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If you’ve been using WordPress content management system for running your site, and want to incorporate e-commerce functionality into your existing site, then possibly you might be wondering whether to stick to the WordPress platform or choose Magento for running your site with e-commerce functionalities.
Considering the fact, Magento was built for e-commerce website development while WordPress was primarily designed as a blogging platform and now is widely used as a content publishing platform, it’s easy to get confused about choosing the right e-commerce solution.
Both WordPress and Magento are open-source CMS platforms, highly customizable and SEO-Friendly. Additionally, both of them offers plenty of themes and backed by strong online community. However, you’ll have to decide which platform best suit your development needs. In this post we will have a basic overview of WordPress and Magento platforms, and discuss which one of these platforms you should choose to accomplish your website’s purpose.
Basic Overview of WordPress
WordPress dominates the CMS market with a 61% market share, and is used by 23.2% websites all over the world. At first, WordPress was designed as a blogging platform, but over the years has evolved into a content management system. In fact, WordPress is also used for building e-commerce websites because of the plugins that makes setting up an e-shop unbelievably easy.
Basic Overview of Magento
Magento is also a popular content management system just like WordPress, however this CMS was mainly built for creating e-commerce sites. According to an online survey, 23% of e-commerce sites from top one million sites ranked by Alex uses Magento. It comes in two different editions: Community Edition and Enterprise Edition.
Working With WordPress or Magento – Making the Right Choice
The best way to understand which platform you should choose to implement e-commerce functionality, it’s very important to focus on certain aspects as discussed here:
Purpose of Your Website
If you just want to sell a few products via your WP powered site, there are a few plugins that you can use to fulfill your goal. For instance, you can use WP eCommerce plugin for selling products online quickly; or you can use Ready! Ecommerce Shopping Cart to or setup a new online site with shopping cart functionality. There are several other useful plugins that you can use to embed e-commerce features and functions into your site.
In case, you want to set up an online store for selling hundreds of thousands of products, then you should use Magento. That’s because, Magento is tailored to meet even the complex e-commerce needs of businesses. What’s more? Unlike WordPress you don’t need to install any add-ons to add e-commerce functionalities into your website. In fact, a Magento powered site comes with a host of built-in e-commerce features and functions. Also, since the functionality of WP plugins is limited, you won’t be able to implement e-commerce capabilities in an efficient manner.
Which One Provides Better Security?
Almost every day we come to hear about security attacks on websites, and thus security has become a major concern among website owners.
Installing WordPress third-party plugins for e-commerce implementation may out your site at risk. This is because the third-party plugins are less reliable and aren’t a good choice when it comes to selling online. In fact, WordPress websites are often hacked. But Magento is a more secure platform than WordPress.
Flexibility
There’s no denying that WordPress is a flexible platform, however when it comes to adding a host of e-commerce features Magento is a clear winner. You can choose WP plugins to add e-commerce features, but you’ll find the plugins limited in comparison to the built-in modules and Magento extensions – that can help incorporate several e-commerce functionalities into the site you can possibly think of.
Learning Curve
WordPress can be operated easily by a technophobe. You don’t need to go through lengthy tutorials to learn how to operate a WP powered site, instead you only need to have a basic understanding of this platform. WordPress is an easy platform for setting up a site compared to Magento, and is an ideal platform for beginners.
However, Magento is more complex to use for novices. It’s a complex platform for building and managing a site than WordPress. In fact, Magento developers seems to be more expensive than WordPress developers, because as creation and maintenance of a Magento site can become more complex as your business grows.
So, What’s the Conclusion?
Both WordPress and Magento are great CMSs. But when it comes to choosing one for implementing e-commerce functionality, you should better understand the purpose of your website first. While WordPress is a good choice for putting up blogs and selling not more than a few products, Magento is the perfect platform for building a store that sells dozens of products. In fact, WordPress can help to setup a site more easily compared to Magento. But, if your online business is growing, then Magento would be your best bet for e-commerce implementation.
