Magento is an increasingly popular e-commerce platform. It is equally widespread among small businesses as well as the giants of the e-commerce market because of its exceptional features and flawless performance. The long-term sustainability of an online business largely depends on the platform it operates on. That is why business owners are always on the lookout for more efficient and robust platforms for their online stores. If your quest for finding the best service available has brought you to Magento, you still have to decide which version is best suited for you.
Choosing between Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce is something many businesses are pondering over. Comparison between these two will give you a clear understanding of your options and help you make a well-thought-out decision.
Magento Open Source
Magento open source is free of cost and easily available for download. It comes with useful features like integrated checkout, shipping, and payment, catalog management, instant purchase, mobile-optimized shopping, extended functionality through app marketplace, worldwide selling, and site search. These features make Magento Open Source a suitable choice for SMB; however, some arrangements have to be made.
Many advanced features like content staging, visual merchandising, customer segmentation, technical support, and security are not there in this free version of Magento. If you are inclined towards using Magento Open Source for your business. You will have to arrange support and security from a third-party service provider. This means that using the free version is not free. However, likely, it won’t be as expensive as Magento Commerce.
Magento Commerce
Magento Commerce offers various advanced features in addition to all the features provided by open source. It is generally used by mid to large-sized enterprises. It can handle large traffic and comes with high-end security and maintenance. Magento Commerce, because of its unique features, will not only keep your eStore running smoothly but also expand your business tremendously.
Business intelligence dashboards, advanced marketing tools, and customer loyalty tools. And product recommendations are some of the exciting features that can be very helpful in increasing sales and expanding your business. Once you pay the yearly price for Magento Commerce. You can sit back and relax as all your eStore issues will be taken care of by Magento’s technical support team.
If you have been in the e-commerce business for a while and now your business is growing. Magento Commerce is the most suitable platform for you. However, if you have just started and are yet to become a huge company. You should consider using Magento Open Source so that you can save money for other aspects of your newborn business. Many giants in the e-commerce market started with Magento Open Source. And after gaining huge success in terms of revenue and traffic increase, switched to Magento Commerce.
Conclusion
The enterprise or paid version of Magento is feature-rich and advanced in every way. In addition to business needs, choosing between the paid and unpaid versions of Magento has a lot to do with finances. However, the Open Source version of Magento puts the burden of security and maintenance on the business owner which can be very costly at times. It is recommended to hire a Certified Adobe solution partner and developer for maintaining your Magento stores especially when it comes to Magento Commerce.