Magento - A ZenCart Killer?

[Spiderden]

I only discovered this OS project recently but from what I've seen of it and if the hype is anything to go by then Magento is not only going to leave Zen and OSC standing, it's going to give many of the commercial packages a run for their money. It's due for release before the end of August.

Is it as good as it looks or is it more hype than substance?

[awebapart.com]

Thanks for the link, it is certainly another system to keep on the radar. Having the hype and sounding good on paper is one thing, but it is not the same as having a large existing client base of shop owners that have successfully put the system to use in many different areas, which osCommerce and Zencart have. There is also another osCommerce v2.x killer (and possibly Zencart killer) on the horizon, in the form of osCommerce v3 (which is currently in alpha).

[Blush]

I am looking to set up a second site so this is all goo d news for me:)
I may just give magento a try out and then I can compare it to the zencart I currently run.

[Spiderden]

I've been keeping an eye on the progress of osCommerce v3 too, it'll be interesting to see how that turns out.
As soon as Magento's released, I'll install it and report back.

[SWServices]

Looks like its going to be a good bit of kit! Even the video tutorials are easy to understand.

NOTE: It will be a while before its 'fit for purpose'

Taken from the blog:

With the pending release of Magento’s Beta1 preview (by August 31), we’d like to reiterate a few important points that have been discussed on the blog (through postings and comments) in the last few weeks.

This is Magento’s preview version and an early release of the product. We expect bugs (and lots of ‘em) given the complexity and intricacy of the system. As such, we strongly advise not to use in production environments at this time. Many things may change as we receive feedback (including the core), so please take this into consideration when making a decision.
We’ve been contacted by hundreds of individuals from across the world that wish to take part in beta testing. This is your time to shine http://www.magentocommerce.com/blog/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif … and we look forward to working together to address any issues that may come up.
Documentation is an area that will be greatly improved on in the weeks to come. If you feel you can contribute (as a developer or an end-user), get in touch with us - we’d love your help.
The upcoming community site will provide a platform for us all to communicate. We are excited to start working with the community and getting feedback about the product. So don’t be shy http://www.magentocommerce.com/blog/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif
Support for international users is coming. We are currently focused on the architecture and core feature set. Once everything is stable, we’ll be working with our friends from across the world to adapt Magento to the local flavors. This is an important part of our strategy and you can be assured we are coming your way.James

[Spiderden]

I've just installed Beta1, and all I can say is WOW!

If you want a preview have a look at 80.175.41.146 I've only just begun to feel my way around the admin panel so the site is likely to change over the next couple of hours, but feel free to poke around.

If you want to install it yourselves, you can get it from magentocommerce.com though you should check the system requirements beforehand as many servers won't be up to the job.

Linux or another UNIX-compatible operating system (Windows is also supported, but see the Known Issues section below)
Apache Web Server (1.x or 2.x)
PHP 5.2.0 or newer, with the following extensions/addons:
POD/MySQL
MySQLi
mcrypt
mhash
simplexml
DOM
MySQL 4.1.20 or newer
A Sendmail-compatible Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) - Magento will connect directly to an SMTP server if you don't have an MTAApparently you can get it to run on a PHP4 server if you can run PHP5 as a CGI.

From what I've seen so far, it's very, very impressive.

[awebapart.com]

Thanks for setting up the demo site, very helpful. The public side of the site certainly looks interesting at a first glance, it looks better than the osCommerce v2 default installation (although with ecommerce systems, looks aren't everything and the devil is certainly in the detail), but nevertheless it is interesting and worth investigating further.

[Spiderden]

The admin panel is pretty impressive too, a few of the nice features it has by default are user roles e.g. retail & wholesale so you can set different tariffs. Shipping to multiple addresses which will be handy if you sell gift type items and full privilege control over other admin accounts.

I haven't come across any bugs yet, though a few have been reported on their forums. It's all positive so far but I'll dig a little deeper over the next few days.

[awebapart.com]

Having a look at the download I think the sheer size of the thing is going to put some people off and possibly be one of its downfalls - I thought osCommerce was complex!

The magento zip file is 58MB which expands on disk to take up around 300MB, for this kind of size I thought it might be due to some large video files, but apart from 40MB of shop product images, the rest is just a load of source files and directories. Compare this to osCommerce v3 alpha which is less than a 2MB zip and expands to 43MB on disk, and it does very much favour one over the other in the lean and mean, KISS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle) (keep it simple stupid), stakes - one of the first things I judge a system by.

My initial guess is that magento has probably been over-engineered too much from an OO (object-oriented) purist viewpoint, and whilst that can be a blessing in terms of maintenance, it can also be a curse in terms of putting people off using and contributing, upping the development skillset required for contributors, etc. I have mentioned this subject before in a previous post (http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=31989&page=3#post219135), suggesting that one reason why osCommerce 2 is easier for more people to modify than ZenCart is because Zencart is better structured and layered from a professional developer perspective, which can put off more novice developers. osCommerce v3 alpha does have a better architecture but I wouldn't call it over-engineered.

I've seen over-engineered, too OO development projects fail before in a previous life working for financial institutions in the city - my favourite phrase at that time was 'it will all end in tiers (tears)' due to over engineered systems being so multi-tiered that most developers couldn't work out what was going on. These systems are usually developed by architects who are too clever for their own good, and it means that anyone not so clever (i.e. almost everyone else) cannot understand the system. Have a look at the hello world developer joke (http://www.ariel.com.au/jokes/The_Evolution_of_a_Programmer.html) for an idea of what I'm getting at, whereby something that should be really simple, a program to write hello world, can get too complicated if you're too clever and over engineer it.

I could well be wrong since this is just my first reaction to looking at the Magento code, it could be the most beautifully OO engineered system ever, but generally I'm not a big fan of code bases that look too over-complex, too over-engineered, or too over-sized.

Perhaps the people behind Magento are clever, and perhaps they have some simple program which generates all of this code (which is often the case for code bases this big), if so I wonder if that is open source too?

[computerfaq]

It looks good to me, but no multipul images, which isn't a good thing.

[Spiderden]

That would have been the SVN download you saw, someone has provided an SVN free version on their forum to download that is 5.37MB zipped.

The biggest problem I can see with it are the system requirements to install it in the first place. Many current Zen and OSC users I know won't be able to use it with out changing servers.

It'll be interesting to see how it matches up to OSC V3.

[Spiderden]

It looks good to me, but no multipul images, which isn't a good thing.

I hadn't thought about multiple images until I saw your post as I don't usually use them. I just checked in admin and you can add what appears to be an unlimited number of images to each product.

Another interesting feature I found is the ability to run more then one store from a single installation.

[computerservices]

There's still alot of hosting companies' plans that won't meet the system requirements which is going to cause huge problems - meaning mainly that only "technical" people could use it easily to start with...

I think the other thing it lacks is a large community and set of contributions like OSC has, but I suppose this would grow in time...

[awebapart.com]

That would have been the SVN download you saw, someone has provided an SVN free version on their forum to download that is 5.37MB zipped.

That's better, a 5.37MB zip is a far more sensible size than 58MB!

It'll be interesting to see how it matches up to OSC V3.
I think Magento's timing is great for the osCommerce v3 alpha as Magento's beta availability now should up the ante for what finally gets delivered in osCommerce v3 in the coming months. Before Magento, there wasn't much competition in the free open source ecommerce arena, with just osCommerce (and its derivatives like Zencart and CRELoaded) and VirtueMart as the main players. A little bit of extra competition should raise the bar all round. Whether Magento's timing is good for Magento is another matter, perhaps it shouldn't have shown its hand so early with osCommerce v3 around the corner, perhaps it should have kept itself under wraps until osCommerce v3 was released.

[Spiderden]

I agree, Magenta entering the areana is good for for the whole industry and I'd be surprised if the folks at osCommerce haven't already installed a copy and giving it a good going over. Whether the timing is good or not for Magenta only time will tell, but if I was Varien then I think I would have held back until osc had put their cards on the table. Eitherway, it is a win win situation for those of us who have to install and use ecommerce S/W.

I think the server requirements will hold up the initial take-up for a while but I imagine they've given priority to making the core of the code as future proof as it's possible to be in the eCommerce industry at the expense gaining a larger userbase very quickly. Whether this was a good move or not, only time will tell.

[openmind]

Paul, satisfy my curiosity, exactly how long has OSC v3 been in development?

[awebapart.com]

Paul, satisfy my curiosity, exactly how long has OSC v3 been in development?
Phil, the way you have phrased your question suggests that you are asking a rhetorical question and you think the answer is something like 'ages, with ages still to go' and you could well be right!

If you see osCommerce v3 as a natural progression of an evolving system, a third version of osCommerce, then osCommerce as a whole has been in development since 2000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OsCommerce) when work was first started on the system.

Since osCommerce v3 is a redesign and rewrite, it could also be seen as a new relatively young system, even though it is building on the features, experience, feedback and some contributions of previous versions and should be backwards compatible providing a migration path for default v2.x systems to migrate up. The first public beta of osCommerce v3, Alpha 3 (http://www.oscommerce.com/about/news,125) was made available in September 2006. Alpha 4 (http://www.oscommerce.com/about/news,126) was released in March 2007, and there are 2 more alpha drops 5 and 6 (http://forums.oscommerce.com/index.php?showtopic=270025) planned before a final release is made, so we're probably talking 2008, and not early 2008. I don't know much about when work started on Alphas 1 and 2 as these weren't public releases.

Personally, my company has been too busy - we still are! - improving osCommerce v2.x turning it into a professional and customiseable ecommerce system as part of our sitebuilder service. It is nice to know there is a roadmap and future strategy with osCommerce v3 and to plan for this, but we wont be rushing into the upgrade, we don't want to get caught out being too bleeding edge, we'll only think about upgrading when the time is right and v3.x is stable. A bit like some companies not upgrading their PCs to a major new Windows operating system until the first service pack is released.

[openmind]

Phil, the way you have phrased your question suggests that you are asking a rhetorical question and you think the answer is something like 'ages, with ages still to go' and you could well be right!

Rumbled ;)

Fair points there and it's something I see an awful lot in the Open Source community. phpBB3 is another example for being in development for years and only now just coming to fruition ;)

[NullMind]

what exacly makes it better than zencart (magento) .. I see allot of eye candy, but anybody dug into the code and can say for sure it will be more reliable ?

and Paul, is there a live demo of OSC 3 anywhere ?

[awebapart.com]

Paul, is there a live demo of OSC 3 anywhere ?
I don't know of any live demos, but there is a download link, so people can set it up themselves, on the osCommerce v3 Alpha 4 news page (http://www.oscommerce.com/about/news,126).

[Xirgo]

I have been waiting until this one was released.

I haven't tested it on my server yet but looking at the screenshots and features it's definitely worth using. At the moment it only supports Paypal and Authorize.net, once they start supporting more gateways I'm sure it will be a killer.

[Busy Outdoors.Com]

CubeCart V4 is just about to be launched as well.