Magento Review
Review this cart!
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| Company name |
Varien |
| Product name |
Magento |
| Version |
1.4.0 |
| Sample customer sites |
http://www.homedics.com/
http://www.tcho.com/
http://www.lodgerfootwear.com/
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| Price |
Free |
| Average review score |
(20) |
| User reviews |
Reviewed by: John Mason
"The only good thing I can say about Magento is that they have an incredible marketing department. Magento is an enormous piece of crap wrapped in a pretty bow. I've been developing/programming for 15 years and have used many language/frameworks along the way. Magento is flat out horrible. Creating new functionality and modules can work but the over head is ridiculous. Try to change existing functionality and you will wish that you had never heard of magento. If you are even considering this product save yourself the headache and look elsewhere."
 
Review date: January, 2012 Version reviewed: 1.4.0
Reviewed by: Vivek
"The only thing I am expecting is "Ease Of Use" & "Ease of Use" & "Ease of Use". Is there any Usability analysis made on this product?.
Problems begins right from installation. Installing in Localhost is a night mare. The reason they say its not secure. OK fine. Then comes templates design Oops. What kind of API documentation provided? is there any example other than PHP???. OK it is fine let me manage it some how. What is the meaning of having a forum, where are the contributions. Need to pay for that also.. "
Review date: December, 2011 Version reviewed: 1.4.0
Reviewed by: Muz
"I'm only in the early stages now of working out how to add products, edit the layout of the store, customize the design etc.
I'm using the community edition.
I have a bit of experience in web hosting, a web design background (not that I'm good with coding... I manage to work it out) and run a zen cart based shop which I'm hoping to migrate to Magento as Zen cart is dead and miles behind.
So far things are definitely not as easy as they appear to be. Things sound simple and instruction looks simple. But when your pulling hair out after following the steps and they are correct. Don't expect to find much on forums with resolutions. Search results often find threads with no solution. I have wondered whether this is a deliberate attempt by Magento to force users to purchase business versions which come with support as the threads are useless. Look up Zen Cart or Jamoola and you will find answers quick and fast.
Things could be made much simpler in regards to naviagation of backend and naming of functions.
The product itself seems sturdy enough, great feature and the potential is massive. It is the current oscommerce platform for the future. I'll persist. I would suggest use only for the intermediate and above unless you purchase version with support."
Review date: December, 2011 Version reviewed: 1.4.0
Reviewed by: Lynn
"Very heavy footprint, pretty incredible cart though, the features are beyond belief and I have tested most carts out there. Five stars! Now, if ebay won't screw it up..."
Review date: November, 2011 Version reviewed: 1.4.0
Reviewed by: Caro
"I love Magento! I'm not a developer/techie in any shape or form; simply an ecommerce owner who like to have a website that does what I want it to do and look how I want it to.
I tried out other popular/commonly used carts and just couldn't get on with them, didn't find them flexible enough and some just felt clumsy. I find Magento easy to use, even changing layouts/colours, deleting bits I don't want and all that stuff in css and the html files - much with the help of the guides and forums out there. Yes, it has taken me a bit of time (I'm a newbie to computer/code jargon) but I have a brain and can logically work out what needs to be done and Firebug helps. I realise this package won't suit everyone - some people will want something easier, quicker or whatever it is they want! Each to their own needs. I had the time to work at it and got my site looking how I want. I also like the extensions; like with anything, check out reviews, read about it before getting, as some are great, others naff."
Review date: September, 2011 Version reviewed: 1.4.0
Reviewed by: Bill
"This is a great cart for companies with a dedicated server, (resource hog) and a good programming dept. Don't expect to have this software wired over the weekend. It takes work.
You need competence in not only the LAMP stack but Zend, XML, the InnoDB storage engine and Magento, (don't forget that last part). Buy books and read them, (they're outdated but...). As soon as you have something worth saving, learn how to backup and recover, (not a simple task in Magento).
In the end you can have arguably the best cart out there for free. Fully customizable, in house and capable of being integrated with all your other systems.
I'd rate this even higher if it wasn't such a bitch to learn.
"
Review date: January, 2011 Version reviewed: 1.4.0
Reviewed by: Keith Klein, aka WebForging
"Our developers devoted hundreds of hours to reviewing shopping carts. We recommend and use Magento (since beta) for clients because it is robust, allows for serious customization, and there is a large developer community.
The reviewerss here who bash the program because of size and complexity must be seeking solutions for simpler problems. If you need a heavyweight solution for complex shopping requirements and you have professional developers on staff, Magento is certainly worth consideration.
Magento is not a panacea. It can tax even the most skilled coders. Nevertheless, the software and the large number of low-cost and no-cost modules provide a serious platform for serious shopping sites.
"
Review date: November, 2010 Version reviewed: 1.4.0
Reviewed by: Jeff
"Oh wow, who would have thought that theming magento would be as simple as 3 steps (and the 3rd step doesn't count because it's a recap)... So make that 2 steps! Holy cow how easy is that, NOT! Anyone who's thinking about using magento should have their head examined; magento is bloated, confusing and bullocks. I'd only suggest using it if you've got a penchant for punishment, or 6 months to learn all their "simple" coding conventions ... But don't expect to do this by reading their documentation, or searching for help on their forums; the information you'll find that way is lacking to say the least. You'll only learn it by wading through the 5,000 files it installs on your server; you read that write, the standard install contains nearly 5,000 files. I stamp magento with an AVOID AT ALL COSTS label. Future users beware!"
Review date: August, 2010 Version reviewed: 1.4.0
Reviewed by: Dani
"I have checked that script for over a month. This is not a straight forward script.Its very clumsy script with tone of layers not friendly and without any proper documantation and proper support. You also have to buy an expensive host which must supports InnoDB. It should be VPS or dedicated server otherwise forget from performance. You should have a good knowledge in codes such as xml, html, phtml, php, css. otherwise you won't get away with anything.
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Review date: April, 2010 Version reviewed: 1.4.0
Reviewed by: Carmen
"This is very hard to learn. I made a trip to the support forum just to add a user, and found a tonne of posts. I added a permissions role and found that I was locked out. Looking forward to deleting the install and getting my life back."
Review date: February, 2010 Version reviewed: 1.3.2
Reviewed by: Marshall
"very confusing admin interface. poor documentation on some parts of the interface.
Half way thru my testing, I was locked out of the admin panel. Even though the forgot password reset one and email it to me, it would not work. Finally just deleted install"
Review date: January, 2010 Version reviewed: 1.3.2
Reviewed by: Nik
"Magento has very good API, so it's very easy to connect third party software like warehouse application as well as very powerful Attributes section and product cloning (multishops), but it's not user friendly (neither developer friendly software).
There is very messy directory structure and even if you want to install a single plugin you need to add something in your template as well, which is very confusing.
There is no single way to add module like best seller or most viewed products from simple user. You need to know at least XML and to know how and where to place the code.
Another bad thing is the lack of core developer's support. There are threads which are not commented with months.
Another bad thing is the upgrade. Instead of copy a directory and running a single script you need to search in forums how to migrate (if you wish after so many problems) to an upper version.
If I have another request to build a eCommerce site I would choose another card for sure."
Review date: November, 2009 Version reviewed: 1.3.2
Reviewed by: Mark
"Magento is not user friendly. When processing orders you cannot change status from pending, shipped, delivered as you can with other software. The emails the system generates gets flagged as spam by Yahoo and some other mail servers as it seems that they aren't fully compliant with mail format standards. Running Magento on a dedicated server with a quad core processor isn't enough to make Magento responsive as pages are slow to load. Maybe the pay version is better but at $8900/yr it's very expensive for a shopping cart."
Review date: October, 2009 Version reviewed: 1.3.2
Reviewed by: Brian
"Magento has incredible potential, but feels convoluted and incomplete as is. The most simple actions, like getting categories to display, required trips to the support forums. There, I've seen mods instruct people to rewrite errors in the program's code - something that should never happen with a shipped product. Plan on investing a lot of time if you want to customize anything. The files are situated like a haphazard, crisscrossing maze of interacting XML and PHTML files. Instead of placing styles in one location (as you would in CSS), adjustments require you to dig through multiple, poorly labeled PHTML to find what you are searching for. Then you will have to dig through the XML files to make sure that your change is only affecting the one feature. "
Review date: August, 2009 Version reviewed: 1.3.2
Reviewed by: Alex
"It's comprehensive and robust, but very heavy handed and over the top. Performance issues you hear about are true, really requires a dedicated server."
Review date: August, 2009 Version reviewed: 1.3.2
Reviewed by: Bart
"Resource hog, no support, errors are never addressed. Poor design. Stay away."
Review date: July, 2009
Reviewed by: Sandy
"I am exploring magento due to the raves and rant i've been hearing, true, it is a good opensource shopping cart however it is quite time consuming to learn and understand it.
forum is active to support however for a fast online shop, magento is something that you can put on your second priority list.
editor is not wysiwyg, quite hard to move pages especially if you are used to joomla/vmart and others. not to mention, since it is basically new, no skins are really available at the moment.
this opensource is promising indeed but i think i will have to put this project on the shelf until it becomes more user friendly. "
Review date: April, 2008
Reviewed by: Musaaf
"Hello
I tested this cart. It is one big resource hog. you will find difficulty if you are running your cart on a shared hosting.
"
Review date: April, 2008
Reviewed by: goodgbb
"I can't believed that it's beta version. The version is only 0.6 but there are lots of awesome features that enough to open an awesome e-commerce website.
Trust me! after 2008 the world will use this shopping cart system.
It's FREE. It's EASY. In the future, it will beat all others software.
"PERFECT WORK!""
Review date: November, 2007
Reviewed by: Kenn Goh
"The official launch for Magento is on Q1 2008, The beta version is fantastic. I couldn't believe it's free and open-source. Magento look professional and offering unprecedented flexibility and control. With Magento, never feel trapped in your eCommerce solution again. This web application is genius, I would never believe it is an open-source project."
Review date: November, 2007
Add Your Own Review |
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Shopping Cart Reviews Comments
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When Magento was first released, it caused a huge stir in the shopping cart community. It was a real love it or hate it product.
Now that some time has passed, Magento has established itself as a strong mid-range player. Those pegging it as an alternative to ZenCart, etc, and then complain about performance and complications are missing the point.
Magento is aimed at serious ecommerce businesses, the sweet spot is probably businesses with revenue in the tens of millions.
A serious product will require serious hardware and serious work to set it up properly, but those who put in the hard work will find a competent product. Those people wanting to use Magento for a small shop will likely be frustrated.
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| Supported operating systems |
Windows, Linux, Unix |
| Language |
PHP |
| Database |
MySQL |
| Source code |
Yes |
| Reseller discounts |
No |
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| Product limit |
No |
| Category limit |
No |
| Multi-language |
Yes |
| Gift certificates |
Yes |
| Loyalty program |
No |
| Email merchant on order |
Yes |
| Affiliates program |
Yes |
| Site search |
Yes |
| Search optimization tools |
Yes |
| Product reviews |
Yes |
| Newsletters |
Yes |
| Discount coupons |
Yes |
| Customer registrations |
Yes |
| Wish list |
Yes |
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| Shipping price range |
Yes |
| Shipping weight range |
Yes |
| UPS lookup |
Yes |
| USPS lookup |
Yes |
| Fedex lookup |
Yes |
| Canada Post lookup |
Yes |
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| Tax by state |
Yes |
| Tax by country |
Yes |
| PayPal |
Yes |
| Authorize.Net |
Yes |
| Verisign |
Yes |
| Worldpay |
Yes |
| Secure Trading |
No |
| Others |
No |
| Non credit card options |
No |
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| Customer forums |
Yes |
| Free support |
Yes |
| Paid support |
Yes |
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| Sales reports |
Yes |
| Search reports |
Yes |
| Low stock reports |
Yes |
| Inventory reports |
Yes |
Is there an error on this page or an update needed?
Last updated:
02 Feb 2012
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