Magento vs PrestaShop

Magento vs PrestaShop Mars664

Magento vs PrestaShop

PrestaShop vs Magento

Which is Best for Your Online Store

PrestaShop vs Magento

When it comes to eCommerce platforms, there are many popular options. PrestaShop and Magento are two of the most popular. Deciding which one to use to get your store off the ground can be difficult unless you are familiar with how both platforms work… In this article we will compare PrestaShop vs Magento using the following criteria:

  • Ease of use
  • Site management
  • Personalization.
  • Unlimited
  • Security

When we're done, you'll know which eCommerce platform is best suited for your site.

An introduction to PrestaShop vs Magento

PrestaShop and Magento share several similarities, beyond simply allowing you to sell products online. For example, both platforms are open source and have highly active communities. On top of that, each has a very similar market share.

Both Magento and PrestaShop are what we call “self-hosted” platforms. That means you can download their software and configure it on any server you want, then work directly in your store. Self-hosted open source platforms tend to be very flexible, as you can do almost anything you want with them.

PrestaShop has a highly active community and a wide set of features that make it powerful enough for any type of store. Magento is not lacking in features either; In fact, the platform includes so much functionality that some people find it intimidating at first. However, once you get past its learning curve, you'll find that Magento is a fantastic option for setting up and managing an online store.

Despite everything that Magento and PrestaShop have in common, there are enough differences between them.

Ease of use

In most cases, you'll want to use an eCommerce platform that offers a good balance of features and ease of use.

With that in mind, PrestaShop is pretty easy to get started with. The first thing you'll need to do is check if your web provider offers an option to help you set up the platform. Otherwise, you will have to do it manually. Once your PrestaShop store is live, you will have access to a dashboard with many options. The dashboard is quite simple to navigate thanks to its well-arranged tabs.

With Magento, the setup process is very similar. Some web hosts will provide you with the option to install the platform automatically. However, you can always take manual focus if you prefer. Once Magento is configured on your server, you will be able to access your dashboard.

At first glance, you'll notice that the dashboard itself looks pretty plain. However, once you start looking through each tab, you will notice that Magento includes a large number of options for almost all of its settings. In turn, each of these sections offers many individual options.

To summarize our findings so far, Magento offers many more options at first glance. That's not a bad thing, but it makes the platform more complicated to use than PrestaShop, especially if you're new to e-commerce.

Site management

In this section, we will look at what Magento and PrestaShop offer to help you manage your online stores.

If you take a look at your PrestaShop dashboard, you will notice that there is a tab called Store Parameters. Once opened, you will find all the main settings for your store.

In this tab you can force your website to load over Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), enable a mode that allows you to disable your store while you work on troubleshooting, set up multiple payment options, and more.

Overall, managing your PrestaShop store is very easy thanks to its well-organized and elegant dashboard.

Let's move on to Magento now. Most of your store's main settings can be found in the System tab. There, you will find options to configure extensions, as well as manage backups, notifications, and users.

There are also a lot of settings that you can modify if you open the Stores tab. For example, you can modify your tax settings, currencies, and even your store's rating system.

We have found that Magento offers more options when it comes to site administration. However, PrestaShop makes the process of managing your stores much simpler, due to its easy-to-use interface.

Personalization.

One of the most important aspects of any eCommerce software is how much it allows you to customize your store.

PrestaShop, for example, allows you to use modules and themes to customize your store. Themes allow you to radically modify the style of your site. Plus, you can customize any theme you use to make your site look even more unique.

Modules, on the other hand, allow you to add advanced functionality to your store. For example, you can add modules that help you implement coupon functionality or contact forms.

PrestaShop has almost 4,000 modules available and more than 4,000 themes that you can use. That combination gives you a high level of customization, as you can choose the style you want for your store and implement many advanced features.

Magento is not a disappointment when it comes to customization options. This platform also allows you to use both extensions and themes to set up your store the way you want. When it comes to extensions, Magento has a slight advantage as it has over 5,000 options.

Magento Extensions

However, the Magento Marketplace features only a small collection of themes, as it is more common for users to design their own templates. To put it another way, Magento makes it easy to customize your store layout manually, at the expense of giving you fewer pre-built options.

Overall, both PrestaShop and Magento offer exceptional customization, so much so that it is difficult to decide which of these platforms is better in this area.

Unlimited

It is important to remember that both Magento and PrestaShop are self-hosted platforms. What that means is that the performance of your store will largely depend on the hardware you use to host it.

Choosing the right provider and the right type of plan is key.

That being said, Magento is well known for being a highly scalable platform. Technically speaking, if you are using a robust hosting solution and getting a decent amount of traffic, a Magento store will generally run faster than one created with PrestaShop.

If you're just starting a new store, the platform you're using probably doesn't make much of a difference. However, Magento is a better option for larger projects, it is simply better than PrestaShop when it comes to managing your server resources.

Security

Security is essential for any e-commerce operation. After all, online stores usually handle a lot of confidential and personal information. You'll want to choose a platform that provides you with outstanding security standards and has a solid track record when it comes to patching vulnerabilities.

Fortunately, we can say that both PrestaShop and Magento are quite excellent when it comes to security. Both platforms are open source, so they are under constant development and review.

Magento, for example, releases separate security patches in addition to its core updates. That means the platform is a great option if you want to be on the cutting edge of eCommerce security. These patches give the platform a slight advantage over PrestaShop.

Conclusion

There are dozens of eCommerce platforms you can use to set up an online store. However, once you narrow down your options, you will realize that PrestaShop and Magento are two of the best out there. After comparing PrestaShop vs Magento we realize that Magento, for example, is perfect if you want to run a large-scale eCommerce operation, while PrestaShop is a better option when it comes to ease of use.