The Magento Community Edition is an open source e-commerce solution. The best thing about community edition is the fact that it is absolutely free. However, every user who has encountered the Magento platform is aware about its steep learning curve, especially when it comes to the

Community Edition.

 

Because of its complexity a shopping cart on Magento cannot be made without technical assistance.  Here is a list of some features that will help you figure out if Magento Community Edition is the way to go for you.

 

Cost:

 

Although, Magento Community Edition comes absolutely free of charge but that does not mean that using the Magento platform will be as cost effective as using platforms like OpenCart and WooCommerce.

 

Magento is one of the most advanced shopping platforms there is and as such its capabilities are endless. Because of its advanced nature as a shopping platform Magento simply cannot function without an on deck technical staff.

 

So, you may not be charging for the Community Edition but you will end up paying monthly for the team that you will have to hire to keep your Magento Cart up and running without any hiccups.

 

Positive Features:

 

•         Extensive customization for templates

 

This feature can be seen in both terms. While, extensive customization allows you to create unique designs, this feature can easily become a headache if you don’t have a skilled designer at hand who is capable of working in the Magento designing framework.

 

•         Coupons and promotions

 

The Magento Community Edition allows you to customize promotions as well as coupons. These features play a big role in increasing sales.

 

•         Mobile Integration

 

The Magento Community Edition allows for mobile integration. This is an excellent feature as Google ranks responsive websites on its search engine. It also increases your customer base from system users to smartphone and tablet using customers as well.

 

•         Multi Store Feature

 

Magento’s multi store feature allows you to manage multiple shopping stores through a single admin interface. This is a great feature as it keeps you from making multiple accounts for separate stores.

 

•         Magento Community Support

 

Magento does not offer technical support for its Community edition. However there are many Magento forums filled with active members who can help your coders out whenever they need technical assistance.

 

•         Access to Source Code

 

The Community Edition comes with complete source code access. They give the technical team full reign to customize their shopping cart.

 

•         Excellent SEO features

 

The Magento Community edition comes equipped with excellent SEO features like using Meta tags, optimized product descriptions, site maps and URL redirections.

 

Negative Features:

 

•         Need an expert team

 

Without an expert team there is no way that one can create a fully functional Magento shopping cart. Magento is a complicated and tough to understand platform. It requires a staff that has had prior experience in making shopping carts on this platform.

 

Magento is powerful software; however its potential can only be unleashed with a highly skilled and creative technical team.

 

•         Slow sight speed

 

The full page cache option is exclusive only for Magento Enterprise edition. So, as soon as your product list exceeds 20,000 products the website speed begins to crumble.

 

•         No PCI Compliance

 

The Community Edition is not integrated with PCI compliance like the Enterprise edition. Community Edition users will have to apply for it and handle it separately.

 

•         No blogging feature

 

Blogging has become a crucial part of any website’s advertising endeavor and the fact that Magento doesn’t have this feature is a big drawback in Magento’s list of features.

 

When compared to the Enterprise Edition, the Community Edition is sorely lacking in several exciting features. Therefore, customers who end up using the Community Edition have to move on to the Enterprise Edition once their store becomes popular and daily traffic increases.

 

If you are looking at the Magento Community Edition as an affordable option, then that is certainly not the case. Magento CE is affordable only when it is compared with the Enterprise Edition. There are other better alternatives out there like WooCommerce, OpenCart, Prestashop etc  that are excellent for startup and basic shopping carts.