Magento is a leading platform for building quality e-commerce websites. Many businesses entrust this platform with creating their online shop. Magento provides 2 editions – the Open Source and Commerce one, for separate business segments with different packages of features and services. That’s why “Magento Open Source Vs Magento Commerce, which one is better?” is a headache question for numerous people.
So what is the difference between the above packages, and which service should you choose to build a website? Scroll down to find out!
Magento Open Source
What is Magento Open Source?
Magento Open Source is an open-source web-design support platform. Initially known as Magento Community Edition (CE), it has only embraced the new name since 2017.
This is a popular choice for numerous e-commerce businesses as they can have it at a zero-cost price and enjoy an efficient web performance. Users are free to adjust the configuration of this Magento version to suit their needs without being tied to any particular route.
Magento Open Source’s pros & cons
Pros
- Free to download and install
- Easily customize as you want
- Many outstanding features
- Unique and friendly store interface
- Various plugins from Magento extension providers
- Mobile friendly
- SEO features
Cons
- Quite difficult to use without technical knowledge
- There are many features, so sometimes SMEs can’t use all of them.
Magento Commerce
What is Magento Commerce?
Unlike Magento Open Source, Magento Commerce will require a considerable fee from the user. This price is relatively high, but there are many service milestones for you to choose from. The cheapest Magento Commerce license is about $22,000 per year.
In addition, Magento Commerce’s source and core file code were developed from Magento Open Source. However, Magento Commerce has more functions and features for both owners and users.
Magento Commerce’s pros & cons
Pros
- Lots of advanced features for business
- Easy to customize
- SEO Optimization
- Many outstanding extensions
- Beautiful interface with numerous unique functions
- Mobile friendly
- Prioritized support
Cons
- Too many features may confuse business owners
- The fee is too high
- Difficult to use for those without technical knowledge
Magento Open Source Vs Magento Commerce
Price
You can download and use Magento Open Source completely free. However, there are a few additional fees for hosting, domain, SSL, and extensions. This fee is limited to a maximum of $2,000 per year. If you hire a web design agency, the fee may increase from 5,000 to 10,000 USD.
For Magento Commerce, it will cost you quite a lot more to get your using permit license. This fee will range from $22,000 to $125,000 per year. Besides, while other costs are the same as Magento Open Source, the hosting fee will increase from $500 to $6,500 per year. The agency hiring fee is also growing due to the complexity of the Magento Commerce website. The total budget you need to prepare will range from $30,000 to $142,000 per year.
Marketing Features
Both Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce have numerous marketing features to help businesses stimulate customers’ demand, such as site search, website promotion, flexible coupons, and product suggestion features.
However, Magento Commerce has many other marketing features compared to the free version. The most typical of them is Magento BI, which is a feature that allows shop owners to view detailed reports on customer activity on the website.
The exclusive features in the paid version are all considered to be excellent. But asides from big businesses, which require great depth into customer understanding for their strategies, the marketing features of the Open Source are efficient enough.
Performance
Website performance is a headache concern for businesses owners. It usually significantly affects their customer’s shopping experience.
However, comparing this factor between Magento Open Source and the Commerce one is tricky since it depends on external factors such as server, internet connection, etc.
Even so, there is no denying that Magento Commerce has an outstanding performance. The optimized code and database are cleaner, faster, and more extensible than the free version.
In addition, when you purchase a Magento Commerce license, you will also get some exclusive extensions. These extensions can enhance your website’s ability to load faster and more accurately. Also, Magento Commerce can handle more data than Magento Open Source and remains at a surprising speed.
However, although the performance is not as good, Magento Open Source can ensure a fast and stable speed for your e-commerce shop. Its capability won’t disappoint you and your customers.
Business Features (B2B and B2C)
Magento Open Source is designed to support B2C businesses as efficiently as possible. Therefore, this version possesses only end customer-oriented functions. In other words, it has not had much support for B2B merchants.
On the contrary, Magento Commerce is fully equipped with tools for every B2B seller. Some specific abilities mentioned are quotes, negotiations, credit lines, quick payment options, etc.
Management Features
Both the free and premium versions will allow you to manage your online store closely through the admin panel in the website’s backend.
Specifically, you can manage the website through the “content” section in the admin panel. Here, you can change your website’s texture and appearance the way you want.
In addition, Shop Administration is also available through the “catalog” section in the backend. You can manage product lists, and category lists through this section. This is also where to post your products on your online shelves. Besides, do not forget to enter product information such as price, color, product code, and the like for easier identification.
Order management will also be tracked and managed at the admin panel. Your main job here will be to check if there were any orders, then manage their availability and fulfill them.
Report features
There is no denying that the Magento paid version has superior reporting functions compared to the free version. However, the Open Source version integrated with Google Analytics has most of the business’s functions.
The first is reporting revenue or profit in a lifetime, average and monthly. These are must-have reports.
Besides the above feature, you can also see sales status, tax status, the number of goods, abandoned orders, best sellers, etc. They will be noted on the backend of the website.
Last but not least, you can also see the number of online customers and the number of visitors.
Support
If you have zero or little expertise in website design, then technical support from Magento is significantly important.
Magento seems to have put a lot of effort into caring for Magento Commerce customers. This edition has various technical support, such as customer success care, cloud onboarding support, and global support.
Unfortunately, Magento does not have a supporting policy for Magento Open Source users. Yet, users can still turn to the Magento community for help.
If you do not have experience and skills in website design, hiring a web design agency as a companion would be best in this case. In addition to developing an e-commerce site, they will support you any time you need.
Which one is better?
For Small and Medium businesses
It can be seen that their capital is quite limited for small and medium enterprises. Therefore, Magento Commerce doesn’t sound like a good sense of finance.
Moreover, although this premium version will bring more valuable functions, it seems that SMEs often do not use all of them. This can be wasteful.
In addition, the small businesses are mainly B2C merchants, and Magento Open Source’s features can fully meet their needs of interface, display, marketing, etc…
For Big Businesses
Large businesses can use Magento Open Source as a trial to consider before investing in Magento Commerce. This will help them efficiently assess the need for the paid version, choose the suitable service pack, and avoid unnecessary mistakes while using the paid platform.
In fact, Magento Open Source still fully meets the needs of an e-commerce website of a large B2C business. This version has all the functions of administration, marketing, and reporting.
Bottom Line
It is undeniable that Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce have their strengths and weaknesses. But in general, both versions are an excellent push for your business revenue. However, they are undeniably difficult to use without technical knowledge. You should find a team of experts in Magento development like Tigren to build your E-commerce site/ App/ PWA on the Magento platform.
Above is all information about Magento Open Source vs Magento Commerce comparing, hope you find it helpful!
