Does everyone use Magento Community Edition for e-commerce sites or do some people use products like Magento Go and then customise them as necessary?
If you are small and starting up then Magento Go seems quite a good option.
Any views?
Thanks Sue
Compare Magento Community Vs. Magento Go
1>> Support from Magento
=>> Magento Community - N/A
=>> Magento Go - Phone, Mail, Live support
2>> Optimized High Availability Hosting
=>> Magento Community - N/A
=>> Magento Go - Yes
3>> Performance Tuned by Magento
=>> Magento Community - N/A
=>> Magento Go - Yes
4>> Content Delivery Network (CDN)
=>> Magento Community - N/A
=>> Magento Go - Yes
5>> PCI Compliant
=>> Magento Community - N/A
=>> Magento Go - Yes
6>> Automatic Upgrades
=>> Magento Community - N/A
=>> Magento Go - Yes
***** Features *****
1>> Gift Cards
=>> Magento Community - N/A
=>> Magento Go - Yes
2>> Store Credits
=>> Magento Community N/A
=>> Magento Go - Yes
3>> Theme / Layout Editor
=>> Magento Community N/A
=>> Magento Go - Yes
4>> Selection of Professionally Designed
=>> Magento Community N/A
=>> Magento Go - Yes
5>> Assisted Shopping Cart Management
=>> Magento Community N/A
=>> Magento Go - Yes
as per go.magento.com
Hello
i agree with previos post, that Go version has much more support and some new features, but i really convinced that you can just try Community version. it is free and you won’t spent your money in the air. today community version a lot of solved problems and different types of modules, themes and extension which can shop the whole power of this platform.
Magento is resource hungry - if you have a decent dedicated or cloud server, with plenty of memory and CPU, then you will have a chance with Magento Community. If not, you will likely go through all the install & config process, and if you end up with a half busy site, will hit performance problems. If Magento Go has the features you want, then go with that. Do bear in mind though that with Magento plugins, ones that work with Community or Enterprise, may not have equivalent versions for Go.
Depends On what you can afford to have for your business and surely if you have much then Go for “Go” version as their support is great in this version. And as far as extension are concerned you can find them in both editions.
I am quite familiar with Magento and Magento Go so let me try to break down the things if that help you from the perspective of a designer/developer.
Magento C.E is much more flexible than Magento Go.
You can add new extensions and edit the core files and html for Magento C.E version while Magento Go is quite limited in this matter. You cannot access the core files in Magento Go thus there is limitation to the customization that you want to do. Also, there is limited javascript support for Go platform since the js support differs from the default themes you pick from the Go store.
I think Magento Go is still not stable since i saw in forums that magento go server was down in certain countries at certain times. But the support @ Magento go is quite flexible.
Let me know if you have any questions .
Cost:
Magento Community Edition:
Community Edition is free. But you will have to rent a web server to host your online store built on the Community edition. Being open source you can hire resources on your own to design it and make customizations to meet your needs.
Magento Go:
This edition is a cloud based hosted solution targeted for small businesses planning to open an online store without hassle. The pricing structure ranges from $15/month to $125/month depending on the features and capacity you require e.g. product SKUs, Admin accounts, Storage, Bandwidth etc. Being offered as software as a service (SaaS) you are free from the hassles of renting a web-server to host your store and maintenance.
Security:
Magento Community Edition:
Many people have this notion that the Community edition is devoid of the PCI compliance unlike the other two Editions and it can neither be made to become compliant. Yes, out of the box it’s not PCI compliant but it can be made to become so. Community Edition does not have Payment bridges but there are ample other ways to achieve PCI compliance.
Magento Go:
Magento Go is level 1 PCI-DSS compliant and hence assists secure payment meeting the industry security standards.
Performance :
Magento Community Edition:
Although many people are unaware but Community condition is pretty fast. Yes, if the number of products and other data are excessively huge it might slow down, but again with optimizations, instant page loads can be achieved. Incorporating a FPC system or Varnish page-cache only, will make twice as fast. Similarly using other performance enhancing extensions like Nitrogento or Light speed can make Enterprise Edition like performance achievable.
Magento Go:
Considering the targeted segment of Magento Go people find Magento Go fast enough. With a maximum bandwidth of 5Gb along with the support for 10000 product SKUs it is fast. Now if one wishes to have a hassle free online store belonging to the mid-small sized entity group its performance will suffice. But make note of this, that it does not provide service beyond those numbers.
Also check it this link for more idea: http://www.slideshare.net/kevinnsmiith/magento-community-or-magento-go-two-sides-of-a-coin
Magento Go is a paid version for medium sized businesses. It has some restrictions as well e.g. plugins and templates development and use. CE is free, you can build and tweek any thing. The best advantage of Go is that it comes with Magento hosting with some cost.