When we are building an ecommerce site, clients often ask which e-commerce platform is right for them. Magento vs Opencart …which one?

Our answer… there is no one-size-fits-all solution for ecommerce. It all depends on your needs, the number of products, and the capabilities you want to integrate into your new site. The world of e-commerce has a huge range of available solutions.

First you need to answer some questions.

• Do you work with a professional web dev company or a budget to do so?
• Are you looking to get your products online fast or are you looking to have a flexible custom solution with total control for enhanced UX?
• Do you want to sell outside of the US?
• Are you looking for a hosted e-commerce solution
• Is SEO performance a top priority?
• Will you be running multiple stores?
• How important is support?
• What is your budget?
• Is SEO a top priority?
• What is your e-commerce content strategy?
• Do you need to integrate your ecommerce with a WordPress blog?

Magento and OpenCart have some similar advantages and features:

• Both are open source ecommerce platforms, neither limit users
• Both are popular and have huge developer communities for support
• Both are developed in PHP
• Both are global ecommerce platforms supporting multiple languages and most currencies
• Both are resource rich with add on products and plugins
• Both can be maintained and updated easily by non-programmers

Open Cart is great for start-ups and speed to market. It provides a powerful ecommerce shopping cart and great tools.