Best Magento Alternatives for your business

An e-commerce business is as good as its e-commerce platform. There is no denying that Magento is a robust platform. It is highly customizable and scalable. But is it the right choice for you?

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An e-commerce business is as good as its e-commerce platform. There is no denying that Magento is a robust platform. It is highly customizable and scalable. But is it the right choice for you? Would you be better off with a Magento alternative? We did an in-depth analysis of major e-commerce platforms to bring you the best of the lot.

Magento

Magento is one of the most scalable e-commerce platforms available in the market. It is available as both community and enterprise editions. While the community edition is available free of cost, the enterprise edition digs a (pretty sizable) hole in your pocket.

  • Technical expertise: Installing and maintaining Magento requires a good deal of technical knowledge.
  • It is not for the faint-hearted: Every release of Magento’s community edition(the free one) comes with the risk of backward compatibility issues. You might have spent days, if not months, setting up your store with the perfect modules. One release could break down any functionality which could be pivotal to your shop. If you are not maintaining these modules yourself, you are at the mercy of the module developer.
  • Slow: Magento is slow. Even if you use Varnish, it is still slow. A basic Magento page renders PHP code, XML, Knockout JS, and finally, HTML. The complexity of the system hinders optimizing the site for speed.
  • Scalability: If your business makes a profit of millions per year and you can afford to have a dedicated technical team to manage your store, Magento might be the thing for you. You can start with fifty products and scale up to a million. You can manage and fulfill thousands of orders per week -assuming you have the hardware to back it up.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is essentially a WordPress plugin. According to WordPress, 38% of the web uses it. WooCommerce is its most downloaded e-commerce plugin. The list below gives you an idea if WooCommerce can be used as a Magento alternative for your store.

  • It’s all FREE!: WordPress is open source, and WooCommerce is a free plugin. With countless themes and plugins, you can build your perfect eCommerce website.
  • Technical knowledge: Installing and maintaining WooCommerce requires little technical knowledge. A few clicks here and there and you are good to go.
  • Expansion plans?: WooCoomerce allows you to expand your store into hosting hundreds of products without slowing your store. More products might slow down your store, but it’s nothing a little extra RAM cannot handle.

OpenCart

OpenCart is another open-source alternative to Magento, which means you can modify anything and everything. It is light, responsive and can be customized with some technical know-how.

  • Localization: OpenCart offers options for multi-language and multi-currency settings.
  • Money matters: OpenCart may start at $0, but the cost can go up to thousands, depending on the features you choose.
  • Themes: There is a wide variety of themes or templates available to enhance your shop’s look and feel.

Shopify

Shopify is the only SaaS that made it to our list. It is well known for empowering small and medium businesses. They host your store for you, and with just a few clicks, your shop will be up and running in no time.

  • Costs: With Shopify, nothing comes for free. Their basic plan starts from $29/month. You will be charged transaction fees for using a payment gateway other than Shopify payments.
  • App Store: You will find several apps in Shopify’s app store for e-commerce integration.
  • Migration: Migrating to another platform can be tricky with Shopify. You will lose access to your data when you drop your Shopify store. In a way, you will need to start from scratch.

Starting a new business comes with all sorts of challenges. Adding an e-commerce channel is a huge task. But you have us for that. Woogo Stores is your one-stop-shop for e-commerce. We give you the curated WooCommerce experience. So let’s get started. Just drop us a line at support@woogostores.com; we’ll be happy to help you.