Magneto Vs Opencart VS WP woocommerce Vs Shopify which is best ??

[2012]

Which is the best eCommerce platform in 2019 for a local store, website managed by a single person with minimum funding ?

We have 2x magento sites on magento 1.9 multistore (single backend) they could do with a some updates and fixes and im thinking of either switching to another platform, like wordpress, opencart ect. or just revamping magento .


I know I did start a thread end of last year comparing WP and opencart but never moved the site due to the xmas season, I never had time to do much so I'm taking another fresh look this year and check my option.

My thoughts on each platform.

Wordpress / Woocommerce

Pros - Wordpress light weight, east and simple to use, it has a lot of options, WP has a lot more developers who use it,

Cons - Not really built to be a eCommerce platform, will need to stick a few plugins together along with customisation to create a eCommerce site, Will be bloated and slower with all the extras, Very common so will likely be attracted more often ,

Is it really that good or is it getting recommended because its easy to work with and most developer use it but have not really done much with the others.

Magento 1.9

Pros - Professional looking, Doe most of what you need out of the box,
Con - Resource hog you will need a very good host, A bit dated, confusing and complicated.,

Opencart

Ive not sured his for a long time so I dont know what it will be like but here is my thought from afar.

Pros- Fast, Does most of what you would need out of the box, simple and easy to use
Cons - Theme dont really look professional, seam a bit dated and simple.

Shopify
Pros - most of the work is done for you
Cons - monthly cost

Magento 2
Dont really know much about it.



My reason of thinking of changing platforms
1. We are only a small local store and have done very little on magento platform, We use to do better on the basic opencart setup but that was a number of years ago maybe it was due to the market at the time im not sure.
2. Im just one person that manages the sites and it not a easy platform to use or understand as some of you may know, its had a lot of on going issues over the years and magento experts do cost a lot more then the others developers, I only stuck with it because we spent a lot of money to get the site built and switch to a new platform would cost more money I dont have to spend on this. I''ve never had good experience with it, it alway get a big issue every few month which I then need to pay someone else to fix it, cost to fix is much higher then others platforms and Its a resource hog so it needs powerful host or a server to run,

3. From what I've been told next year will be the last year for magento 1.9 support and It will switching to magento 2 which will require a rebuild and cost a bit due to it being magento, so It will need to be rebuilt at some point.

if it was a easier platform I could fix a lot of the issues myself, more of the buying market is going online so we need to have a good reliable and safe site.



Why I think I should sticking with magento, revamping, fixing it and updating.

We have a OK site, it has some SEO which I don't want to loose, I've been told magneto is still one of the better platforms,

I don't want to switch and thing I should not have .


Please let me know your thoughts.

 

[fisicx]

Nobody can answer your question without knowing an awful lot more about your business.

I would say one thing though about Wordpress/woo. If configured properly it can be blisteringly fast. Woo sites are often slow because people keep adding plugins instead of adding the functionality to their theme files.

 

[Raw Rob]

Can't answer your question, but just wanted to note that Magento 1 reaches End of Life June 2020, no more security updates after then: https://magento.com/blog/magento-news/supporting-magento-1-through-june-2020

 

[WebshopMechanic]

Nobody can answer your question without knowing an awful lot more about your business.

I would say one thing though about Wordpress/woo. If configured properly it can be blisteringly fast. Woo sites are often slow because people keep adding plugins instead of adding the functionality to their theme files.

Yup, agreed. I had a client the other day that had 52 plugins running! Needless to say, the site was slllllooooooow.

Plugin obviously have their place but 52 plugins, developed by 52 different parties (all tested with Wordpress but NOT each other) and some would be updated and others left to gather dust, will cause issues somewhere along the line.

:-s

 

[sherbetdipdab]

Can't answer your question, but just wanted to note that Magento 1 reaches End of Life June 2020, no more security updates after then: https://magento.com/blog/magento-news/supporting-magento-1-through-june-2020

They’ll probably extend that. But yeah not forever.

 

[Raw Rob]

They’ll probably extend that. But yeah not forever.

I wouldn't count on it. This is already the extension!

 

[husseycoding]

My advice to you would be to do some solid research on each potential framework you are considering around the features your store must have. Basically ignore what others might tell you about what is the 'best' etc and find out for yourself which one best fits your business needs.

Look at what each framework does out of the box, and if one of them doesn't do all you need, and there is no extension available either for free or at a workable price then you might want to take that framework out of the equation.

It's also worth considering if any of them come across as really overkill for your requirements - so maybe there is a good percentage of features you can never see yourself using, you might also want to take any like this out of the equation as well as it could prove to introduce an unneeded overhead in the future, both in terms of potential performance and cost associated to running and developing the store, i.e. the framework might be heavier meaning you could need higher grade hosting costing more and development costs/extensions may cost more.

And obviously also consider cost, both initial to get the store up and running and ongoing to maintain and develop the store. Some choices will have ongoing costs just to use the platform, others won't, but you should also weight initial costs along side that, so a framework with no ongoing cost will likely have a greater initial cost, but in the long terms will always win out over a store that has an ongoing cost to just use.

Basically any of the popular e-commerce solutions will work just fine for running a store, and it's not the case that one is better than all the others, it's more that each attempts to target itself to a slightly different market, i.e. if you want all singing all dancing, you will probably want to go with Magento, if you want something easy to setup which lets you hit the ground running quickly, but doesn't have so many features you might want to go with Shopify. Ultimately you are the only person who can really answer your own question as it completely depends on your needs and your business.

As a Magento developer I can say that Magento 2 is a massively improved option compared to Magento 1. The codebase is based on modern coding principles and the build is incomparably better than Magento 1. It's also being very actively developed with major new additions being released pretty regularly (at least once a year) for instance the recent release of 2.3 added elasticsearch to the open source addition, and added MSI (multi source inventory) for those business who have multiple warehouses. Magento have really made a push to add much of the functionality that people might have regularly bought as an extension in Magento 1, as bundled functionality in Magento 2 (i.e. full page cache in open source, easy admin grid customisation). They are also adding swathes of completely new functionality as well, such as the significant inroads they are making into the B2B market with the ability to have companies and hierarchies within that against customers.

So if you are after the all singing all dancing option, then Magento 2 is a great choice, but if not it might fall into the overkill category, and although there are no ongoing costs to use it, development costs could be higher.

 

[2012]

@fisicx @WebshopMechanic @sherbetdipdab @Raw Rob @husseycoding
Thanks guys for taking the time to help me out,

I am still comparing my options as its not something simple but either way I look at it I will still need to move away from my currant build, as raw rob said Magento 1 reaches End of Life June 2020 which I think was extended from 2018.

Does anyone have a good up to date comparison of eCommerce platforms, I can try and get the info from the site but most of them are a bit long winded spreading the features over 10 pages.

Im also going to check out the demos to get a idea of how the backends work (maybe I will like one over the others.


I know If I go with

Wordoress Is fast and simple but its not made to be eCommerce site, it does seam ok for a few products and very small show but it will need to a little more work to start with like plugins to add features and security ect.

also Im not sure how good it will be for a few hundred products or how professional it will look to customers.

Does anyone know of any woocomerce site beyond the basic site offering 10 products which I could see to get a idea ?

Open cart was a good platform in the past but it never get much attention, I dont even see that many developers promoting they support it, which make me wonder why.

Shopify - I dont really want to pay a month fee and still do most of the work.


@husseycoding Is magento 2 any faster or would it still need a VPS or a server and does it break as much 1.9 ?

 

[Raw Rob]

Does anyone know of any woocomerce site beyond the basic site offering 10 products which I could see to get a idea ?

I've currently got 80 products on my Woocommerce site, most of them are variable products with both size and colour variations. I'm very happy with it, although it's still work in progress https://www.zazeka.com

I'm also developing a Magento 2 site, it's a lot more complex than Woocommerce, it's taking a lot longer to build, but I think it has a lot more features out of the box.

 

[2012]

Thanks rob,

Just came across something called prestashop has anyone used it before ?

 

[2012]

I have tried out the demos of all platforms I have listed not inc shopify

From my basic overview my top 2 choices are Prestashop and Magento 2

Both msgrnto and prestashop are Getting ongoing feature update. both Feazture rich, Clean modern design in the both front and backend.
They are both easy to use but prestashop maybe a little simpler to use, I dont find magento 2 hard or confusing but that maybe because I've been using magento 1.9 both are built as ecommerce platforms so both are secure and have a lot of builtin features but Prestashop does have some issue here, most of the addons are paid.
Prestashop needs some addon for payments like paypal, stripes but they are free and the shipping option we use (price vs destination) is not available without paying a large amount..
Magento on the other hand has all the features we need plus more, a lot of the addons are free.

PrestaShop uses low resource and is faster not sure by how much but you could run it on a normal shared host, Magento 2 should be 25% faster then magemto 1.9 but you would still need a good host or server.
Magento and prestashop both have good looking starter themes and you can buy some descent pre-made theme, I've seen a few developers offering service for magento but non that I have come across offer prestashop unless you ask, which im not sure why but magento development does cost more from what I've seen.


Opencart is Fast, light and a Clean design like woocommerce but built to be a secure eCommerce platform, it has all the basic setting but most of the advance features are addon,
I think its a little dated compared to the others in terms of setup, features and design.
Seam to use load of tab and categories for ever little thing instead of having them together when possible, After 10 mins of looking I could not find the location of the shipping and payments setting,, All advance features are addon's. I've also not seen many developer's supporting it.

Wordpress is good but I think would be better for wordpress site looking to add a shop or a smaller shop not looking for too much.

 

[fisicx]

A old client of mine had a WordPress site with over 5000 products and they did just fine

It’s not the number of products, it’s how the site is configured that slows it down.

 

[dcart]

A few points for Opencart:

1. It is the fastest of all e-commerce.
2. It is not just an extension like woocomerce.
3. It is very easy to use.
4. It has great graphics especially on Themeforest.
5. It's safe, even without updates.
6. It has hundreds of free extensions.
7. It has thousands of cheap extensions.
8. The community's response on the forum is instant.

 

[2012]

The more look the the harder it gets to choose,

Everyone has their own options which is the best but im still stuck scratching my head.


I had another look at opencart, I found you need to enable the shipping and paynment options in extensions, it also has a lot of free extensions which can be added, but I still find the backend little dated and harder to understand, maybe it because im use to magento, the front is also dated but maybe that can be fixed with a theme.

What supprised me is magento 2 looks like a good option, but does it still have the normal magento issues ?

Prestashop also looks good but I would be limited to what comes builtin.

A old client of mine had a WordPress site with over 5000 products and they did just fine

It’s not the number of products, it’s how the site is configured that slows it down.

Woocommerce has pre made theme which look as good as any other its also fast light and has all the basic feature which I think is good but its still just basic without adding all the plugins so would it be a good complete eCommerce platform im still not sure or maybe im just not looking clearly.

to start with you need WP + woocommerce,
You also need a seo plugin + a security plugin + a optimisation plugin, maybe more,
then any plugins you would need for the eCommerce side, payment plugins, shipping plugins any other features you may want, Checkout Manager, Social Media, Upsell & Cross-sell, Product Filter ect.

My main issues,
1. Would it be good a standalone platforms once everything is added ?
2.Would it still be secure after adding everything
3. Would it still be fast.
4 Would I not have issues or conflicts with all the plugins ?

Outside wp and woo most of the plugins will be 3rd party, so you may have issues, they may stop getting support or even become paid.

 

[fisicx]

You also need a seo plugin + a security plugin + a optimisation plugin, maybe more, then any plugins you would need for the eCommerce side, payment plugins, shipping plugins any other features you may want, Checkout Manager, Social Media, Upsell & Cross-sell, Product Filter ect..

You don't need all these. A number of woo themes have these features built in. Or you can employ a developer to build a theme with all these features.

If you do need to use a plugin you can still make sure it doesn't affect performance by managing the configuration.

And it will still be a lot let resource heavy than Magento.

I've been using Woo for years and never had any issues. I'm sure other developers can extoll the virtues of other platforms.

 

[2012]

Let me do a little more research and see what I find.
I've been with magento so long I cant get my head around somethings.

Any good premade themes you would recommend I check ?

 

[Raw Rob]

What supprised me is magento 2 looks like a good option, but does it still have the normal magento issues ?

I don't know what you mean by "normal magento issues"? I've not finished my site yet, but so far I think Magento 2 is much better than 1

 

[2012]

I don't know what you mean by "normal magento issues"? I've not finished my site yet, but so far I think Magento 2 is much better than 1

Needs a powerful host ( magento 1 does) can be slow sometime, and things would break with updates or changes way to easily,

You have used Magento 1, 2 and woo how do you find them ? and how long have you used them for ?

 

[Raw Rob]

Needs a powerful host ( magento 1 does) can be slow sometime, and things would break with updates or changes way to easily,

Yep, probably needs a powerful host, but seems easier to get it running at a good speed compared to M1 (possibly due to support for php 7 which is much faster than php 5). Not done any updates yet, I started with the current version 2.3 I think it is).

You have used Magento 1, 2 and woo how do you find them ? and how long have you used them for ?

I've been using Woo for about a year, I like it a lot, but Magento just seems better for the fact that it is built as an eCommerce platform and has almost everything you need built in, the backend is more logical. Although a lot more complex.

I've been working on a M2 site for a couple of months, not live yet. I started working on M1 a couple of years ago, but in the end decided to wait for M2, can't remember why exactly. Then when M2 came out, it wasn't really ready and no extensions had been ported. Now it feels like M2 is ready. (I'm trying to rebuild a site which is currently running on ZenCart, it's is my main site which I've been running since 2005!)

 

[2012]

haev you tested it on your host ?
Well I run my magento 1.9 site on a shared cloud host and the load time is about 4.5s not bad but I think it become slow with more customers using it, it maybe a little slower then my WP site but not by much, but from the demo, I have found magento 2 backend easier then 1.9

I've been using Woo for about a year, I like it a lot, but Magento just seems better for the fact that it is built as an eCommerce platform and has almost everything you need built in, the backend is more logical. Although a lot more complex.

This is my thought and the main reason I'm even considering magento again.


After you have built the magento 2 site would you move the wordpress site to magento 2 ?

 

[Raw Rob]

haev you tested it on your host ?

Yes, I'm building it on my host on a spare domain. I've got a VPS and I'm currently getting sub 1 sec page load, but only got a couple of test products on at the moment. On the same VPS, my Woo site is getting 1.4 sec page load, but I know there is more I can do to optimise that.

After you have built the magento 2 site would you move the wordpress site to magento 2 ?

No, I can't because it relys on an integration which isn't available for Magento.

 

[2012]

I've not really looked into Managed VPS lately but in the past it was not worth keeping it due to the cost and low benefit for my use.


Could some developers reply with thoughts on the different eCommerce platforms and your experiences.

 

[Neromare Works]

Haven't worked with Shopify but I think that's paid & premium. Can't say anything about Magento too. OpenCart I know. I've used it on numerous occasions with my old two stores back in the day and it was super fast and great. I upgraded from ZenCart which was outdated and very buggy. And the last time I used OpenCart was a long time go, so with that being said - they should be so much better now, with all the upgrades and stuff. You could also purchase great themes on Envato for the OpenCart.

 

[dcart]

And the last time I used OpenCart was a long time go, so with that being said - they should be so much better now, with all the upgrades and stuff. You could also purchase great themes on Envato for the OpenCart.

Over the last 5 years Opencart has changed beyond recognition. For the better of course.

 

[antropy]

Over the last 5 years Opencart has changed beyond recognition. For the better of course.

Cannot agree more. We always say that OpenCart is the happy medium between Magento and Wordpress. Alex

 

[dcart]

I see no objection to Opencart in this thread. For those interested I give the link to the OC demo version below:
demo.opencart. com/admin

The worst solution you can compare is Shopify. This is a SaaS service. The shop is not yours. You do not have access to the code. You cannot pack the shop and move it somewhere else. You only rent it. A completely different e-commerce model.

 

[antropy]

Open cart was a good platform in the past but it never get much attention, I dont even see that many developers promoting they support it, which make me wonder why.

It's still the best on balance in our view

Paul

 

[antropy]

Opencart ... I've also not seen many developer's supporting it.

Where have you looked? Most questions in the forum are answered straight away by experienced OpenCart developers.

Paul

 

[antropy]

You could also purchase great themes on Envato for the OpenCart.

To give some balance though, you do have to be careful to choose quality themes as some are very bloated and some are just coded badly. I guess that's the same with any platform.

Paul

 

[Neromare Works]

To give some balance though, you do have to be careful to choose quality themes as some are very bloated and some are just coded badly. I guess that's the same with any platform.

Paul

Absolutely. Very well said, sir. Speed is the most important thing with websites. Load time of no more than 2 sec. is preferable.

 

[2012]

Thanks guys,
My thoughts have been shifting on my top 2 choices,

I'm still not sure of WP,

Im thinking about dropping prestashop as a choice, Why ?

Its not scalable (in my option)
1. Your stuck with what come built in unless your willing to pay silly prices of extensions
2. I've found 1 developer who will work with it and even on here it does not have much support got it.


I'm taking another look at Opencart because of the support you guys are showing it and it was my original choice.

I've not really used Opencart in about 6 years but on the surface it has not changed much, its still looks dated and basic, I find it harder to understand due to the way things are setup in the backend, (Loads of tab and categories for ever little thing instead of having them together when possible.)

Please remember I've been using magento and WP which could be why.


Can anything be done to impove it ?

Choice 1 Opencart. Why?

1. its light weight and fast.
2. seam to have all the basic feature.
3. Has loads of extensions and most are free so I could add a lot more
4. it has a few good looking themes, so the front will look modern. at least
5. Cost will be lower


Why not

1. its a bit dated now, terms of spec, features and design.
2. The updates are not improving much (like magento 1.9)
3. I would still need at least few plugins to get the same results as magento 2
4. most of the advance features are addon,
5. I think its a little dated compared to the others in terms of setup, features and design.
6. Backend I cant get use to yet, load of tab and categories for ever little thing instead of having them together when possible,
8. would need more work to get the same results I t



Choice 2 Magento 2, why ?
1. I've been using magento for about 4-5 years so ive gotten used to most of it.
2. So far it has done everything I need without extensions. so magento 2 should also.
3. its feature rich so almost everything I could think of come out of the box,
so no looking for extensions or compatibility issue or security issues due to extensions,
3. it seam the most modern and update out of the lot and has been getting decent updates since the release of magento 2 0..
4. its still gets a lot of support from developers
5. its scalable and can do almost anything I would need.
6. my magento site has not been slow.


my reasons for not using it
1. it's magento so its a lot more resource and could be slow ( if I can get it running fast without a vps that would be good )
2. I've always had issues with magneto 1.9 breaking really easy and I dont know if magento 2 will have the same issues. so I may have some issues in the future.
3. It can be expensive to run manage and maintain, developers charging a lot more for it and having to get dev to make minor changes can add up (again dont know if 2 will be any better)



I have looked online for features and comparisons but I've not found anything good, so im not sure it will do everything.

I've not really found anything, so i'm having to search online ask questions and use the demo to get a better idea.

maybe ill need to spend a little more time with the demo

Over the last 5 years Opencart has changed beyond recognition. For the better of course.

Any examples, Could you tell me what has changed,



I have no interested in a paid platform like shopify

Where have you looked? Most questions in the forum are answered straight away by experienced OpenCart developers.

Paul

Local to me and freelance

To give some balance though, you do have to be careful to choose quality themes as some are very bloated and some are just coded badly. I guess that's the same with any platform.

Paul

Any suggestion I could take a look at also How can I tell which is a good theme which is bad bloated ones?

 

[2012]

How would migration work for both magento 2 and opencart ?

how would the products, categories, pages and other data be exported if my site is having issues ?

 

[2012]

Has anyone used based Laravel solutions ?

 

[antropy]

Has anyone used based Laravel solutions ?

We use Laravel for some things but not for an ecommerce platform. Do you have any in mind specifically?

Paul

 

[Inva]

Magneto hands down. He would totally destroy all other carts, as carts usually have metallic parts.

 

[2012]

I dont but a few coders have suggested going for Laravel instead because its the next step,
Latest technology so it'll take less time when you need to upgrade., Less unnecessary code.

They suggested Custom, Aimeos.org or Shopaholic. Im not too sure.
To me they seam more like plugins like woocommerce.


Also Why do you use Opencart over magento 2 other then you have been using it for years and it your main platform.

 

[antropy]

Magneto hands down. He would totally destroy all other carts, as carts usually have metallic parts.

What on Earth are you talking about

I dont but a few coders have suggested going for Laravel instead because its the next step, Latest technology so it'll take less time when you need to upgrade., Less unnecessary code.

Well it's not really a shopping cart solution, it's a PHP framework. Sure you could build a shopping cart with it, but why would you seeing as there are plenty that are already built.

They suggested Custom, Aimeos.org or Shopaholic. Im not too sure.

Well, "Custom" just means build your own shop with Laravel, which is a big (and pointless) project when others exist.

To me they seam more like plugins like woocommerce.

Sort of, they're a lot more complex than that.

Also Why do you use Opencart over magento 2 other then you have been using it for years and it your main platform.

Well if the question is "don't you only recommend OpenCart because you've been using it for years and it's your main platform" the answer is the reverse: "we've only used it for years and made it our main platform because we did thorough research of all the open source PHP shopping carts and found OpenCart to be the best!
https://www.antropy.co.uk/blog/shopping-cart-review/

Paul

 

[2012]

That's what I thought about Laravel based option.

Have you done a updated review with magento 2.3 ? I'm assuming your review was done a few years ago.

 

[Raw Rob]

Magneto hands down. He would totally destroy all other carts, as carts usually have metallic parts.

What on Earth are you talking about

Sometime I wonder if Inva is a bot?

 

[fisicx]

We are only a small local store....

How small?

Whilst there has been lots of great discussion better answers may be provided if you tell us a bit more about your business.

Are you shipping thousands of items each day? Are you international? How big is the range of products? What system integration do you need? Is this a one man show or do you employ a team of pickers and packers?