OsCommerce vs. Magento – which one do you think is better?
Before building an online store, online merchants indeed have to select one eCommerce platform. The important thing is choosing the appropriate one, as if they pick the one that does not fit their needs, the performance of their webshop will not be as good as wanted.
There are numerous well-designed eCommerce platforms on the market, namely Magento, Shopify, WooCommerce, etc. Among illustrious eCommerce solutions, OsCommerce and Magento are worth mentioning and reviewing. This blog post will give you a clear comparison between these two platforms, so you can make up your mind about which one you should go for.
Besides OsCommerce vs. Magento comparison, you can find other comparisons here to broaden your choice:
- Magento vs. BigCommerce
- Magento vs. Shopify
- Magento vs. WordPress
- Magento vs. Opencart
- Magento vs. Drupal
OsCommerce vs. Magento Overview
Table of Contents
OsCommerce and Magento are two famous names in the eCommerce world. But, each solution has its own strengths and limitations.
OsCommerce
The journey of OsCommerce started in March 2000, so OsCommerce can be considered as one of the most long-standing eCommerce solutions. This platform is open-source online management software written in PHP and developed by Harald Ponce de Leon. After over 20 years of expansion and development, many businesses have trusted and used OsCommerce. Currently, this self-hosted solution has powered more than 46,000 live websites, and that number does not take into account sites that used OsCommerce in the past.
OsCommerce
Magento
Varien Inc, a U.S.-based company, specializing in software development, launched an open-source eCommerce platform named Magento in 2008. Since then, Magento has helped countless businesses of all sizes in running web stores, such as Forever New, Canon, NCare, Helly Hansen, ASUS, to name a few. There is no doubt that Magento is in the top leading eCommerce solutions, especially for B2B businesses. Until now, the number of virtual stores that Magento powers are over 750,000, and surely, it will increase remarkably on a global scale.
Magento Commerce
Magento offers two contrasting editions, Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce.
- Magento Open Source (known as Magento Community Edition) is free of charge. Although people can download this version for free, it still has all the fundamental built-in attributes that a primary eCommerce store needs.
- Magento Commerce (known as Magento Enterprise Edition) and Magento Commerce Cloud come with much more out-of-the-box features that can power a complicated online store.
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OsCommerce vs. Magento Comparison
Let’s find out some detailed information on both platforms, OsCommerce and Magento, so you will know which one is fitted.
1. Key Features and Functionalities
When reviewing OsCommerce vs. Magento, we need to think about key features and functionalities first. Of course, both OsCommerce and Magento already have all the simple eCommerce features for webshops to run productively, but certainly, Magento still has many more exceptional functionalities than OsCommerce.
About OsCommerce, its users must download extensions and add-ons if they want to have more supporting advanced functionalities. In addition, in terms of B2B features, OsCommerce is much inferior to Magento.
OsCommerce’s top key features:
- Multi-currency & Multi-lingual
- Orders processing
- Customer management
- Product catalog management
- Tax handling
- Payment processing support
Unlike OsCommerce, Magento comes with an extensive variety of premium built-in features, allowing small to large businesses to deliver seamless shopping experiences to their valuable customers.
Magento’s top main features that worth introducing:
- Visual Merchandising
- Advanced catalog search
- Automated target rules
- Inventory management
- Customer segmentation
- Multi-channel network and storefronts
As a leading solution in supporting B2B businesses, Magento provides numerous state-of-the-art B2B features, including but not limited to:
- Large orders handling
- B2B-focused reports
- Quote requests management
- Expedite restocking
- Company accounts
- Requisitions list
- Custom catalogs & pricing
- Price terms negotiation
CHECK OUT Magento 2 Tutorial for developers and merchants for the complete updated information.
2. SEO & Marketing
To successfully implement Marketing strategies to attract customers, evaluating SEO & Marketing of OsCommerce vs. Magento 2 is necessary. There is no doubt that SEO’s performance of Magento is much superior to OsCommerce, which leads to better Marketing implementation.
OsCommerce’s SEO & Marketing features are not diverse. Therefore, users of OsCommerce will need to download extensions if they want to have better visibility.
As stated previously, Magento owns a variety of features by default regarding SEO & Marketing. Magento’s sophisticated built-in SEO features allow their web stores to have higher chances of being visible on search engines:
- Image optimization
- Site map
- Personalized URL
- Meta tags
- Google Tools 301 directs
Ultra-modern Marketing functionalities of Magento are:
- Promotion: Rule-based related products, Catalog Price Rule, etc
- Private Sales: Invitations and events
- Communications: Newsletter Queue, Newsletters Templates, etc
- User Content: Pending Reviews, Yotpo Reviews, etc
- Customer Engagement: dotdigital Chat and Engagement Cloud, etc
3. Pricing
One of the most crucial things when comparing OsCommerce vs. Magento is pricing. When building a website and online store, there are many things related to money that needs to be taken care of, including extensions, themes, hosting, etc.
OsCommerce is initially free, but because of limited functionalities, users may need to pay for extra add-ons.
Magento has two editions with three specific pricing plans. The Magento Community Edition is free-of-charge to download, but the using fee of Magento Enterprise Edition and Magento Commerce Cloud relies on businesses’ average order value and gross sales revenue. You can see the table below for reference.
Magento 2 Enterprise Edition and Magento Commerce Cloud’s pricing plans
Without a doubt, running an online store on Magento Commerce is more costly than OsCommerce. But because users of Magento Enterprise Edition can experience all first-class features, paying more is still worth it.
LEAR MORE about All Costs to Build A Magento Website You Must know
4. Scalability
If your business is ready to expand, another vital aspect to consider OsCommerce vs. Magento 2 is Scalability. Scalability refers to the abilities and proficiencies of a website when handling a large amount of traffic volume and inventory. In terms of OsCommerce, this solution is not scalable as some technical difficulties will happen if the store has many products.
In contrast, as one of the leading eCommerce platforms, Magento has the capability to deal with huge inventory and a massive number of customer visits (up to 50,000 per hour). Therefore, Magento is the right solution for businesses of all sizes with ambitious scalability and growth goals.
5. Speed & Performance
To satisfy customer experience, the performance (speed) of a webpage plays an indispensable role. Because 70% of online users will abandon a website and never come back to it if the loading speed is slow-moving, the next thing you should care about between OsCommerce vs. Magento is Speed & Performance. To decide which platform loads faster is not simple, because the website’s performance depends on various components, including but not limited to image size, applications, and extensions.
6. Security
Observing the security of OsCommerce vs. Magento 2 is compulsory as avoiding cybercrime, identity theft, and other cyber endangers are the thing that all online stores need. Businesses that use OsCommerce need to download security extensions as OsCommerce is rarely updated.
While users of Magento Open Source have to download security add-ons, users of Magento Commerce can enjoy security features by default. In another way, Magento’s developer does launch updating security patches regularly that help eCommerce stores to stay away from cybercrime. Nevertheless, this process is manual and requires coding skills so that users can seek assistance from Magento associates.
7. Easy of Use
Easy of Use is another element that you should chew over. Regarding the user-friendly aspect, it seems that OsCommerce is easier to use and suitable for everyone, even people who do not have technical skills, to build and run eCommerce stores.
On the other hand, Magento’s building process is pretty grueling to deal with. Magento’s websites are required to be coded to fully function, so users of Magento need to be fully equipped with at least basic practical knowledge of coding skills. Instead, businesses that use Magento to power their stores can outsource the website development procedure to authorized Magento partners like BSS Commerce.
8. Support
Comparing OsCommerce vs. Magento 2 in terms of support is needed. OsCommerce’s consumers have to get through an inquiry system (email, tickets) if they face any challenges or difficulties and want to ask something. Although this system is slightly agreeable outwardly, customers need to wait for quite a long time to get their questions answered. Otherwise, users can join a live chat room/ forum to have immediate assistance from the community.
OsCommerce Support
Unlike OsCommerce, Magento offers many professional ways to support its users, including the official Magento Help Center, Magento DevDocs, community forums like Magento Stack Exchange, 24/7 live chat, email support, and especially, from certified Magento’s associates like BSS Commerce.
9. Extensions and Plugins
Last but not least, you need to review extensions and plugins between OsCommerce vs. Magento. Because every eCommerce platform has its shortcomings, so extensions are used to fulfill these limitations. Fortunately, both OsCommerce and Magento offer numberless extensions and plugins, which assist online stores to work more effectively.
When running webshops on OsCommerce, using integrations is compulsory due to OsCommerce’s limited features. Therefore, OsCommerce has over 9000 extensions on the marketplace, which are divided into seven categories: Payment, Shipping, Order Processing, Templates, Features, Languages, and others, to support store owners.
OsCommerce extensions
In contrast, although Magento already has many features by default, Magento still has over 4000 free and paid extensions to intensify the virtual store’s performance. Some categories of Magento extensions are Content & customization, Payments & Security, Site Optimization, Reporting & Analytics, and Accounting & Finance, to name a few. Besides extensions from Magento Marketplace, users can choose extensions from authorized partners of Magento like BSS Magento extension store. Moreover, you can rest assured that all extensions are high-quality because these things were assessed before being listed on the marketplace.
More importantly, for merchants who are considering the best platform for their B2B business, let’s refer to our comparison chart of Magento vs Shopify vs BigCommerce – three giants in the eCommerce world. Fill in the form below and the most detailed resource will be delivered to your email in the blink of an eye!
OsCommerce vs. Magento – Who wins this battle?
In a nutshell, we can clearly perceive that both solutions have their advantages and disadvantages, so deciding which platform wins this battle is not easy. Before choosing any platform to power your online store, you should carefully review and understand various aspects, such as the scope of expansion, business needs, business purposes, etc. If you desire to build a fast-growing eCommerce store with enormous catalogs and visitors, Magento will be the best-fitted eCommerce solution, especially for B2B businesses. In the meantime, OsCommerce might be a better choice if your business does not have many products and not want to expand vastly.
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