they can do.

• Analytics on day one

  Commerce Console and Insights surface reorder and replenishment patterns out of the box, not after an analytics phase.

• Upkeep that stays with the vendor

  Sana maintains the product and the connection through every ERP and platform update. Nothing lands on your team's backlog when either side changes, and there's no bench of Magento developers to keep on retainer.
   

Which platform matches your resources?

Both are serious platforms with different assumptions about your team. When you're choosing an e-commerce platform, it all comes down to the same question: what do you want to build versus what do you want to run?

Sana Commerce makes sense when...

• You sell equipment, parts, or consumables. The parts-buying experience your customers need is built in, not scoped into a project.
• SAP or Microsoft Dynamics is your source of truth. Live ERP reads on every visit mean nobody has to engineer accuracy into the store.
• You want a complete B2B store without a custom build. Configured by your team, not developed by a bench.
• Your developers have better things to do. The ERP connection, the storefront, and the upkeep all stay with Sana, so internal capacity goes to the projects only your team can do.

Adobe Commerce makes sense when...

• Your requirements genuinely fit no standard product. Deep customization is Adobe's home turf, provided you can sustain the team that shapes it through every upgrade.
• You run complex multi-site or multi-brand operations. Many storefronts, brands, and regions from one installation is a real Adobe strength.
• You're already invested in the Adobe Experience Cloud. The ecosystem connection compounds what you've built.

What to ask before the build begins

A standard demo won't show you the build behind it. These questions will:

• "Do you read our SAP or Dynamics pricing live, or on a sync schedule?" The architecture question, first and always. The starter kit accelerates the sync; it doesn't remove it.
• "What does the ERP integration require to build and maintain, and who owns it after an ERP upgrade?" Get the answer in hours and roles, not adjectives.
• "Which native B2B features work out of the box for our catalog size, and where does custom development start?" Company accounts and quoting are native. Make the vendor draw the line precisely for your catalog and your pricing structure.
• "Can you show a buyer finding and reordering a part by machine or image, not just SKU?" If the answer involves a roadmap or a partner, you've learned what you needed to know.
• "What development resources does a deployment like ours typically need, at launch and in year two?" Ask for the reference architecture of a comparable customer, including the integrator. Year two is where the honest number lives.
• "Can you demo with our ERP, not a sample environment?" A vendor confident in their connection will show live data.

Why manufacturers on SAP and Dynamics choose Sana Commerce over a build

Do you want a commerce channel built on top of your ERP and made for how your buyers actually buy, or one you have to build out, connect through a sync, and maintain from that day forward?

With Sana, the ERP is the foundation, not a second system to manage. The store arrives complete, the connectors are certified and Sana-maintained, and your developers stay free for the projects only they can do. And because Sana builds for SAP and Dynamics only, the implementation, the support, and the roadmap are all built around your ERP.

If you're ready to see what a live, ERP-built connection looks like for your business, request a demo and see it running on your very own data instead of just a sample environment.