As we enter a new decade this year, it’s time to wind up the year 2020 with a quick review of one of the most powerful eCommerce platforms for online merchants. As a leading Magento development agency, here we bring the ultimate Magento Review 2021 for you!
Let’s Take a Sneak Peek into the Magento Review 2021
A Brief Introduction to Magento
Currently, Magento powers over 260,000 websites which is actually a huge number that indicates the popularity of this amazing eCommerce platform. Magento is known for offering out-of-the-box features and complete customizability that make it a superior choice over other store-building platforms. It is an ideal option for large-scale eCommerce business owners, especially the ones who have good technical knowledge and a professional Magento developer.
Founded in 2007, Magento is the brainchild of Roy Rubin and Yoav Kutner. In 2018, Magento was bought by a computer software company, Adobe, after a series of acquisitions. While there is a lot of speculation that how the latest Adobe acquisition will impact Magento’s products in the future, as of now, Magento software comes in two versions:
- Magento Open Source
Previously referred to as the Magento Community Edition, this software is open-source and free to download and install.
- Magento Commerce
Earlier known as the Magento Enterprise Edition is exclusively designed for enterprise-level businesses backed by a team of Magento 2 developers, and hence it is more expensive.
In this Magento Review 2021 blog post, we’ll be reviewing the features of Magento Open Source. Magento Open Source is a robust, open-source eCommerce platform with advanced functionalities; however, it’s not the platform for beginners or amateurs. Since Magento has a steeper learning curve, merchants with little to no technical experience will find it difficult to learn and become familiar with it. Therefore, it is always best to hire a Magento development agency for technical assistance.
When talking about ease of use, Magento has lagged behind in the category. However, once you become familiar with the platform, you’ll find no other better option than Magento. Magento is trusted by a large number of merchants worldwide and drives more than $100 billion in gross.
Keep reading to see if Magento 2 development is the right choice for your eCommerce business.
The Comparison Parameters for Magento Review 2021
1. Size of Business
Magento is best suited for medium to large-sized businesses, mostly it requires more time, money, and effort to get your eCommerce store up and running. It’s worth noting that merchants using Magento for their eCommerce store need to hire a professional team of Magento 2 developers to take care of everything from PSD to Magento theme conversion and development to support and maintenance.
If you’re planning to use Magento for your online store, here’s what you need to know about this powerful eCommerce platform.
2. Overall Magento Pricing – Excellent
Despite that Magento Open Source is open-source and free of charge, it is not free to setup. You need to bear the expenses of web hosting, domain names, SSL certificate, transaction fees, and add-ons.
Moreover, as Magento has a steep learning curve, you will need to hire a Magento development agency or a freelance developer and PSD to Magento theme designer.
Cloud or Local Installation
Magento Open Source can be downloaded from Magento’s official website. However, you will need to take care of installation and web hosting service.
Hardware and Software Requirements
Since Magento is a powerful eCommerce platform, it requires a web host of a similar kind. You need to consider the tech stack requirements to successfully install and run Magento. You can refer to the installation guide for the current version that you’re using.
These are some of the types of technologies required for Magento 2.4:
- Operating System: Linux x86-64
- Memory: 2GB of RAM
- Web Server: Apache 2.4 (Enable the apache mod_rewrite and mod_version module), Nginx 1.x.
- Database: MySQL 8.0 (or on-premise installations), MariaDB 10.4 (or Magento Commerce Cloud projects)
- Scripting Language: PHP (~7.4.0 for Magento 2.4.0)
- Composer: Composer is required for Magento 2 developers who want to develop Magento extensions or contribute to the Magento 2 codebase.
- Essential PHP extensions: ext-bcmath, ext-ctype, ext-curl, ext-dom, ext-gd, ext-hash, ext-iconv, ext-intl, ext-mbstring, ext-openssl, ext-pdo_mysql, ext-simplexml, ext-soap, ext-xsl, ext-zip, ib-libxml.
- Optional, but recommended: PHP OPcache (Enable it for better performance), php_xdebug 2.5.x or later (for development ecosystem only)
Additional Configuration
- safe_mode off
- memory_limit=2G
- SSL Certificate: A valid, security certificate is required for HTTPS.
- Elasticsearch 7.6.x (From Magento 2.4.0, MySQL will no longer be used for search.)
- System Dependencies: bash, gzip, lsof, MySQL, mysqldump, nice, php, sed, tar
- Mail server: Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) or SMTP server
Supported Browsers
- Microsoft Edge
- Chrome
- Safari
- Firefox
3. Ease of Use – Fair
Magento 2 developers find the user interface quite simple, however, the actual setup and customization are quite complicated. If you’re new to web development, it’s always wise to hire a Magento 2 development company or a developer to help you build and set up your store.
Magento also offers a comprehensive guide to help Magento merchants and developers in learning the basic features and functions of the admin panel. Everything comes consolidated on the navigational menu such as products, customers, promotions, sales, and reports. Adding products is as easy as adding products to your shopping cart. You can even manage detailed aspects of each product by adding metadata for better SEO.
When you opt for Magento 2 development, you can sell a variety of products including downloadable products, bundled products, and virtual products such as digital services and subscriptions.
Additionally, you can also create and handle unlimited product attributes and configurations such as color, size, material, design, along with their subsequent combinations. Magento also allows you to create custom attribute “sets” that can be applied repeatedly to specific products.
However, if you’re new to the technical stuff, you should always consider hiring a professional Magento development agency for Magento implementation.
4. Magento Features – Excellent
Magento offers a long list of out-of-the-box features that are essential for creating a powerful Magento eCommerce store. Here’s a quick comparison of features of both Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce.
| Built-in Features | Magento Open Source | Magento Commerce |
| Integrated Checkout, Payment, & Shipping | Available | Available |
| Mobile-optimized shopping | Available | Available |
| Multi-lingual & Multi-currency support | Available | Available |
| Product catalog management | Available | Available |
| Large pool of Magento apps and extensions for extended functionality | Available | Available |
| Instant Purchase | Available | Available |
| Site search option | Available | Available |
| Business Intelligence (BI) dashboards | Available | |
| B2B functionality | Available | |
| Advanced marketing tools | Available | |
| Content staging & preview | Available | |
| Customer loyalty tools | Available | |
| WYSIWYG Page Builder | Available | |
| Visual merchandising | Available | |
| Magento Hosted Cloud | ||
| Optimized Cloud Commerce for Magento | Available | |
| Cloud availability SLA up to 99.99% | Available | |
| Global availability | Available | |
| Fast page loading speed with CDN | Available | |
| Performance monitoring tools | Available | |
| Improved security with Fastly WAF and DDoS services | Available | |
| Easy Deployment | Available | |
| PCI compliant | Available | |
| Streamlines testing & updates | Available | |
| Support | ||
| Technical support | Available | |
| Account Manager | Available | |
| Instant access to quick-build Express Packages | Available |
Additional Features Include:
- Coupons and discounts
- Customer groups
- Order tracking
- Persistent shopping cart
- Send wishlist via emails
- Social sharing buttons
- SEO tools
- Multi-store functionality
- Manage user permissions
- Bulk import/export using CSV files
- Create and edit orders
- Printing and labels
- Advanced pricing rules
- One-page checkout
- Guest checkout
- Tax and shipping estimates in shopping cart
- Mobile-responsive design
- Abandoned cart recovery
- Store credits/gift cards, and a reward points program.
5. Magento Website Design – Good
Magento does not offer pre-designed themes; all are available from third-party developers. While some of them are free, some are paid themes with prices starting from $500. A lot of paid themes offer advanced extensions. Currently, Magento promotes only 14 themes in the Magento Marketplace that are compatible with Magento 2. This is quite a low figure as most of the themes include multiple style variations that are quite different from each other.
Although Magento 2 development gives you the freedom to customize your storefront as you like, it is quite a complicated process with Magento Open Source than with Magento Commerce that comes with a built-in theme editor.
When it comes to Magento website design, you have the following options with Magento Open Source:
- Design a Magento theme from scratch with the help of a professional Magento front-end designer and developer
- Buy a third-party theme or theme generator, and leverage its in-dashboard design customization tools, which may or may not involve coding.
- Buy a Magento extension that offers additional easy-to-use customization tools.
You can use a combination of all the above-mentioned methods. Magento is also going to release its own user-friendly drag-and-drop editor known as Page Builder. A Page Builder gives you greater flexibility to design your storefront without strong coding or technical knowledge. With Magento Open Source 2, this tool will be available as an extension, while it will come standard in the newest Magento Commerce 2 version.
6. Magento Integrations and Add-ons – Excellent
Magento’s open-source nature allows developers of the Magento Community to easily develop applications and extensions for Magento. It’s because of this reason that there are thousands of integrations available in the Magento Marketplace. There are more than 2,500 extensions that are compatible with Magento 2. However, it may take some time for each extension to work optimally with the given latest Magento release, after Magento 2.3.x. Some of the most prominent integrations include MailChimp, ZenDesk, QuickBooks, etc.
While many integrations are free to use, others may cost up to several hundred dollars. So, research thoroughly and check the compatibility with the latest version of Magento before you purchase.
7. Payment Processing – Excellent
Magento has the capability to accept orders, checks, and money orders efficiently. However, you should consider integrating a standard payment gateway to accept card payments, ensuing a convenient checkout process for global customers.
With over 340 payment integrations available in the Magento extension marketplace with prices ranging from $0-$600, you’ll have a lot of options to choose from. Magento now comes with default payment options through a partnership PayPal/Braintree.
Another option is to hire Magento 2 developers for payment integration services. Some of the standard default payment processor integrations that come with Magento Open Source include PayPal, Stripe, Square, Braintree, etc.
8. Customer Support – Poor
With Magento Open Source, there’s no live chat, phone call, or email support for merchants. This is one of the biggest drawbacks of open-source solutions.
Fortunately, there is a vast active user community that can resolve your issues on forums or via paid support. You can also refer to Magento’s official website for resources that are specific to the current Magento version you’re using, be it Magento Open Source, Magento Commerce, Magento 1, or Magento 2.
Here are some of the ways by which Magento provides support to its users:
- Comprehensive User Guide
- Detailed Developer Documentation
- Knowledgebase Articles to Draw an Inspiration
- Active Magento Community Forums
- Easy-to-understand User Guide For Magento Marketplace
- Resource Library that includes video tutorials, topic-based guides, and live webinars
- Blog Posts
- Sales Portal; Simply Sign up for a demo of Magento Commerce
- Magento U: You can enroll in training courses and certification. Prices start from free to several thousand dollars
- Telephonic Support just for sales and general information, no specific tech support questions
9. Magento Reviews – Excellent
| Negative Reviews, Complaints & Issues | Positive Reviews & Client Testimonials |
| Steep learning curve | Out-of-the-box features |
| Quite Expensive (includes the cost of the web developer, web hosting, integrations, themes, transaction fees) | Large pool of applications and add-ons |
| Slow speed and performance | Vast active user community |
| Absence of customer support | Fully customizable & scalable |
| Users reported that the latest releases have bugs | Free to download |
10. Security – Fair
This is the last but most important comparison factor on our Magento Review 2021 list. Since Magento is a self-hosted platform, you will have to take care of your website’s security. You need to make sure that your site has an SSL certificate and is completely PCI compliant. With the help of a developer or Magento development agency, you can monitor security, and install the latest Magento security patches if required.
For Magento 1 users, it’s worth noting that Magento 2 has reached its end-of-life in June 2020. This means Magento 1 will not receive any official support and security patches anymore. So, whether you’re just starting or using Magento 1 software, you should consider downloading the latest version of Magento.
The latest versions of Magento 2 are now coming with Google reCAPTCHA and two-factor authentication systems to prevent any unauthorized access to your online store. If you face any security issues with your Magento 2 store, you may reach out to a professional Magento development agency.
Final Thought
When it comes to open-source eCommerce platforms, then Magento Open Source is an ideal option for merchants. Its rich eCommerce features and a large pool of apps and add-ons make Magento a trustable option for growing businesses. If you’re globally selling a large number of detailed products with multiple options, customizations, and variants, you will truly appreciate the capabilities of Magento Open Source.
However, setting up and configuring Magento software without any technical experience or help from a Magento 2 development company is a challenging task. Still, you will be able to easily catch up on the basic functionality of Magento software. If you need any kind of Magento 2 support, our Magento 2 developers are just a call away!
Hope this comprehensive Magento Review 2021 guide will facilitate your decision-making related to your eCommerce store. If you’re considering building a Magento eCommerce store, you may avail of our full-fledged Magento 2 development services at the best market prices.
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Q.1. Is Magento better than Shopify?
Ans. Shopify has a prominent place in the ‘hosted, all-inclusive’ eCommerce platform market, while Magento is a leading platform when it comes to large-scale eCommerce websites. Shopify is the best solution for beginners as it provides a simple user interface, while Magento is loaded with advanced features and is hence suitable for professional developers.
Q.2. Does Magento require coding?
Ans. For Magento, you need to learn programming languages namely, HTML, CSS, XML, PHP, and JavaScript. These languages are the Lingua Franca of Magento. You should have a basic knowledge of HTML for creating the front-end design or customizing the user interface on the client-side.
Q.3. Do you provide training and support for Magento?
Ans. Yes, we do provide extensive training and support to you or your in-house team to increase user adoption, business efficiency, and productivity.
Have More Questions? Do Not Hesitate to Ask Our Certified Magento 2 Experts!
