What’s the basic difference between Magento and osCommerce?
If you are managing an E-commerce shop, it is very important to give enjoyable and comfortable experience to your users so as to generate more business. Choice of E-Commerce solutions is one of the major factors determining the success of E-Commerce business. If it is about open source e-commerce softwares, then Magento and osCommerce have made their specific places in the market. The choice between Magento and osCommerce becomes critical when it comes to selecting the best eCommerce solution for best online shopping businesses. Both osCommerce and Magento are very much user-friendly and offers high quality facilities and functionality.
But there are some features which make them different and make the users think about selecting the best one for them.
So, let us find out what’s the basic difference between Magento and osCommerce.
Hosting: Due to functionality and high quality features Magento requires Dedicated Server or Virtual Private Server for smooth functioning of the eCommerce sites while osCommerce does not make a demand as the sites can run with any reliable and good hosting facility which supports quality PHP web scripting language and good MySQL database.
Architecture: One of the biggest issues with osCommerce has been upgrades as there is no way to upgrade once custom modifications are done. However with Magento customizations to existing functionality, upgradation is possible.
Shopping Cart: Both osCommerce and Magento provide shopping cart facilities to their online customers. The shopping cart of Magento runs a little slower due to its heavy codes as they take more time to load and the customization of the Magento shopping cart is comparatively more complicated than the shopping cart of osCommerce.
Modules and Functionality: Magento is far ahead of osCommerce in both these respects as Magento not only includes all the modules, functionalities and features of osCommerce but it also provides some highly useful ones. Modules and functionalities like coupons, Meta tags, changeable order mails, simple reporting structures, and product comparison are allowed in Magento but they are not available with osCommerce sites or online stores.
Updates: Magento comes up with regular updates which is good from the user’s points of view. These updates make the sites user-friendly and more versatile. However the situation is quite different for osCommerce sites as it is older and updates are seldom for these sites.
Backend facilities: Backend facilities with Magento are well-organized with configuration or cleaner site structure. This makes most of the products get included within the shopping cart. The backend facilities are not that standard and good in osCommerce as it is found and believed that code for the same in osCommerce is not that effective and successful.
Managing the customers: Magento provides some additional facilities like separate pricing strategies for different customer groups, help the customers to have better views to the products with Multiple Product Images to the site owners to meet the requirements of the customers effectively. These facilities are not available with osCommerce sites.
Payment gateways: Magento offers better payment gateways in the form of PayPal and PayPal Pro to the customers. These are preferred by most of the online shoppers. osCommerce sites allow PayPal but payment through PayPal Pro is still not available with these sites and the payment through PayPal does not require IPN in any of the osCommerce sites.
Power to site owners: Magento provides some great facilities like they can run multiple numbers of stores with features like Spreadsheet Database Upload and Pre-installed Google checkouts to the site owners to make their sites more versatile. These benefits are not available in eCommerce sites which are powered by osCommerce.
This comparison between osCommerce and Magento can be very helpful and useful for the people who wish to start their online shopping sites through any of these two popular eCommerce platforms as selection of the right platform is very essential for the success of the online business opportunities.
