Magento Review

Kurtis By: Kurtis | Last updated August 2, 2017

magento, ecommerce, logo

9.2 / 10

TRY IT NOW

Our editorial staff evaluates products and services independently, but Best Review Guide may earn money when you click on links. Read our advertising disclosure.

PROS:

  • Extremely complex and customizable
  • Has a free version (Magento Open Source)
  • Over 5,000 add-ons and apps available
  • Unlimited number of products
  • Great built-in SEO tools
  • Out-of-the-box integration with Authorize.net, PayPal Payment Solutions and Braintree

CONS:

  • Not user-friendly, hard to set-up (might require a developer)
  • The free version doesn’t include phone, email or live chat support
  • Abandoned cart recovery only available with the Enterprise version
Show More

SUMMARY:

Magento is one of the most popular ecommerce solutions on the market. It is best tailored for larger businesses, but not exclusively. It also has a free version (Magento Open Source), it is very complex and customizable and includes over 5,000 add-ons and apps, myriad of features, great built-in SEO tools and more. On the other hand, this complexity comes at a price. This platform requires some solid developer knowledge in order to be properly set-up, so don’t be surprised if you’ll find yourself in need to ask for specialized help.  

CHECK PRICE

COMPLETE REVIEW

Magento names itself “the world’s #1 commerce platform”, claiming that it handles $100 billion in gross merchandise volume every year. The software was released in 2008 and it was bought by eBay in 2011.

Nowadays, the company has more than 250,000 customers. Canon Australia, Coca Cola, Big Bus Tours, Loake, Bvlgari, Ghirardelli, Burger King, Murad, Zumiez and Selver are just some brands that use Magento.

Magento comes in 2 versions: Magento Open Source (formerly Community Edition, which is free) and Magento Enterprise Edition.

This ecommerce platform is best suited for larger businesses, but smaller ones can also benefit from its features.

If you choose to download the software, you will then have to find your own web hosting provider. Also, be aware of the fact that you might need a developer for Magento, because it is not the simplest and most user-friendly solution out there. Magento is fully customizable, but you have to be quite tech-savvy and to know your coding, if you want to set-up everything by yourself. You can save yourself a lot of trouble if you choose to sign up for their Enterprise Edition, but in that case, your wallet might get hit pretty hard.

Magento does come with an installation guide, but in our opinion, it isn't of much help, if you are just an average user.

You should also know that there are no available built-in themes, you have to purchase them from third-party developers. Some of them come for free, while others can cost you up to $500. The average price is $80-$100. Not all themes are mobile responsive, so make sure to check them out before buying them. Also, not all of them are compatible with their latest version, Magento 2.0.

There are over 120 free themes available.

Check out their themes here: https://marketplace.magento.com/themes.html?___store=default

Although setting everything up is quite a hassle, things simplify a lot once everything is functional. The interface looks pretty well organized, intuitive and clean.

Magento has a hierarchical organization structure for products. Every item is arranged based on categories and subcategories.

It supports unlimited number of products, you can easily edit tax and shipping settings using the sidebar, you can create discounts and coupons and so on.

Magento allows you to display recently viewed items, show related products, sell digital products, share items on Facebook, has multi-lingual capabilities, set up advanced pricing rules, supports  product reviews, grouped items, wish lists, etc.

In terms of add-ons and apps, there are over 5,000 apps available for Magento, free and paid.

Magento doesn’t charge any transaction fees, except for the ones from the gateway provider.

It comes with out-of-the-box integrations with Authorize.net, PayPal Payment Solutions and Braintree.

There are 46 available payment gateways. Square, Sage Pay Suite Pro, Beanstream Payment, Amazon Pay, Alipay, are just some of them.

Magento comes with great SEO features. It is extremely well optimized and many of the SEO tools are available “out of the box”: meta tags, images optimization, canonical tags for products and categories and more. Other SEO tools are friendly URLs, Google Site Map and others. There is also Google Analytics integration.

When it comes to shipping and checkout, Magento includes guest checkout, tax and shipping estimates in shopping cart and shipping to multiples addresses.

There is a missing feature in the free version and that is the abandoned cart recovery. The feature is included though in their Enterprise version.

Pricing

Magento Open Source is free, although you do have some expenses related to web hosting, payment processing, domain names, plugins, an SSL certificate and so on.

The other version starts from $22,000 and can go as high as $32,000/year.

However, there is no price displayed on their website, so you have to contact them in order to get an exact quote. Given the popularity and reputation of this company, you would expect them to be more transparent about matters like costs and fees, so that’s a thumbs-down from us.

Help/Support

Phone (sales): (855) 733-5533

Social media: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/magento/

Unfortunately, Magento does not include direct technical support for their free, community edition: “Please note that the free Magento Community Edition is provided as an as-is solution and does not include support.” That is a real disadvantage and minus for them, given the fact that most competitors include phone support and live chat.

However, you can use their self-service resources: the user guide, their forums, Magento Wiki and so on. The good news is that there is an active user community which can be really helpful in some cases.

Another way to go is to sign up for their training courses, some of which are free. Others can go as high as $3,500.

Rate this review!

CHECK PRICE

Our editorial staff evaluates products and services independently, but Best Review Guide may earn money when you click on links. Read our advertising disclosure.

SEE ALTERNATIVES

3d Cart
3d Cart
Read Review
Volusion
Volusion
Read Review
Shopify
Shopify
Read Review

CHECK ALTERNATIVES

Ecommerce/Shopping Cart Our top picks

BEST IN CLASS
1
9.7
3d Cart
Read Review
BEST VALUE
2
9.4
Volusion
Read Review
RUNNER UP
3
9.3
Shopify
Read Review
4
9.3
Fortune3
Read Review
5
9.2
Magento
Read Review
6
9.0
PinnacleCart
Read Review
7
8.6
Ashop Intelligent Commerce
Read Review
8
8.3
X-Cart
Read Review
9
8.1
CoreCommerce
Read Review
10
8.0
BigCommerce
Read Review

SUBSCRIBE