Magento vs OpenCart.

This is a debate that has been going on for a long time now. And it has left many clients confused, as to which one of these should they choose.

Plus, more and more people are looking to create their own eCommerce platform to meet the ever-rising demand.

Even today, 93.5% of global internet users have purchased products online through eCommerce sites. As such, by the end of 2023, 218.8 million US consumers will shop online. Cons

Reports show 95% of all purchases will be through eCommerce by the year 2040. The number one reason why people love online shopping so much is that they’re able to shop at all hours of the day.

To tap into the full potential of the eCommerce market, you need a robust online shop.

The reason is that, with a bad user experience, you lose a lot of business. In 2022 alone, e-commerce stores lost over $756 billion due to personalization.

Now, there are over 12 million24 million eCommerce sites across the entire globe. Worse still, More than one-third of American small businesses do not have a website. And even those who do, don’t make more than $1000/year.

The reason behind this is clear, poor eCommerce platform. And this brings us to our topic, which is better Magento or OpenCart?

If you are looking for the answer to this question, this blog is for you.

Let’s get right into it:

 

What is OpenCart Development?

OpenCart is an eCommerce Development Platform.

It’s open source and runs on PHP/MySQL code. OpenCart Development is quite similar to Magento, but there are some big differences as we shall be discussing later down the line.

Coming back, this platform is known for its simplicity and the friendly experience it offers to the users. This is on the user’s side.

On the business side, the entire platform is very easy to use. The administration dashboard on the back end makes everything that much easier. Here, the owner can manage products, promotions, orders, and reports.

And the best part is, there is no technical help required.

Moving on, the platform runs over 400,000 websites today. While a lot of these are in the United States, others range from Russia to UK, Ukraine, and Brazil.

With this out of the way, let’s look at the Magento.

 

What is Magento Development?

Custom Magento development services are all in the range.

It is one of the world’s largest eCommerce platforms. It is run by Adobe and stands as an open-source platform.

Well, Magento has two versions actually where latest one is known as Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce. In addition to this, the platform comes with an automated hosting version i.e. Magento Commerce Cloud.

In either of them, the owner gets full control over site management. They can customize it as they want and scale the platform.

Magento 1 powers 167,000 active eCommerce sites powered by and almost 100,000 are powered by Magento 2

All in all, this is one of the best platforms for creating the best e-commerce platform.

 

The similarity between Magento & OpenCart

The similarity between Magento & OpenCart

Well, there are many differences between Magneto and OpenCart.

However, they also share some similarities. Let’s see what these are:

Both OpenCart vs Magento is open-source platforms. In addition, they are based on PHP. OpenCart vs Magento both has multicurrency and language support.

Apart from this, they are both free to download and use. Plus, the running cost is based on a hosting plan, a domain name, a good Magento or OpenCart template/ design, necessary modules/ extensions, and an SSL certificate. ( as with any other platform.

Now, if you are someone who is thinking of starting an online store, you need to understand similarities as well as differences.

 

 

Magento vs OpenCart: Head-to-Head Comparison

Magento vs OpenCart: Head-to-Head Comparison

The key to choosing the right eCommerce platform, is to know the differences between Magneto and OpenCart. And in this section of the blog, we shall be comparing these two open-source robust e-commerce platform head to head.

Therefore, with this being said, let’s get right into it:

  • Performance – Magneto vs OpenCart

Performance or speed is one of the biggest factors when comparing Magento and OpenCart development services.

And as you would expect, Magento takes the win here. The winner offers an average loading time of 665 milliseconds, while OpenCart is much slower at 831 milliseconds.

So, why is speed so important?

The reason is clear, people hate slow sites. More than 40% of users leave a site that takes more than 3 seconds of loading time.

In fact, even if your site is 1 second slower than the competition, you will lose a large chunk of potential customers.

Magento 2 comes with a number of plugins that can further boost the loading speed. This is the reason why magneto is a winner in terms of performance and speed.

  • Cost

The very first question a client asks when developing a platform is,

How much is it going to cost?

And rightfully so. After all, every client wants to know how much they are paying. This is what allows them to calculate if they will be making a profit or not.

Now, both Magento and OpenCart are open-source. Therefore, they are free to download and use. But there are some other factors that incur a cost.

These are, a hosting plan, a domain name, a good template, extensions, and an SSL certificate.

As such, the magneto eCommerce platform is a little more expensive than its counterpart OpenCart. The reason is that the former one is very resource intensive.

OpenCart runs on a very light architecture, thus, costing way less than Magento. Let’s look at the Magento vs OpenCart’s extension cost.

  • Magento extensions cost ranges from $50 to $500
  • OpenCart extensions cost ranges from $10 to $489.

These are the pricing structure for both of these platforms.

If you want to learn more about how much these eCommerce platforms will cost, it’s highly recommended that you consult an OpenCart or Magento development company that will help you with the same.

  • User Friendly-ness

Well, the user or let’s say the customer is the key to a successful business. and this is something all of us can agree on.

So, this begs the question, which one of the platforms is more user-friendly, Magento vs Opencart?

On the front end, the user experience can be highly optimized. But on the back end, opencart is much more user-friendly, as anyone with basic computer skills can install and run the OpenCart store.

On the other hand, setting up a magneto platform can be a little hard on the mind. For this, you might need to hire dedicated developers.

However, this shouldn’t be considered a deal breaker as magneto offers an amazing front-end experience to the customer. And when done right, magneto 2 features can mean millions in revenue for your business.

  • SEO Compatibility and Marketing Tools

Everyone wants to build an SEO-optimized Website.

Here’s why:

If you want to grow your online store and become the next big thing in the market, you need organic traffic and lots of it. This is where search engine optimization or SEO comes in.

There are millions of blogs, videos, and articles telling you just how important it is for eCommerce stores. But the question is which most SEO-compatible platform is.

Well, when it comes to SEO compatibility and tools, both Magento vs Opencart stand shoulder to shoulder on this parameter.

eCommerce platforms allow users to add plugins for SEO. This opens up a number of possibilities.

As far as the in-platform editor is concerned, OpenCart allows you to edit meta tags, add 301 referrals, and rel canonicals, but URL editing isn’t supported.

Coming to the Magento 2 features, well, it’s filled with SEO features. it comes with tools that allow content optimization, traffic analysis, and whatnot.

This is one of the reasons why you should contact the Magento 2 development company today.

  • Extensions

Speaking of which, what bring eCommerce platforms like Magento vs OpenCart to life are extensions and plug-ins.

Both of the platforms are fully loaded here.

OpenCart comes with more than 13,000 extensions. This enables a range of new features and various themes for UI.

On the flip side, Magento comes with over 5000 extensions. These are mostly based on additional functionalities i.e. they go to the back end.

In the sheer number of extensions available, opencart is the clear winner. However, when it comes to practicality, Magento is something that most clients prefer.

 

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  • Support

Support is important. While both of the e-commerce development platforms are easy to set up and operate, owners often run into technical issues.

This is where support comes in.

OpenCart offers two forms of support. The first one is a community forum where people can come and share their solutions to problems.

And the other one is professional support from the technical team at $99 per month.

On the other side of the table, Magento doesn’t offer any live chat or official technical support, just like the majority of the open-source eCommerce platforms.

Nevertheless, there is a 300,000 members strong community for Magneto, where you can find most of the answers. Magento Devdocs is a good way to find the required technical help.

In any case, this is how both of the platforms perform when it comes to support.

  • Security

Open-source platforms are not well-known for their security, so, let’s see how opencart vs Magento performs.

OpenCart is not very popular for its security. And due to its high open-source nature, there are chances of it giving in to a cyber-attack.

However, there are various plug-ins available as we discussed in the previous section of the blog. And you can use 3rd party extensions to improve security.

Moving on, Magento is well-known for its high security despite being open-sourced.

The robust e-commerce platform scores high on the security tests and with the largest version of Magento, its walls are expected to grow stronger.

  • Payment Methods

ECommerce payment methods are very very important.

After all, if you are running an eCommerce store and want to generate huge revenue, you would want to provide a secure, fast, and varying payment method.

When it comes to OpenCart, this platform presents 36 payment methods. Now, there aren’t ready right out of the box but can be integrated.

When it comes to Magento, well, it comes with PayPal as well as Braintree, you can integrate a lot more with e-commerce app development services.

 So, this was the head-to-head comparison of Magento vs OpenCart. With this out of the way, let’s look at some questions that you need to ask yourself when choosing between these two:

 

Question To Ask, When Choosing the Right eCommerce Platform

Magneto or OpenCart, OpenCart or Magneto, this debate has us all confused.

So, if you too can’t choose between magneto vs OpenCart, here are some questions that you should be asking yourself.

  • Who will develop the eCommerce Platform?
  • Do you require long-term site maintenance? How will you get it?
  • How difficult will it be to customize a template?
  • What’s the available support for your preferred platform?
  • Do you prefer a custom solution or are you okay with a regular one?
  • Does the existing feature satisfy your business needs?
  • What additional features will you need and whether or not the said platform provides them?
  • Do you want to sell internationally?
  • Is the SEO performance of the eCommerce development platform to your liking?
  • How much are you willing to spend on licensing, hosting, extensions, etc, and does it fit in with your budget?

These are some questions that you should be asking yourself. In any case, for more details on the same, you should contact a custom web development company.

 


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Conclusion: Which One Is Better?

So, which one, Magento vs OpenCart? Well, putting a finger on either one can be difficult. But based on the comparison we had above, you should hire dedicated Magento developers.

Magneto is one of the best platforms for fast online business growth. The platform offers amazing security in addition to a room for customization. This is what makes it a robust e-commerce platform that has been making a name for itself.

In any case, if you are someone who wants to learn more about either of these platforms, it’s highly recommended that you consult an eCommerce development company that will give you better insight into the same.