eCommerce wars: Magento vs osCommerce
We are undoubtedly in times of fiscal ruin. Whole countries are going bust (how does that even happen?) and there is an impending sense of stagflation, or worse, deflation in the air…or even relegation if you are George Dub-ya.
“…Let’s stick to what we know, then, and make cut backs: no investment for a while, let’s just ride it out…” might say a chief decision maker whom, in doing so, will ensure his business only treads water for the foreseeable future.
There’s no need to be so afraid: online sales have allegedly grown this year, as reported over at the Office for National Statistics.
‘…The volume of retail sales increased by 0.9% in October, higher than analysts’ predictions of 0.3%. This represents the biggest monthly rise since November last year.
The highest three-monthly growth was in non-store retailing, which grew by 3.3% from August to October. According to the ONS, this reflects increased sales growth by internet retailers…’
Tapping into that market in the UK is one thing, and is to be commended in the current clime, but shoving open your cyber door to international sales is the really cute move. And, what’s more, it requires only marginally more effort and financial outlay to do so than for solely a UK market.
There are many off-the-shelf ecommerce packages available, but for large and heavily stocked online sites, we at Web-Translations have tended to use Open Source applications, specifically osCommerce and new code on the block, Magento. But which is the best? Well, we have finally mined our way to the core of this blog post, so let’s begin…
I reason the easiest way to do this is with a comparative table, so here it comes:
|
Consideration
|
Weighting (0-10)
|
OS Commerce
|
Magento
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Support for languages
|
10
|
9
|
8
|
|
Features
|
9
|
5
|
9
|
|
Look & feel
|
8
|
4
|
9
|
|
Ease of maintenance
|
7
|
7
|
6
|
|
Modules & contributions
|
6
|
8
|
4
|
|
Forum activity
|
5
|
8
|
8
|
|
Maturity
|
4
|
7
|
3
|
|
Flexibility
|
3
|
8
|
5
|
|
Compat. w/ payment gateways
|
2
|
8
|
6
|
|
Compat. w/ shipping & couriers
|
2
|
7
|
5
|
|
Integration w/ fulfilment systems
|
2
|
9
|
3
|
|
Total (score x weighting)
|
n/a
|
394
|
394
|
osCommerce….
osCommerce has been around a while and, as such, there is a very well established community whom are fairly responsive to any unfathomable problems you may have, should you post within their forums.
There are also innumerable ‘contributions’ or ‘modules’ to be found on the OS site. These are invaluable and mean your site can be as tailored to your needs as you wish and, importantly, are easy to add owing to osCommerce’s flexibility.
Need a CMS on your site? It’s there. Need to make and dispatch money off coupons? Sorted. Want the increasingly popular lightbox effect on your images? All doable. The modules come with clear instructions and, on the whole, are regularly updated with bug fixes so if you get one that’s a few months old, chances are it’ll work just fine.
But the real beauty of osCommerce is in its palpable willingness to be translated and localised into any language. The structure of the site, written in php and using definitions, means all the text you see on an (unhacked!) osCommerce site is handily stored in reference files which contain only plain text for translation, thus minimising the risk of file corruption by an inexperienced web page translator.
Magento
This new and trail blazing package scores highest for its look and feel, features, and ‘translatability’. The back-end is well organised and most bases are thoroughly covered (as against osCommerce which is fairly basic until modules are added) including re-writable URLs which are a must for a well optimised online store.
There is a great range of user experience enhancing features such as ‘related products’, ‘add to wishlist’ and ‘compare products’. In turn, these also benfit the store owner as the time a consumer spends on your site is proportional to the amount they spend. These such functions are all well administrated from the back-end, with cross referencing being much easier than in osCommerce owing to the emphasis placed on SKU numbers.
Magento, too, has something called ‘Store View’ which, although difficult to get ones head around, affords online shop keepers the ability to set up multiple stores, with the same products, at different prices, and even in different languages, all from one admin area.
As for translating a Magento store - many language packs are already available, meaning all the hard coded static content and navigation (add to basket, subscribe to newsletter, invoices, checkout, my basket etc) is good to go at the click of a button (thankfully, all the while keeping the admin area in your native language).
So, if all that wasn’t enough to at least prick your ears up to the fiscal punch you could be packing with a multilingual eCommerce site, then consider this…
As a nation, we spend more on foreign soil - or in foreign cyber space at least - than any other country: an eye watering £2.3 billion in fact. France and Germany are but mere spots on the horizon in comparison, with overseas sales totalling a meagre £857 million. That gap is expected to close so what’s stopping you from becoming a gleeful recipient of that increased foreign spend?
Nothing. Exactly.
This is, by no means, a comprehensive analysis of the different packages out there, rather a discussion of the ones we are most familiar with and have used extensively. I will be sure to add to this as our experiences grow.
In the meantime, if you have any specific questions about Magento or osCommerce, leave a comment below and I promise I’ll get back to you!
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Tags: ecommerce, export, International Trade, magento, oscommerce
January 5th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
As a freelance developer I must say that since Magento was released I simply refuse to do osCommerce (and relatives like xt:commerce) sites.
The Magento code base is *so* much better and so much more flexible, there is no chance I could seriously advise a client to use osCommerce any more.
The community is very active, new community extensions are released by the day.
The weighting on your comparison table is very subjective - I would come up with very different figures. Also, it would be interesting which version of Magento you evaluated, since the core code is very actively maintained (osCommerce: last core release (bugfix only) on the 30th Jan 08).
Another important issue you didn’t even touch in your comparison is how extensions are installed, and how easy it is to upgrade a release. Again, Magento wins easily. With osCommerce, core files have to be edited to even add small features. Magentos architecture offers a real API that allows changing most aspects of the store without even touching a line of core code. That also goes a long way ensuring that future upgrades can be installed without painfully and time-consumingly merging code changes with the upgrade.
Magento upgrades are done with a couple of mouse-clicks (or - if you prefer - a single command line command).
I want to add that I’m not Part of Varien (the company behind Magento), just a freelance web developer.
Hope this helps someone,
Vinai
January 5th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Hi Vinai,
You make some good points - we tested with version 1.1.6 and found various stability issues which I expect have now been fixed. We will update our clients’ sites and update our blog accordingly.
I was impressed with the ease with which contributions can be added to a Magento site, but one contribution irrecoverably damaged one of my sites - but as the maturity of Magento improves, the contributions will undoubtedly become more stable, and the API plugin interface will come into its own.
It would be interesting to know what you would rate differently?
The ease with which Magento can be updated when needed is definately something worth considering when chosing your package.
Thanks!
January 6th, 2009 at 2:51 am
[...] View original post here: eCommerce wars: Magento vs osCommerce | Web-Translations Buzz [...]
January 6th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Some valid points made here, particularly with regards to the amount spent on ‘foreigh soil’
Good stuff.
January 6th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
[...] la traduzione della comparativa fra Magento ed Os Commerce apparsa su questo sito inglese qualche giorno fa. Alla fine del post , le mie considerazioni [...]
January 8th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
[...] has a good writeup discussing the “e-commerce war” between Magento and osCommerce. These are the two [...]
February 23rd, 2009 at 8:02 pm
I got all excited over Magento - but it was too good to be true - I host some sites on a dedicated windows server and getting Magento to run was just not worth the effort…… So thanks to your article here I’m now downloading osCommerce….. fingers crossed it’s more windows friendly
February 25th, 2009 at 11:12 am
With Magneto, I found it to take an AGE to upload via FTP (unless you uncompressed it on the server) and due to the incredible memory useage quite a slow system even on a top-spec dedicated server on a Tier 1 connection!
Both above suggestions are open source, which means anyone can view how it works and then work out ways to exploit sites using them; including taking down a website, stealing personal data, etc etc…
It’s always best to get someone to create an ecommerce solution bespoke. This will be much safer overall.
PS
You stated at the top of this article the following: “We are undoubtedly in times of fiscal ruin. Whole countries are going bust (how does that even happen?)”
This happens due to the fact that our money system is a fraudulet system based on a federal reserve. They make up money out of thin air which is a crime, and ultimately makes money more and more worthless as each day passes. That and the fact that people at the top are stealing from the taxpayers.
There is a video that absolutely EVERYONE MUST SEE that explains about how the money system works and how we have all been duped. It is an American production but it does account for most of the world including Europe. It’s on the Secret Crimes web site secretcrimes.com and is called What Is Money.
http://secretcrimes.com/conspiracy_video.php?vid=46e3929b7
Peace
March 3rd, 2009 at 12:10 am
[...] eCommerce Wars: Magento vs. osCommerce [...]
March 3rd, 2009 at 1:09 am
[...] eCommerce Wars: Magento vs. osCommerce [...]
March 4th, 2009 at 2:16 am
[...] eCommerce Wars: Magento vs. osCommerce [...]
March 20th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
[...] further reading: osCommerce Review osCommerce vs. Zen Cart osCommerce vs. Magento eCommerce Wars: Magento vs. osCommerce This entry was posted in Web development. Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a [...]
May 6th, 2009 at 2:47 am
I was on my way to install another osCommerce site when I ran across this Magento article from Smashing Magazine: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/05/05/25-magento-templates-for-your-e-commerce-business/. I spent about an hour researching Magento but couldn’t get past two things: 1) I don’t have much spare time this month to explore something new, like Magento and 2) the server requirements concerned me a bit. So off I go with another osCommerce development project. I will, however, be keeping my eye on Magento though. BG
May 11th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
if you need a oscommerce
webwinkel, go2 My
Webshop
May 27th, 2009 at 7:28 am
I wrote a lot but it wont let me post it
June 1st, 2009 at 9:25 pm
[...] deployed several multilingual ecommerce websites using OS Commerce and Magento, Web-Translations are now helping businesses to save thousands by switching from proprietary CMS [...]
June 4th, 2009 at 1:26 am
Magento has proved to be very powerful application. Large number of retailers is already using it. Now it’s easy as there’s web service which automates the process - Cart2Cart. It moves the data to Magento automatically and accurately. For more details please visit http://www.shopping-cart-migration.com
June 12th, 2009 at 5:39 am
I have spent 5 years with OSCommerce and OScommerce based CRE Loaded (oscommerce with tons of contribution loaded in), and I am really to switch. I have spent the last 2 weeks with Magento and was thrilled to see a cart loaded with great features, CSS based and not bad looking out of the box.
In the end, I gave up. Magento is slow. Magento has 6,000 files and 200 tables in their database, which empty is 20 times larger than OScommerce empty database. It is not going to be the cart for talented amatuers with a good knowledge of HTML, CSS and some php, on a shared server. Look at the showcase carts on the Magento forum. They drag, and a slow cart wears the patience of your customers. Oscommerce is quick and snappy.
In the end, I realized, I can make Oscommerce look like whatever I need. I complain about it, but I can do it. Magento, I’m sure with some dedicated assistance and lots of time, I’ll get it looking like I need, but one thing I will never do, and you will never do is get that overbloated monster to run fast.
Also Magento has some odd quirks. You can’t delete orders for example. Look at all the folks complaining about that on there forum.
June 12th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Thanks for the useful article. Our company has been looking for an alternative to osCommerce, as we find that the back-end is not very user friendly. We landed on Magento in our research, and found that the back-end is much better and easier to work with. However, the issues everyone is mentioning about Magento being more demanding on the webserver is stopping us from making the switch. In any case, thanks to everyone for the useful information!
June 13th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Nice article, yeah agree to most Magento need more resources than OsCommerce, if you are startup then go with OsCommerce, if you want extensive features and can pay for work then go with Magento as most of Magento extensions are paid and Magento development is costly than Oscommerce. For small startup stores OsCommerce is best.
June 26th, 2009 at 2:58 am
I have been running osCommerce for five years and recently evaluated Magento as its replacement. I like the features of Magento the server resources to run it are too great. I run our current site on a dedicated single processor server and the pages are very quick to load. To get decent performance from Magenta I was told that I would need two quad core processors, 8GB RAM and a RAID 5 drive configuration. Even then it would also need support from Magento to tune the server so that Magento would run with acceptable performance - and the only way to get support is to purchase their Enterprise Edition which is $8,900 per year. Magento is a really cool shopping cart but until performance is improved I’ll continue to use osCommerce.
June 28th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Here is something new then. It’s a free open source ecommerce system that we use it is called PRESTASHOP.
Check it out