Magento also takes a blended approach to its pricing and licensing. There is a Magento Community Edition, and that is available as a free download under the OSL 3.0 license. For businesses that need a commercial solution, including a variety of advanced features, dedicated support, and indemnification, there is a Magento Enterprise Edition, which uses a commercial license and requires an annual subscription. Magento Go is the company’s hosted solution for small and micro merchants.
Perhaps Magento’s greatest advantage is that the community is so large and diverse. It’s not hyperbole to say that Magento arguably has the most productive community of any e-commerce product. It uses the Zend framework and PHP 5 object-oriented coding standards, which makes it easy for the community to be productive. The real value here is that if you can image a particular theme, extension or add-on, chances are that the community has made it. And if they haven’t, chances are that you can find someone to make it for you. Magento has also developed a global network of Solution Partners, which are system integrators and agencies that specialize in helping businesses implement Magento solutions.
Another important advantage is the Magento organization. On the commercial side, Magento (which was acquired in 2011 by eBay) is very active about fixing bugs and updating code. On the open-source side, they really are in the trenches helping the independent developers tackle challenges, including integration. Magento also has a sophisticated yet intuitive default template and built-in multi-store capabilities, which makes Magento easily one of the best e-commerce platforms right out of the box.
No e-commerce platform, however, is perfect, and Magento is no exception. For instance, the developers have used a heavily layered coding style. The advantage to that design choice is that Magento is infinitely customizable and expandable. The drawback to that approach is the code is complicated, and it will likely seem impenetrable to the newcomer. It is a climbable hill, but it will require a significant investment of time before a developer is able to make even minor changes.
Further exacerbating the learning curve issue is the fact that the technical documentation is limited. Although it’s important to also mention that it's been improved considerably over the last couple of years and hopefully it will continue in this direction. Users can, and should, embrace the community, and take advantage of the many disparate resources that are available through that.
In 2011, Magento introduced an education and training effort, as well as a professional developer certification program, to help increase the opportunities for learning and mastering the software.
If one is willing to overcome the complexity, the journey is worth it. Out of the box, Magento boasts analytics, catalog browsing and management, checkout, customer accounts, customer service, international support, marketing tools, mobile commerce, order management, payment, product browsing, reporting, SEO, shipping, site management and much more. Moreover, if you have a specific need not covered by the default configuration, you can simply add the necessary extension or add-on.
In the fiercely competitive e-commerce marketplace, most platforms survive by emulating the features that have made their competition successful. Magento, on the other hand, is a true innovator that has raised the bar with its powerful platform. All that power does come at the cost of simplicity, but most users will find that the challenge is worth it.
Commented by: MageMojo Magento Hosting, 31 January, 2012
Nice article David. I'd like to add that the host you choose is very important to your success with Magento. You pay a price for all those features and flexibility and that price is paid in complexity and server resources required to run it. Find a host with experience in Magento who can help you navigate the more complicated technical and performance problems and you'll encounter.