8 ms·

As the saying goes, compare Magento to the alternatives, not to the almighty. If you're running an ecommerce operation that is too small to justify building a

by cepth 8y ago

As the saying goes, compare Magento to the alternatives, not to the almighty. If you're running an ecommerce operation that is too small to justify building a custom CMS, and can't justify paying for Demandware/Salesforce Commerce Cloud, your options are really limited. Shopify and Big Commerce offer good out of the box functionality, but you are then stuck with their feature sets and pricing tables. Each platform taxes you in various ways. Shopify imposes 0.5-2.0% fees on transactions processed with external credit card processors. Big Commerce forces you to upgrade your plan after your sales exceed a certain threshold. For even ecommerce companies doing several million dollars a year in revenue, Magento community edition (open source) is sufficient. You pay up front for development or design work, pay annual server costs, and can scale your ecommerce technology spend on your schedule. Magento has given me extreme headaches at times, but once we had our site up and running it was easy to maintain and administer. The non-technical people, i.e. the people who are actually packing and shipping orders, quickly picked up using the admin panel. So, yeah, I like Magento just fine.

wila 8y ago
So far the only somewhat sane alternative is prestashop. At least I don't worry what breaks this time on a security update, which is a real PITA with magento. For updates to magento shops I schedule time, for updates to prestashop I press a button..
- cepth 8y ago
  We actually used to run our site off of Prestashop. The biggest reason that I saw to switch was because of the lack of integrations with some of our operations tech stack. For example, Freshdesk has an official extension/add-on for Magento, but on PrestaShop the only add-on is a $39.99 option made by a 3rd party developer. Prestashop is probably easier to administer than Magento, but that comes with tradeoffs because of its smaller developer ecosystem.
  - wila 8y ago
    Understood, it might not fit for every shop. For quite a lot of shops it works quite well though. I guess that it wasn't so much that the add-on came at a cost, but more that it was: a) a 3rd party developer b) the only option As you said it was just one of your issues.
- SahAssar 8y ago
  Prestashop in my experience is not anywhere close to sane. The code is a shitshow, the transition to symfony/twig has been slow and chaotic, and even if you try to help fix issues you are met with nothing but silence. I'm not saying magento is better, but prestashop isn't in any way sane.
- locusm 8y ago
  A really solid alternative was Lemonstand, then they decided to do the SAAS dance and lost most of their fan base.
- ctalmidge 8y ago
  Sylius : the Symfony framework ecommerce offering is the only platform we've found to offer the proper combo of features, scalability (this was huge), flexibility, true framework backing in symfony, and a proper deployment model. It's a very exciting platform finally after having so many fall short for so many reasons; we really liked Lemonstand v1 but hated being forcedinto thei SaaS model which totally killed our app extension bundling applications business model. So, seriously check out Sylius.
- beberlei 8y ago
  Have you looked at Shopware? Having worked with many PHP-based ecommerce systems I like it the most.
partiallypro 8y ago
If you have a small to medium sized shop, WooCommerce (now owned by Automattic) is a better solution and easier to deal with than Magento. For larger sites Magento is the go to, until you reach the threshold of a much more expensive paid solution.
- cepth 8y ago
  I only briefly experimented with WooCommerce, so please correct me if any of this is incorrect. My general issue with WooCommerce is being locked into Wordpress. I’m not a Wordpress expert, and it’s very difficult to determine when a security vulnerability (http://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor_id=2337&product_id=4096&version_id=0&page=1&hasexp=0&opdos=0&opec=0&opov=0&opcsrf=0&opgpriv=0&opsqli=0&opxss=0&opdirt=0&opmemc=0&ophttprs=0&opbyp=0&opfileinc=0&opginf=0&cvssscoremin=0&cvssscoremax=0&year=0&month=0&cweid=0&order=1&trc=277&sha=f7e9f236634d1e8f8f1588d8b60868d41a0af790 http://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor_id=2...) is serious enough to justify upgrading my WP version, which may break compatibility with not-yet-updated plugins. Small and medium is also in the eye of the beholder I guess. If you’re selling less than a dozen items, with no need for configurable products, advanced pricing rules, bulk discounts etc, then Magento is probably overkill.
  - pacifika 8y ago
    Prioritise upgrading WordPress over badly maintained plugins.
  - partiallypro 8y ago
    Simple fix, always keep your Wordpress up to date, I don't know why people in the CMS world have fallen into the trap of not upgrading. Drupal for example is notoriously hard to upgrade on point releases, Magento isn't much easier. Wordpress is fairly seamless, couple that with Cloudflare and your site is pretty secure from attack. I also don't see how you can be "locked into" Wordpress either, it's actually one of the easiest CMSs to migrate into and out of. It gets flack for being widely used and running on PHP (so does Magento,) but it's widely used for a reason.
crisscrosscrash 8y ago
What about Spree / Solidus? It seems like many developers prefer this newer Rails-based shop to Magento in terms of being able to customize. I've been contemplating moving a medium sized shop to it given that it seems relatively easy to customize, but nobody has mentioned it here. Anybody have any experience or input on either of these?
- pixelbash 8y ago
  Me, me! I picked up Spree in 2015, and still build with it on a weekly basis. The platform and its ecosystem both have ups and downs, for example the order system is quite complex[1]. For another I have yet to find a perfect way to architect complex extensions. Most of Spree's power lies in its models. In hindsight my advice to myself would be: start with spree_core, modify the API (I like using cart api's on the frontend) and replace the backend/frontend entirely. [1] https://github.com/spree/spree/blob/3-5-stable/core/app/models/spree/order.rb https://github.com/spree/spree/blob/3-5-stable/core/app/mode...
  - crisscrosscrash 8y ago
    Glad to hear the models are sane. I'm trying to get off a horribly convulted system with many issues and have been keeping my eye on Spree for years. Any thoughts about choosing Spree vs Solidus at the point? I basically have custom frontend everywhere including some of checkout and account pages, so I mainly need to replace cart and payments and checkout and may try to integrate at the API level and handle all UI custom. I have a bunch of requirements that may need plugins: - Volume pricing - Personalization such that some products can exist in the cart multiple times, but each item has a unique ID - Upsells / add-ons for personalized product. I currently handle this hierarchy outside the cart, but it's brittle. There are thousands of different options per product and they change all the time. Quantities of these have different syncing rules in terms of their quantity vs their parent combined with quantities from an external data source e.g. address book. - Social login, potentially adding login and payments with Amazon. Pondering if it'd be best to go with Auth0. Promotions seem really powerful which is good, because I use them heavily and would want to add custom ones. Any thoughts, insights, suggestions given these goals? Looking to support 100k products and millions of promotions.
bigiain 8y ago
Same. I'd stop somewhat short of saying "I like Magento just fine." - but I'd admit to having continued to select it as the least-worst option, even after having been burnt by it several times previously.
adrr 8y ago
If you're doing several millions in revenue, you should probably be using Shopify and not dealing with the costs to host, secure and maintain Magento. Magento is mid cap from $10 million revenue to $100 million in revenue. Anything above that $100 million you're running your own WMS/WCS, OMS, CMS etc.
- cepth 8y ago
  I'm not claiming that it's one size fits all, but I think recommending a platform based off of revenue size is foolish. In my particular case, we maintain warehouses in 3 different states. Shopify does not offer a viable solution for managing multi-location shipping and inventory management. We also have a hybrid B2B/B2C business model, so several of our distributors log into the site to place purchase orders, and we can create quantity discounts and group based pricing. None of this is possible in Shopify. I would be stuck paying a monthly subscription fee for something like this: https://apps.shopify.com/customer-pricing https://apps.shopify.com/customer-pricing. On the other hand, MVMT Watches did $60 million in revenue in 2016, and is still on Shopify. Bombas socks did $50 million in 2017, and is still on Shopify. For many companies that sell a focused class of item, Shopify may well be the better solution for them. Somewhat tautologically, the best ecommerce platform is the one that best suits your needs.
ksec 8y ago
May I ask, what ecommcerce solution differs in say Shopify, then mid level Magneto, or larger Salesforce Commerce Cloud? I mean the hardest thing, after the initial set up is on logistics and Services. What sets them apart in different level as you described?
apple4ever 8y ago
Exactly this. We don't have the budget or the staff to build a custom CMS or ecommence solution, or to pay for the "big" players. Magento is actually great. With some optimizations, it can be quite fast- our site is pretty quick for what it is. Its also very extensible which makes it great to customize for our needs. And yes, the non-tech people can use the CMS part pretty easily.

by cepth 8y ago

wila 8y ago

So far the only somewhat sane alternative is prestashop. At least I don't worry what breaks this time on a security update, which is a real PITA with magento. For updates to magento shops I schedule time, for updates to prestashop I press a button..

cepth 8y ago
We actually used to run our site off of Prestashop. The biggest reason that I saw to switch was because of the lack of integrations with some of our operations tech stack. For example, Freshdesk has an official extension/add-on for Magento, but on PrestaShop the only add-on is a $39.99 option made by a 3rd party developer. Prestashop is probably easier to administer than Magento, but that comes with tradeoffs because of its smaller developer ecosystem.
- wila 8y ago
  Understood, it might not fit for every shop. For quite a lot of shops it works quite well though. I guess that it wasn't so much that the add-on came at a cost, but more that it was: a) a 3rd party developer b) the only option As you said it was just one of your issues.
SahAssar 8y ago
Prestashop in my experience is not anywhere close to sane. The code is a shitshow, the transition to symfony/twig has been slow and chaotic, and even if you try to help fix issues you are met with nothing but silence. I'm not saying magento is better, but prestashop isn't in any way sane.
locusm 8y ago
A really solid alternative was Lemonstand, then they decided to do the SAAS dance and lost most of their fan base.
ctalmidge 8y ago
Sylius : the Symfony framework ecommerce offering is the only platform we've found to offer the proper combo of features, scalability (this was huge), flexibility, true framework backing in symfony, and a proper deployment model. It's a very exciting platform finally after having so many fall short for so many reasons; we really liked Lemonstand v1 but hated being forcedinto thei SaaS model which totally killed our app extension bundling applications business model. So, seriously check out Sylius.
beberlei 8y ago
Have you looked at Shopware? Having worked with many PHP-based ecommerce systems I like it the most.

partiallypro 8y ago

If you have a small to medium sized shop, WooCommerce (now owned by Automattic) is a better solution and easier to deal with than Magento. For larger sites Magento is the go to, until you reach the threshold of a much more expensive paid solution.

cepth 8y ago
I only briefly experimented with WooCommerce, so please correct me if any of this is incorrect. My general issue with WooCommerce is being locked into Wordpress. I’m not a Wordpress expert, and it’s very difficult to determine when a security vulnerability (http://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor_id=2337&product_id=4096&version_id=0&page=1&hasexp=0&opdos=0&opec=0&opov=0&opcsrf=0&opgpriv=0&opsqli=0&opxss=0&opdirt=0&opmemc=0&ophttprs=0&opbyp=0&opfileinc=0&opginf=0&cvssscoremin=0&cvssscoremax=0&year=0&month=0&cweid=0&order=1&trc=277&sha=f7e9f236634d1e8f8f1588d8b60868d41a0af790 http://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor_id=2...) is serious enough to justify upgrading my WP version, which may break compatibility with not-yet-updated plugins. Small and medium is also in the eye of the beholder I guess. If you’re selling less than a dozen items, with no need for configurable products, advanced pricing rules, bulk discounts etc, then Magento is probably overkill.
- pacifika 8y ago
  Prioritise upgrading WordPress over badly maintained plugins.
- partiallypro 8y ago
  Simple fix, always keep your Wordpress up to date, I don't know why people in the CMS world have fallen into the trap of not upgrading. Drupal for example is notoriously hard to upgrade on point releases, Magento isn't much easier. Wordpress is fairly seamless, couple that with Cloudflare and your site is pretty secure from attack. I also don't see how you can be "locked into" Wordpress either, it's actually one of the easiest CMSs to migrate into and out of. It gets flack for being widely used and running on PHP (so does Magento,) but it's widely used for a reason.

crisscrosscrash 8y ago

What about Spree / Solidus? It seems like many developers prefer this newer Rails-based shop to Magento in terms of being able to customize. I've been contemplating moving a medium sized shop to it given that it seems relatively easy to customize, but nobody has mentioned it here. Anybody have any experience or input on either of these?

pixelbash 8y ago
Me, me! I picked up Spree in 2015, and still build with it on a weekly basis. The platform and its ecosystem both have ups and downs, for example the order system is quite complex[1]. For another I have yet to find a perfect way to architect complex extensions. Most of Spree's power lies in its models. In hindsight my advice to myself would be: start with spree_core, modify the API (I like using cart api's on the frontend) and replace the backend/frontend entirely. [1] https://github.com/spree/spree/blob/3-5-stable/core/app/models/spree/order.rb https://github.com/spree/spree/blob/3-5-stable/core/app/mode...
- crisscrosscrash 8y ago
  Glad to hear the models are sane. I'm trying to get off a horribly convulted system with many issues and have been keeping my eye on Spree for years. Any thoughts about choosing Spree vs Solidus at the point? I basically have custom frontend everywhere including some of checkout and account pages, so I mainly need to replace cart and payments and checkout and may try to integrate at the API level and handle all UI custom. I have a bunch of requirements that may need plugins: - Volume pricing - Personalization such that some products can exist in the cart multiple times, but each item has a unique ID - Upsells / add-ons for personalized product. I currently handle this hierarchy outside the cart, but it's brittle. There are thousands of different options per product and they change all the time. Quantities of these have different syncing rules in terms of their quantity vs their parent combined with quantities from an external data source e.g. address book. - Social login, potentially adding login and payments with Amazon. Pondering if it'd be best to go with Auth0. Promotions seem really powerful which is good, because I use them heavily and would want to add custom ones. Any thoughts, insights, suggestions given these goals? Looking to support 100k products and millions of promotions.

bigiain 8y ago

Same. I'd stop somewhat short of saying "I like Magento just fine." - but I'd admit to having continued to select it as the least-worst option, even after having been burnt by it several times previously.

adrr 8y ago

If you're doing several millions in revenue, you should probably be using Shopify and not dealing with the costs to host, secure and maintain Magento. Magento is mid cap from $10 million revenue to $100 million in revenue. Anything above that $100 million you're running your own WMS/WCS, OMS, CMS etc.

cepth 8y ago
I'm not claiming that it's one size fits all, but I think recommending a platform based off of revenue size is foolish. In my particular case, we maintain warehouses in 3 different states. Shopify does not offer a viable solution for managing multi-location shipping and inventory management. We also have a hybrid B2B/B2C business model, so several of our distributors log into the site to place purchase orders, and we can create quantity discounts and group based pricing. None of this is possible in Shopify. I would be stuck paying a monthly subscription fee for something like this: https://apps.shopify.com/customer-pricing https://apps.shopify.com/customer-pricing. On the other hand, MVMT Watches did $60 million in revenue in 2016, and is still on Shopify. Bombas socks did $50 million in 2017, and is still on Shopify. For many companies that sell a focused class of item, Shopify may well be the better solution for them. Somewhat tautologically, the best ecommerce platform is the one that best suits your needs.

ksec 8y ago

May I ask, what ecommcerce solution differs in say Shopify, then mid level Magneto, or larger Salesforce Commerce Cloud? I mean the hardest thing, after the initial set up is on logistics and Services. What sets them apart in different level as you described?

apple4ever 8y ago

Exactly this. We don't have the budget or the staff to build a custom CMS or ecommence solution, or to pay for the "big" players. Magento is actually great. With some optimizations, it can be quite fast- our site is pretty quick for what it is. Its also very extensible which makes it great to customize for our needs. And yes, the non-tech people can use the CMS part pretty easily.