Online retailers, who want to try out Magento platform have more than one option to choose and more than a few things to consider, before they make the final decision. Each of the editions of Magento shopping cart: Go, Community and Enterprise are designed with different types of users in mind. The range of features and functionalities offered in each of the editions also varies.
Check how to choose between the two most popular Magento editions: Magento Go and Community
Type of business
Magento Go is a set of functionalities designed most of all for small companies with less than 10,000 products sold via the online store. Retailers can only add simple items to their stores, matrix pricing is not available. No advanced programming skills are required to run a Magento Go online store. Magento Community is an open source shopping cart designed by and for developers and retailers, who are well versed in programming.
The Magento Community platform works best for online stores with less than 50,000 unique visitors per month (Enterprise edition is recommended for bigger online stores).
Paid vs. (not so) free
Magento Go is a hosted shopping cart, which comes at a competitive price: the minimum monthly fee for Magento Go is $15 for a package of basic features. The customers, who require more technical support, storage and bandwidth capabilities should choose one of the more expensive, but also more comprehensive packages. The complete set of features is available for $125 monthly.
However, even the complete package of Magento Go services provides only limited functionalities for B2B. Magento Community is offered for free, but the free version comprises only of the most basic features. For every add-on technology the customer has to provide additional payment, which can amount to a few thousand dollars annually. This is why Magento Community is most recommended for tech-savvy retailers, who are able to make the online store from scratch.
Customer support is also not available for Magento Community, however the developers are not left alone – they can count on a large community of Magento users, who can offer useful tips to less experienced users and help them find solutions to their problems. Among the important features offered by Magento Community is full B2B support. Last, but not least, Magento Community is not a hosted shopping cart, which means that additional hosting services are required to launch the store.
To summarize everything that has been said about the shopping carts so far, Magento Go is an excellent solution for small companies and entrepreneurs, who want to start with simple features and one day develop their services and switch to Magento Community or Enterprise. Community is the best choice for Magento web development companies, which have the skills to create fully functional online stores for their customers.
The fact that Magento Community is offered for free allows you to reduce the total cost of ordering professional development services. Entrepreneurs, who run large companies or do not want to outsource web development services should check Magento Enterprise Edition.
Marta Gromadzka is a writer and editor with a wide variety of experience, including writing for websites internationally and editing books on many different subjects and in a variety of formats.
