- Wordpress
- Shopify
- Bigcommerce
- Magento
Wordpres began in 2003 as a piece of free blogging software created by Mike Little and Mike Mullenweg, who continues to run WordPress.org, the company that makes WordPress available to anyone who wants to create a website or blog. In developing WordPress and making it always free, its creators hoped to “democratize publishing” by designing a site-building program that could allow anyone to have a voice and presence online.
WordPress Is Free
WordPress is an open-source, free website creation tool written in the programming language PHP. It is licensed under General Public License, which allows anyone to not only use the software but also to modify it to suit individual needs and share those modifications with others. “Open source” software is publicly available and always free so that WordPress can be downloaded at any time or installed as part of a web hosting package.
WordPress Is Flexible
One reason WordPress is so popular is because of its virtually endless flexibility. WordPress comes with access to an extensive gallery of free themes that users can choose from at any time to set or change the look and functionality of a site. Beyond that, anyone can buy and install a custom WordPress theme created by designers from all over the world.
Security Of WordPress
Wordpress is usually used with compatible themes and plugins. WordPress usually uses for blogging and corporate website. WordPress website security is not tough other than CMS like Shopify, Magento, and Bigcommerce. WordPress maintains the security with the plugins and sometimes plugins are not compatible with the theme or wordpress version so the result is website is down or breaks. Sometimes plugins are compatible with the theme version and wordpress version but some plugins are compatible with the security plugin so the plugins are conflicting and the result is website is down or breaks.
Pros & Cons of WordPress
Pros
- WordPress is easy to use
- WordPress sites are affordable
- It has a strong ecosystem
- WordPress is flexible
Cons
- WordPress is prone to hacking
- WordPress can be difficult to maintain (WordPress is notoriously known for its incompatibility problems and critical errors. Just one corrupt plugin or theme can bring your entire website down. To ensure that your website remains active, responsive, and secure, you’re required to upgrade your WordPress plugins, themes, and even PHP, on a frequent basis.)
- WordPress doesn’t perform well
- There is little innovation in wordpress
Shopify Began
Shopify is a complete commerce platform that lets you start, grow, and manage a business. Shopify history began in 2004 when three enthusiasts decided to open a snowboard shop. Since there was no readymade solution, they decided to create their own platform for e-commerce.
How Does it Work
Shopify unifies all of your commerce onto a single platform.
With Shopify, merchants can build and customize an online store and sell in multiple places, including web, mobile, in-person, brick-and-mortar locations, and pop-up shops and across various channels from social media to online marketplaces.
Shopify is entirely cloud-based and hosted, which means you can access it from any connected compatible device and we’ll handle software and server upgrades and maintenance for you. This allows you to access and run your business from anywhere with an internet connection.
On any given day, an e-commerce business requires an array of tools to manage products, inventory, payments, and shipping—and they spend a lot of time and money stitching disparate systems and data together. Shopify groups those technologies together and ensures that you can easily access and integrate any other business tools you need to make Shopify work for your business.
Why Shopify?
- Shopify supports the entire e-commerce community. Online, offline, and everywhere in between. We are home to the largest, most diverse set of entrepreneurs, merchants, developers, and partners.
- Shopify is global. We empower entrepreneurs around the world to create, connect, and innovate their businesses. With merchants spanning more than 175 countries, we provide entrepreneurs everywhere with the platform, building blocks, and tools needed to win in commerce.
- Shopify empowers creative expression. We believe there should be more unique voices, stories, and experiences, not fewer, and that’s why we design our product with the greatest amount of extensibility, flexibility, and expression.
- Shopify is the most integrated commerce platform out of the box. Shopify not only centralizes entire commerce businesses but also offers access to the widest set of commerce ecosystem integrations built using a shared technical framework. This deep integration and access ensure we have breadth and depth of themes, apps, channels, surfaces, products, and experiences.
- Shopify absorbs unnecessary complexity. We know the world isn’t designed for independent businesses to start, scale and succeed. That’s why we make it as simple and accessible as possible to maximize entrepreneurs’ access to growth tools.
- Shopify is built to scale with you. No matter your technical maturity, growth, size, complexity, or location—you will never lack access to technology and features to build your business. You will never outgrow Shopify as your needs change, scale, or evolve.
Security Of Shopify
Shopify Uses its themes and apps Shopify themes are mostly costly and secure. Shopify is cloud-based hosting that’s why Shopify has better security other than wordpress Shopify is an e-commerce platform and it supports 1000 products and user friendly to developers and non-developers.
Pros & Cons of Shopify
Pros
- Easy to use
- Available 24/7 support system
- Multiple payments processor
- Great hosting & security
Cons
- Packages pricing
- Difficulty with content marketing
- Limited customization
- No email hosting
Bigcommerce began
BigCommerce was founded in Sydney, Australia in 2009 by Australians Eddie Machaalani and Mitchell Harper, who met in an online chatroom in 2003.BigCommerce is a NASDAQ-listed eCommerce platform that provides software-as-a-service services to retailers. The company’s platform includes online store creation, search engine optimization, hosting, and marketing and security for small to Enterprise sized businesses
Key Features Of BigCommerce
SEO & Analytics Optimization
BigCommerce comes with in-built SEO features that assist businesses to improve organic exposure. Its analytics dashboard provides customer insights and page visibility along with product-level performance.
Website Customization
A highly-customizable platform, BigCommerce includes pre-built responsive templates that assist you in quickly and easily developing an eCommerce store.
Furthermore, stencil permits developers to customize shopping cart templates for added control.
Payment & Inventory Management
BigCommerce arrives with many 3rd-party payment services. They accept payments from big providers, embracing PayPal, and more. This feature permits businesses to decide which service is best for them.
Application Integrations
This eCommerce platform integrates with the external apps and maintains a tested and 3rd-party approved marketplace. A well-stocked application marketplace and an active app developer community assist businesses to emerge with custom elements or required features that can enhance their websites.
API Performance
BigCommerce supports 400+ calls/second, making it easy to conduct 24,000 product updates in under one minute.
Conclusion
BigCommerce includes almost everything that is going right with SaaS eCommerce platforms. By allowing 3rd-party development and embracing more features and functionality, BigCommerce provides an end-to-end solution that you can customize well.
We hope this post stands helpful to you to start your eCommerce business with BigCommerce and emerge with the best eCommerce store that can meet specific business needs.
Pros & Cons of Bigcommerce
Pros
- Ton of features
- Product variant
- Scalability
- No transaction fees
- Solid SEO features
Cons
- Yearly sales threshold (Each BigCommerce plan comes with an annual sales threshold. In other words, you’ll be automatically upgraded to a higher plan if the annual sales limit is exceeded. This can lead to higher-than-expected costs.)
- No email marketing tools
- No subscription features
- No multilingual options (This is not a built-in feature of BigCommerce. The only way of doing this is via a third-party app.)
Magento began
Magento’s CEO and co-founder Roy Rubin wrote on the Magento blog that “Magento will continue to operate out of Los Angeles, with Yoav Kutner and me as its leaders”. Magento history began in 2008.
What Is Magento?
Magneto is one of the best eCommerce platforms. Its creators built it using open-source technology. This gives its users the ability to control the look, functionality, and content of their online store without compromising the shopping experience. In addition, Magento gives its users a variety of useful tools and features. This includes marketing, search engine optimization, and catalog-management tools.
Overall, the platform can cater to any size store. Whether you’re catering to a few customers or a million, Magento offers both a free Magento Open Source and a feature-rich Magento Commerce, meaning the platform can grow and evolve with your business. Many times, businesses have to change platforms as they grow.
But Magento makes it easy to stay in one place and continue to grow. The platform also offers its customers a variety of plug-ins and themes to suit whatever they want to do and whatever they want their website to look like. These can also enhance customer experience and improve customer relationships.
Who Should Use Magento?
If you own or help run an e-commerce business, you should consider Magento. The creators of the platform made it easy to use for ordinary people. This means that you don’t need technical, or developmental experience.
However, the system is robust. Because it can handle millions of customers, the system gets somewhat more complex as you grow.
Usually, businesses need to hire outside help. Although, this is only when the business starts integrating multiple systems into its website.
What Is Magento 2?
Magento 2 is the latest update that the developers have launched. The system updates every once in a while with Magento 2 being one of the biggest updates so far.
Here are some features of Magento 2 that users can enjoy:
- Flexible architecture for websites
- Engaging customer experiences
- More efficient business experience
- 50% faster loading speeds
- More secure payments
- Easier maintenance and upgrades
Magento 2 is a better, faster version of Magento. After hearing complaints and comments, the developers stripped the platform down and rebuilt it. If you’re looking for a faster, safer, scalable website, Magento 2 is the way to go.
What Is an Extension in Magento?
Magento extensions are pieces of software that users can implement into their online stores. They serve a variety of purposes, like increasing loading speed and improving customer experience.
These applications and services integrate with your online store on the backend and allow customers to do more than ever.
You can choose from thousands of Magento extensions in the Magento Marketplace. You’ll find extensions for all sorts of needs:
- Customer services
- Payments
- Security
- Marketing
- Accounting and finance
- Shipping and fulfillment
- Site optimization
If you’d like to add something special to your store, integrate other business accounts, or improve something that already exists within your store, you should look for the right software at the Magento Marketplace.
What Is the Difference Between Magento 1 and Magento 2?
Magento 2 is supposedly the new and improved version of Magento 1. But, what are the true differences? Is Magento 2 really better than Magento 1?
Let’s explore how Magento 1 and 2 compare in a variety of subjects.
Architecture
Magento 2 includes more technologies that improve website optimization and customization. In fact, the developers completely removed the old technology stack and formed a new one for Magento 2. This is why transferring to the program involves more than a simple act of data migration.
Here are a few of the most notable technologies that you will not find as a part of Magento 1:
- Composer – allows you to reuse third-party libraries without dealing with source code, reduces extension conflicts
- NGINX – serves as a reverse proxy, HTTP cache, and load balancer
- Redis – uses database cache and broker for messages
- Symfony – makes content control easier, improves functionality, and betters website appearance
- Varnish – increases website speed
Website Performance
Website performance was one of the areas of difficulty with Magento 1. With Magento 2, website developers have made website performance one of their top priorities. They wanted to settle these customer complaints and give the users what they wanted once and for all.
No upgrade or patch would’ve repaired the program as much as Magento 2 has.
Because of all of the new technologies that developers included, Magento 2 is optimized for faster loading times and reduced server response times. Plus, you have access to more extensions that will help improve website performance as well.
On top of this, Magento 2 gives its users more customizability and better flexibility in website design and content. This means that you also have more control over how you present your website. You can make it run faster by optimizing the content on your website.
Optimization for Mobile
Along with website optimization, mobile optimization was one of the major complaints with Magento 1. When developers first created it, mobile websites were not as necessary as they are now.
Now, mobile optimization is necessary for every website and business. Developers made Magento 2 with this in mind.
Magento 2 is significantly more mobile-friendly than Magento 1. In fact, users can find more responsive themes and an easier checkout process.
Magento 2 also supports Progressive Web Apps. This allows users to create a mobile app that can improve their customers’ experiences.
Using Magento’s Admin Panels
Once again, Magento 2 accounts for something that Magento 1 wasn’t great at. The admin panel in Magento 1 was difficult to use. Magento 2 fixes this.
With Magento 2, users will find an easy-to-navigate panel. But, there is still somewhat of a learning process that users will need to undergo in order to properly use the feature.
Some tasks can be overwhelming. The setup process isn’t as straightforward as users were hoping it would be. However, it is favorable to the process that Magento 1 required.
All in all, you can find the following information on the dashboard:
- New orders
- Last orders
- Average orders
- Lifetime retail sales
- Top search keywords
- Income tax
- Bestsellers
With these, you’ll find more useful statistics that you can use to run your business better and suit the needs of your customers.
Lastly, Magento 2 also makes it easy for customers to customize data as they want it. So, the customer experience will improve with the upgrade.
Checking Out
The checkout process was extensive with Magento 1. Customers faced six steps:
- Checkout Method
- Billing information
- Shipping information
- Shipping Method
- Payment information
- Reviewing the order
Even worse, these steps were often presented on different pages that the customer had to tab through. Many users feared that customers left in the middle of these steps because it made the checkout process so difficult.
Luckily, Magento 2 simplified the process into two steps:
- Shipping
- Review payment
In addition, customers can get accelerated payment options with Magento 2. Overall, this vastly improves the checkout experience and makes checking out easier than ever.
Security
Because Magento 1 is no longer supported on the platform, there are no more security patches or updates. Those individuals who are still using Magento 1 need to upgrade or they could be putting their sites at risk.
On the other hand, Magento 2 allows you to make your site as secure as you want to make it. You have regular patches and updates. With these, you can use extensions that enhance security.
We should note that you are responsible for PCI compliance. This is not automatically done as a part of the platform, but it is easy to do as long as you aren’t overdoing the customization of your website.
Extensions
Magento 1 was known for having multiple extension conflicts. Users complained that third-party extensions wouldn’t work on the platform or caused usability issues.
With Magento 2, developers have solved this problem. Magento 2 allows extensions to overlap. This makes it easier to install and use extensions as much as they want.
However, you should be careful not to overload your store. Extensions can be helpful, but you wouldn’t want to have too many. This can lead to loading issues and usability issues.
Only use extensions that are going to bring value to your website, improve the customer experience, and help you make sales. At the same time, you may want to integrate other company accounts or improve security.
Customer Support
Magento 1 is no longer supported on the platform. Therefore, you can’t get any updates or patches from the developers. This means that you’re left to figure out the platform on your own.
With Magento 2, customer support depends on the version that you’re working with. Keep in mind that Magento 2 includes Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce
The first option is free but does not come with customer support. The other version has a cost but does come with customer support.
Should I Choose Magento 1 or Magento 2?
Magento 2 is the upgraded and updated version of Magento 1. Because Magento 2 is safer and more efficient, Magento has stopped supporting Magento 1 as of June 30, 2020.
If you’re still using Magento 1, you’re at risk for fines secondary to non-compliance and security issues. We recommend upgrading as soon as possible.
Magento 2 Commerce vs. Open Source
Magento 2 offers two options for eCommerce stores that are using the platform. Depending on the size of your e-commerce store, your goals for your website, and your individual needs, you may find one more advantageous than the other.
What Is Magento Commerce?
Magento Commerce was previously known as Magento Enterprise Edition. Developers made this version of Magento for larger businesses. With a price tag of $24,000 per year, you’d need some hefty income to make that kind of financial commitment.
What Is Magento Open Source?
Magento Open Source is the free version of Magento. It is for e-commerce companies that are smaller and do not need as much support as larger companies. However, large companies can still use the platform successfully. If you have a low-maintenance business, the free option could be a better way to go.
Magento Commerce vs Magento Open Source – Which Is Better?
Both options are viable for e-commerce, but we do recommend trying Magento Open Source before investing money in Magento Commerce. The features of each platform may make you think that Magento Commerce is better, but this isn’t necessarily true.
You have to consider the price that you’re paying and the number of features that you actually need. It’s likely that you can get away with the free version.
Pros and Cons of Magento
Lastly, let’s look at the pros and cons of the platform. This will help you see whether or not you should consider Magento as an e-commerce platform in the first place.
We’re going to consider the pros and cons of Magento 2, considering that this is the active and recommended version of Magento as of now.
Pros of Magento
- The platform is flexible for users
- The platform offers free services
- The community is supportive and will help lost users navigate issues that they may be having
Cons of Magento
- Potential hosting and security expenses
- Paid customer support
Magento Payment Gateways
Magento comes with default payment gateway options: credit cards and PayPal. However, many users use extensions like the global payment plugin for Magento to extend their customers’ payment options and localize checkout worldwide.
