Opencart or Magento on a e-commerce/blog website

Hello everyone,

I am looking for some professional advice from the community.
Here is the situation:

Our programmer is persuading us to go with Magento on our company website, however we have heard lots of positive reviews about OpenCart. To make the things even more complicated, we are going to use Wordpress for our Blog section.
Given the specifics of our website, could you please recommend using OpenCart or Magento and what are the pros and cons of using each of these CMS with Wordpress on the same site?
Thank you.

SparksLee wrote:Hello everyone,

I am looking for some professional advice from the community.
Here is the situation:

Our programmer is persuading us to go with Magento on our company website, however we have heard lots of positive reviews about OpenCart. To make the things even more complicated, we are going to use Wordpress for our Blog section.
Given the specifics of our website, could you please recommend using OpenCart or Magento and what are the pros and cons of using each of these CMS with Wordpress on the same site?
Thank you.

Right away, 3 things I would say about Magento:

1) Requires a lot more server resources from your hosting company
2) Harder for a non programmer to work with so if you're going to do any updating yourself, you'll have an easier time with Opencart
3) If you're not using the free version, you'll always have a licensing fee.

DL

If you 'have' a good Programmer, then, you should let him decide, because he has to make the 'Thing' ready and keep it alive afterwards. I do not know Magento, so, I cannot not compare, but I imagine, Magento will not do much more or much less, compared with a similarely 'equipped' Opencart Setup.

Just be aware, that, customizing Opencart requires, at least, a good amount of 'basic' HTML/CSS/SCRIPTING Programmer-Knowledge, it's not just done by re-arranging a few Sections in a Webpage, just using admin-built-in Options. More, Opencart is a 250+ Country - XX-Language - XX-Currency - built-in Allround Workhorse. Because of this, it's heavy (on load), as it comes, by default. A good Programmer would probably remove a lot of stuff, not used for your Shop, as well, but probably install several Mod's, required to offer the Kind of Service you want to advertize.

Therefore, it's NOT the Software Brand, it's the Programmer, playing THE decisive Roll in your Project. You will depend on his/her Competence and Experience, you therefore have to decide between a Custom Turn-Key Shop (i.E.Magento) and a FREE Allround Shop Software (i.E.OpenCart/OpenShop), but this one waiting to be adapted to your needs. This Adaption will cost you, in any case, Time, and Time is Money.

There is a third Option. You could arrange someone here, from the Pro's, to get your Shop installed and set up, according to your requirements. Just check on the Fellows, regularely either active at the Forum or then present with 'UPDATED' free+paid VqMod Offers on the Extension Pages. I have seen some great Sites, and this would possibly keep you from going trough a lot of frustration, getting your Place to look and be, as you want it.

I tend to 'widen' my posts, trying to make them better understandable for 'others' as well, I don't want to play teacher, if you know, what I mean with that...

Good Luck

Ernie

PS. Never heard, that OC or another shop software could collide with WP, if installed in different Subs...!?

Do you have an in-house developer? Do they have experience with Magento? Do you trust this person's advice? If so then consider going with their recommendation. But if you answered no to any one of those questions then OpenCart is definitely a contender.

OpenCart is Light-Weight

OpenCart can run with far less server resources compared to Magento and runs much faster (lower is better):







(Note: Profiler load times are much slower than actual site load times. The speeds are for comparison rather than real-world benchmarking.)

OpenCart is also lean. Magento with demo data is 556 MB versus OpenCart's 15 MB. That's a 97% difference. Magento also uses a combined 20,000 files and directories. That compares to only 2800 in OpenCart.

OpenCart is Straight Forward To Modify

OpenCart uses a straight-forward MVC design experienced web developers will be comfortable with. Modifying Magento is complex with a high learning curve.

OpenCart is Feature Rich

There is no separation between a pay enterprise version and a free edition. OpenCart is developed and released as one free product with all features available.

OpenCart Has a Low Cost of Ownership

OpenCart can run on cheaper hosting, doesn't require licensing to unlock all features, and has a lower cost for third-party themes and extensions than Magento.

Is OpenCart For Everyone?

There's no one solution that's right for all businesses. OpenCart fits best with small to medium sized businesses that want a fast, easy-to-deploy ecommerce solution. It can also fit well with large web stores (20k+ products) that can devote resources to optimization.

I've tried Magento as a store administrator, and also worked with WooCommerce.

WooCommerce I think is popular only because lots of WordPress users never saw better e-commerce solutions. WordPress is not designed to be e-commerce platform, and it feels right from the start. Administration is catastrophically inconvenient - product lists (from admin side) take huge time to load, take much space on the screen, everything looks like a mess. It feels that e-commerce is only an optional extra for WordPress. But... it might be the best solution, for example, to sell your digital book, or if you have several items in your inventory that have no complicated options. You can also make great product presentations with selling option from store. But it should never be used for large volume e-commerce.

Magento is completely opposite - it's built for large volumes, huge loads of options etc. The problem for me is convenience for non-tech users. It has lots and lots of tools and fields in one place, and it really takes time to teach someone non-tech to use it. It might seem not a big issue, but think at it this way - if you ever worked with old software for accountants, and you like the environment there - with lots of fields filling all the screen, Magento might just be great for you. For me it gives headache in 10 minutes. But some like it as it is. Other thing why Magento scares me - prices of the extensions...

OpenCart for me is somewhere in the middle. It also has lots of features, but it's super simple to use for non-tech users. I was amazed how easy my clients learned how to use it - I just showed them one time quickly, and after that they take care of products, categories, stock, orders. Administration is straightforward. I only need to add new shipping or payment modules for them. I even have one customer with large store that uses openCart v1.5.5.1 for several years, but I never had any work with it in that time - it just works. OpenCart is free, extensions are inexpensive, it works fast. Midifications can be done easily (more or less). One thing that's not so great is that you can't update from one version to another easily. But you don't need to do it every time new version comes out.

I am using OpenCart. I am satisfied with features and opportunities that OpenCart provides us. OpenCart has many years of developing with professional developers. I know many business are used to OpenCart.
Magento is considered a powerful platform. However, it is too expensive with many unnecessary features for small business.

You can also visit this topic: http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=164071