osCommerce vs Magento

nizuya · July 28th, 2008, 03:31 PM

Which should I use?

My store is quite simple. Mainly want to be able to easily change appearance and set up payment/shipping options.

I have extensive html knowledge and some php knowledge.

Thanks for the help,
David

D3niss3 · July 28th, 2008, 05:20 PM

Based on our experience on web developments, osCommerce turned out to be easier to program and manage for payment/shipping options than Magento.

Not sure though if other company will have to say the same. But since you mentioned that you have some PHP knowledge, you just have to study it well since osCommerce requires expertise of PHP/MySQL database.

We seldom use Magento due to its debugging complexities. While osCommerce has a lot of support anywhere.

AnsUK · July 28th, 2008, 08:30 PM

If i had to choose between the two it would be Magento. Its a much more professional system made by an actual company who will be dealing with upgrades etc. Whereas OSC you are bound by their community and if you are happy with the security of your website being handled by a community rather than a company then go for it. Ive personally found OSC forums to be over bloated with a rude community and your cries for help maybe taking weeks to get replied to.

Have you considered CubeCart?

PointandStare · August 1st, 2008, 07:15 AM

I wouldn't choose either.
OSC is old and sluggish.
Magento is over bloated and difficult to get right.

I've been using zen cart for a few years and it grows and grows each time I use it.

Alex Rehm · August 4th, 2008, 04:17 PM

I have had very good experiences with Zen Cart as well as CRE-Loaded (the offspring of OsCommerce) and I wrote a couple of hacks back then which are now implemented in the later versions.

I felt that Zen Cart was doing a very decent job but that CRE-Loaded - once set up right and done some custom coding or implementing of pugins - did a more thorough job when it came down to masses amounts of products.

I'd suggest have a look at both and see what you feel is best for your site and where you believe you get more support from:
Zen Cart
CRE-Loaded

Kind regards,
ALEX

jonnik77 · August 6th, 2008, 09:05 AM

The main thing here is the company you use e-commerce software from.
Magento is my bet, SimpleHelix.com is good at proving it.
Very easy and fast.

claris123 · August 21st, 2008, 03:47 AM

I heard that a new version of the osCommerce Migration Tool is now available through MagentoConnect.
The new version includes:
- Support for customer accounts with multiple addresses

- Conversion of different encodings to default utf8

- Support for products’ special prices

- Support for products’ images

- Conversion for timezones

- Fixes for known issues of previous release
I hope you find this useful.

I have my own complete ecommerce solution website [PM me if you want to see it]

welshstew · August 21st, 2008, 04:03 AM

I would go with magento, although the backend is a little more tricky to get used to, the output is 1000000000% better than oscommerce

Bocaj · August 21st, 2008, 07:23 AM

Ahah, i second magento, but that's through ignorance, i've not tried any other package.

I would like to spend some time on other packages though, because if magento is all i know then it's a pretty narrow view. Well i have used a few small packages, open source with little support for basic shopping baskets, not fully blown shops tho.

tankara · August 25th, 2008, 09:04 AM

I'd run my e-commerce web site with only Magento as it's easy-to-use and some companies (say, simplehelix.com) even offer to auto-install it directly from their web site on the server.
Nice one to be used with no problems.

quicker · August 28th, 2008, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tankara

I'd run my e-commerce web site with only Magento as it's easy-to-use and some companies (say, simplehelix.com) even offer to auto-install it directly from their web site on the server.
Nice one to be used with no problems.

Hm ... simplehelix.com must have optimized servers for running magento on them. Am I right?
Do they provide any other e-commerce software?

npn2531 · May 4th, 2009, 12:44 AM

Magento is way better. I have used OScommerce for 5 years now, I've written contributions and know it quite well. I have switched to Magento.
Magento separates the html from the php, and uses CSS. No g$% d^*# tables. This makes it far easier to make your site google friendly, and far easier to control how your site looks and far easier to install templates and possible keep your site upgraded. OScommerce is a jumbled mass of html tables and php. Text that appears on a single web page could be spread out over 4 or 5 files. The basic OSCommerce site has very few options and good luck trying to figure out which contributions you need. Magento, is complicated, but has decent documentation, and has all the bells and whistles right out of the box. OSCommerce is so ugly, and takes a lot of work to get to look decent. You can spot an OScommerce site a glance. (good luck, newbie, trying to make significant changes on their infoboxes) Magento looks pretty decent to begin with and just by changing a single CSS file you significantly change the look.

npn2531 · May 4th, 2009, 02:32 PM

I would like to add to my above comment one simple, yet incredible feature that magento has that makes life a whole lot easier for newbies. If you are new to OSCommerce, you are going to spend many, many hours searching for where stuff is. For example, trying to change the line spacing in a infobox, or how to adjust the position of some image on the front page, or even finding where in the file structure the front page is.

You will do the same in Magento, however, in Magento the documentation tells you how with a few clicks in the admin panel, you can cause the user side, or frontend of the website to appear with labels on every single element where that element can be found in the file structure.

For those of us who have struggled for years to figure out where all the stuff is scattered about in the OScommerce file structure, it is like you've died and gone to heaven, or like some expert shopping cart guru is sitting around constantly hitting the refresh button, waiting to immediately answer your next trivial question (ie 'where can I find X or Y') in a clear, specific, and precise manner .

jacksan · May 8th, 2009, 07:21 AM

I have tried http://www.zeuscart.com/ is the best open source e-commerce software. They provide seo friendly software, flexibility and good support also.

npn2531 · June 11th, 2009, 06:21 PM

I spent over 2 weeks working with Magento and have changed m mind about it. I don't like it. Can you say 6,000 files? 200 tables in a database? The empty Magento database is 20 times larger than an empty OSCommerce database. Have you already learned some HTML, CSS and a little php? Well, you are pretty much ready for OSCommerce. But Magento? You have just begun.

Yes, OScommerce is a mismash of php and HTML, but then so what? What I have discovered is that the few days spent stripping tables out of OSCommerce and replacing them with <div> tags with CSS is a far easier task than figuring out Magento. Don't forget, 6000 files.

And yes, the basic OSCommerce cart is ugly and it is an issue figuring out how to install contributions.

In the end, though there is one thing you are not going to change, Magento is slow. And a slow cart loses customers. Look at the showcase sites on Magento, the carts just feel draggy and sticky. You get to the point where you don't want to flip around pages in the site because you know everytime you click a link, you are going to wait.

With OScommerce is snappy, instant page changes. You can change oscommerce's ugliness and lack of features, but you will never make Magento run quick.

hunter jordan · January 28th, 2010, 08:43 AM

Hi,

I liked osCommerce for a long time. It has a rich feature set. The problem that I see - they haven't kept up with the times as much.

My recommendation: Magento. It just takes eCommerce to a whole new level. Check it out, I do not think you will be disappointed. Oh yea - it is open source also.

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Creative Ecommerce Web Design Co.
( ATAKinteractive.com )