Magento vs. Opencart - Choose the Right eCommerce Platform

Choosing an eCommerce platform for your business can never be an easy exercise. With more than 100 of popular options available, users are bound to get confused. eCommerce has been the platform for a range of IT innovations. The amount of competition and the ever increasing demand for new solutions has led to a host of options available to choose from. This is where Magento and OpenCart come into the picture. Both Magento and Opencart are open source PHP based content management systems (CMS). Magento and Opencart are both free to use and offer great options for customizations and add-ons. Since both are quite common in nature how do you choose the right platform for your online store? We have compiled 5 ways in which they are different from each other and how you can choose the best eCommerce platform for yourself.

Magento vs. Shopify vs. WooCommerce - The Ultimate Battle

Magento vs. Opencart:

Magento vs. Opencart is definitely a close fight but upon detailed analysis, you can find many important differentiating factors. Here are the ways in which Magento is different from Opencart:

1. Functionality:

When it comes to functionality Magento leaves Opencart behind by miles. Magento offers maximum customization among all the eCommerce platform out there. Magento has capabilities to give shape to every little idea of an entrepreneur. With thousands of plugins and themes available for customization, Magento is definitely a win over Opencart when it comes to functionality.

2. User interface:

Magento has a huge list of features and is very customizable but at the same time, it is difficult to use. Magento has a steep learning curve and if you are new to PHP then it will be difficult to catch up. Mostly all the eCommerce owners who choose Magento end up hiring a certified developer for help. On the contrary, Opencart is famous for its sleek UI and intuitive interface. It is easy for beginners to learn Opencart and get their store up and running in no time.

Know More: 7 Essentials of a Good a eCommerce Web Design

3. Costs:

Superficially both the solutions look free to the end user. But you have to incur costs on hosting. Magento is highly resource intensive thus you will need to invest heavily on hosting to get some fruitful results. Opencart, on the other hand, is lightweight and simple. By decluttering a lot of features which are never used, Opencart has allowed businesses to depend on a cheap hosting especially during the launch of their businesses.

Another cost that is often neglected is the cost of human resources. Magento is hard to master thus Magento developers are costly. A significant cost is incurred in hiring and managing a developer in-house as this becomes a mandatory cost with Magento.

Know More: Advantages of Outsourcing in eCommerce

4. SEO:

SEO is again a part where Magento has an upper hand. Beginner level SEO related to title tags and meta is easily incorporated in the both the systems. While it is easy to leverage advanced SEO in Magento, it is difficult to master it in Opencart. Functions like canonical tags and schema markup are well incorporated in Magento but are very complicated to use in Opencart.

5. Community:

Magento powers 20.4% of the Alexa Top 1 million websites (It means there are 14,500 Magento stores in the Alexa Top 1 million). Opencart is comparatively a new player and has fewer adopters. Owing to that Magento also has a huge community of developer backing it while Opencart has a smaller set of communities. Nonetheless, Opencart communities are active and since there are lesser complexities involved in using it, you won’t be dependent much on the communities.

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Which is Better - Magento or Opencart?

Whether to choose Magento or Opencart depends on your purpose. If you are a new entrant into the eCommerce space and want to manage most of your solutions yourself that Opencart is a good choice. Opencart fails to satisfy the hunger for perfection but is compensates it fairly well with its simple interface. Opencart is a good choice if you have fewer resources and want to start small and manage on your own.

Magento, on the other hand, is built for those who want to customize their platform to the fullest. It is built for people who want to hit big with their online business and are unwilling to compromise on functionality. If you have big plans for your eCommerce then it is recommended to go for Magento since you won’t have to migrate from one platform to another. Thus we have seen that the choice between Magento or Opencart depends largely on the individual use case and both are great platforms. Both Magento and Opencart have their advantages and disadvantages and the choice depends largely on individual outlook than just the features and UI.

Read More: In the war of Magento or Opencart, Why Magento Proves to be an Ideal Choice?

Have a query? Want to get an eCommerce platform developed for your business? If yes, than you are at the right place. Feel free to contact us to get the best solution for your online store.