PrestaShop vs Magento vs Others

tonymontana

tonymontana

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Oct 31, 2011
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I'm going to be starting a medium sized ecommerce store..100-200 products to start, but might eventually grow it later on. Trying to pick a good ecommerce platform to go with.

Just wanted to get some opinions from those of you who have used PrestaShop, Magento, or any other ecommerce platforms.

Ideas?
 


Shouldn't be double posting brah :)
http://www.wickedfire.com/design-development-programming/158158-ecommerce-platforms-thoughts.html

And there's an e-commerce forum already: Products & Merchants - WickedFire - Affiliate Marketing Forum - Internet Marketing Webmaster SEO Forum

But to answer your question, I would go Magento allll the way. The power and flexibility it offers is unparalleled. You said in your other post it's too advanced but it's not really because from your requirements, everything you need is there in the tarball. If you need to import products, this is a great open-source product importer: Magento Mass Importer | Free software downloads at SourceForge.net

The only problem is hosting, if you don't have a good dedi server, forget it. No way can it run on shared or even a VPS. I run on an OVH 16gb, Intel i5-2400 with Magento caching and APC and it runs fine. 4gb for MySQL would probably be fine, the biggest bottleneck is disk I/O so a SSD would be a great investment but you don't really need it. If you can't afford $100 a month for a dedi server, there's specialised Magento hosts starting from about $20/month I think.

It is complicated if you need to dive in and make any changes but post in the e-commerce forum and we'll help you out.
 
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harrymouni said:
Shouldn't be double posting brah :)
http://www.wickedfire.com/design-development-programming/158158-ecommerce-platforms-thoughts.html

And there's an e-commerce forum already: Products & Merchants - WickedFire - Affiliate Marketing Forum - Internet Marketing Webmaster SEO Forum

But to answer your question, I would go Magento allll the way. The power and flexibility it offers is unparalleled. You said in your other post it's too advanced but it's not really because from your requirements, everything you need is there in the tarball. If you need to import products, this is a great open-source product importer: Magento Mass Importer | Free software downloads at SourceForge.net

The only problem is hosting, if you don't have a good dedi server, forget it. No way can it run on shared or even a VPS. I run on an OVH 16gb, Intel i5-2400 with Magento caching and APC and it runs fine. 4gb for MySQL would probably be fine, the biggest bottleneck is disk I/O so a SSD would be a great investment but you don't really need it. If you can't afford $100 a month for a dedi server, there's specialised Magento hosts starting from about $20/month I think.

It is complicated if you need to dive in and make any changes but post in the e-commerce forum and we'll help you out.
Click to expand...

Haha, my bad bro. Wasn't getting much feedback on that thread.

I agree, that Magento is definitely good from one aspect; tons of ways to customize it and such. But again, the more I read, the more I saw people saying that it should be avoided if you are not ready (or in other words, able to afford) to hire someone who has knowledge of Magento.

Anyways, thanks for the link; I'll have a look and do some more reading. I think I'll still consider Magento, as it does seem to be a popular choice.
 
I've been a big Zen Cart fan for a while. I did a project with Magento for a big brand, and it was an interesting experience. It was a nightmare for me, since they wanted out of the box customization, which were not easily available through Magento's module.

I've utilized PrestaShop, and talked with the CEO and their top developers, their system is very impressive, but I have not yet had the opportunity to attempt to implement a live version.

The only downside I see with Magento, is that it requires so much resources to get it working properly. Like harrymouni stated, you need a dedicated server, and will be coughing up a minimum of $100 a month to run the thing. The one thing that really pisses me off is they are using 2 engines to process/run their shopping cart. I feel the added javascript engine just lags things if you don't have enough ram or system resources.

I like barebone systems, like Zen Cart, to get started with projects. Yeah, the backend looks shitting, but it works. Prestashop seems pretty easy to setup, but then again, I don't know the extent of the customization you are looking for in the future. Also, remember, Magento programmers/developers are going got cost you, since it's a fairly complex system under the hood, so if there is no module to do what you are looking to customize or what not, then your will end up paying, and you need to go for quality.

It's like buying a high end car versus a Geo Metro, One is going to cost you alot more in the end, but it will last longer, the other will get you places, maybe not in style, but it will work, and the parts are cheap.

Good luck bro.
 
CCarter said:
I've been a big Zen Cart fan for a while. I did a project with Magento for a big brand, and it was an interesting experience. It was a nightmare for me, since they wanted out of the box customization, which were not easily available through Magento's module.

I've utilized PrestaShop, and talked with the CEO and their top developers, their system is very impressive, but I have not yet had the opportunity to attempt to implement a live version.

The only downside I see with Magento, is that it requires so much resources to get it working properly. Like harrymouni stated, you need a dedicated server, and will be coughing up a minimum of $100 a month to run the thing. The one thing that really pisses me off is they are using 2 engines to process/run their shopping cart. I feel the added javascript engine just lags things if you don't have enough ram or system resources.

I like barebone systems, like Zen Cart, to get started with projects. Yeah, the backend looks shitting, but it works. Prestashop seems pretty easy to setup, but then again, I don't know the extent of the customization you are looking for in the future. Also, remember, Magento programmers/developers are going got cost you, since it's a fairly complex system under the hood, so if there is no module to do what you are looking to customize or what not, then your will end up paying, and you need to go for quality.

It's like buying a high end car versus a Geo Metro, One is going to cost you alot more in the end, but it will last longer, the other will get you places, maybe not in style, but it will work, and the parts are cheap.

Good luck bro.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the in depth response bro. I think at this point, Magento is out of the picture. I definitely do not have the money to hire a developer, which as you said, is very expensive. I actually installed PrestaShop and so far, VERY easy to use. The back end is quite simple. I installed Magento a few days ago to have a look at the admin panel, and to say the least, I was confused. So many options, I didn't know where to start. This is my first ecommerce store, and like I said, I'm not starting it off as anything huge. I think something like ZenCart or PrestaShop will do the job. I could always move over to Magento if the project does well and proves to be profitable.

Once again, thank for the input bro.

marketer23 said:
I like Open Cart.
Click to expand...

I've heard many people have stopped using Open Cart because of security issues. Is that true?
 
I've heard good things about Open Cart. It's fast, lightweight, and free. You can simply buy extensions if you need to integrate with a specific payment processor or want some extra features.

I haven't heard anything about the security issues mentioned above? Care to shine some more light on it? Thanks.
 
Paper_Chase said:
I've heard good things about Open Cart. It's fast, lightweight, and free. You can simply buy extensions if you need to integrate with a specific payment processor or want some extra features.

I haven't heard anything about the security issues mentioned above? Care to shine some more light on it? Thanks.
Click to expand...

I also heard a lot of good things about OpenCart, aside from the security issues.

OpenCart Community • View topic - Possible OpenCart Security Issue

OpenCart Community • View topic - OpenCart Security Issues

Also, I spoke to a HostGator rep and I asked them why they no longer supported OpenCart through QuickInstall. He claimed there were many security issues with OpenCart (wouldn't elaborate though).
 
Magento is a nitemare to customize and the plugins offered are about as fragmented as android in terms of quality. I'd look to a hosted solution like bigcommerce or shopify if all you need customizing the front-end. If you want to go down a customized path I'd seriously look at lemonstand vs the free open source stuff. Also, nothing is free with free open source, all the good plugins and themes will end up costing you.
 
adamx12m said:
Magento is a nitemare to customize and the plugins offered are about as fragmented as android in terms of quality. I'd look to a hosted solution like bigcommerce or shopify if all you need customizing the front-end. If you want to go down a customized path I'd seriously look at lemonstand vs the free open source stuff. Also, nothing is free with free open source, all the good plugins and themes will end up costing you.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I've heard quite a bit about BigCommerce and Shopify. I'll have a closer look at those.
 
If you are starting, I would avoid Magento. The learning and maintenance curve is steep.

I convinced 070707 (who was building a Magento site) to look at Shopify, and this is what he said;

All I have to say is that I wish I fully checked out Shopify before.
30 mins into playing with it. MY GOD, how simple.

Literally in awe.
Click to expand...
I am not a Shopify fanboy, but I did run an X-Cart or two back in the day, and running your own cart, while doing everything else in the business is bullshit.

Let someone else handle cart maintenance, hosting etc, so you can focus on what you are good at.

If not Shopify, check out some other hosted solutions. Don't get caught fucking around with plugins, upgrades and template hacking. None of that makes you money.

**IF** your business takes off, then look at a custom solution (which Magento is) if you can justify the cost.
 
tonymontana said:
I also heard a lot of good things about OpenCart, aside from the security issues.

OpenCart Community • View topic - Possible OpenCart Security Issue

OpenCart Community • View topic - OpenCart Security Issues

Also, I spoke to a HostGator rep and I asked them why they no longer supported OpenCart through QuickInstall. He claimed there were many security issues with OpenCart (wouldn't elaborate though).
Click to expand...

You linked to one security problem from version 1.8 in 2009 and 55 releases ago (yes fifty-five releases!) The other from September was patched and then updated in a new release. I think the support for OpenCart is pretty good.

You don't really think there is a software platform out there that is without security updates or that any ecommerce platform you choose won't have therm do you? Just turn your computer off and walk away if that's a criteria for you.

OpenCart user here after having dumped Magento for it's ridiculous and unnecessary complexities. OC isn't perfect either, it is still in it's infancy compared to Mage and there are few things missing here and there, but most shortcomings are covered by a 3rd party extension. There are a few members of the community there that have gone above and beyond to help me out with a few problems free of charge as well. So far so good.
 
tonymontana said:
I've heard many people have stopped using Open Cart because of security issues. Is that true?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure with the security. It passed PCI compliance pretty easily. PCI is supposed to mean that the credit card information is secure, but I don't know if it actually is - probably not.

It is open source so everyone has access to the source code.
 
guerilla said:
If you are starting, I would avoid Magento. The learning and maintenance curve is steep.

I convinced 070707 (who was building a Magento site) to look at Shopify, and this is what he said;

I am not a Shopify fanboy, but I did run an X-Cart or two back in the day, and running your own cart, while doing everything else in the business is bullshit.

Let someone else handle cart maintenance, hosting etc, so you can focus on what you are good at.

If not Shopify, check out some other hosted solutions. Don't get caught fucking around with plugins, upgrades and template hacking. None of that makes you money.

**IF** your business takes off, then look at a custom solution (which Magento is) if you can justify the cost.
Click to expand...

Definitely going to check out Shopify. I've heard a ton about it. Thanks!

Fatbat said:
You linked to one security problem from version 1.8 in 2009 and 55 releases ago (yes fifty-five releases!) The other from September was patched and then updated in a new release. I think the support for OpenCart is pretty good.

You don't really think there is a software platform out there that is without security updates or that any ecommerce platform you choose won't have therm do you? Just turn your computer off and walk away if that's a criteria for you.

OpenCart user here after having dumped Magento for it's ridiculous and unnecessary complexities. OC isn't perfect either, it is still in it's infancy compared to Mage and there are few things missing here and there, but most shortcomings are covered by a 3rd party extension. There are a few members of the community there that have gone above and beyond to help me out with a few problems free of charge as well. So far so good.
Click to expand...

My bad, didn't even notice how old those links were lol.
 
So I ended up installing OpenCart, and so far, I'm really liking it. I'm going to stick with OpenCart for now, and if things don't end up working out, I'll likely switch over to Shopify.

Thanks for all the advice guys.
 
Fuck Magento with a ten foot poisoned cactus dildo. That shit still gives me more nightmares than DigitalPoint.
 
Quadra fuck magento with .hack's cock. Just because I think it's got funny here.

Never used Magento
 
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