Magento or Prestashop, which is better? [closed]

Question

I want to find an ecommerce solution for my little shop. My friend tells me that Prestashop is very easy to use and develop modules for, but some say Magento is better. Can anybody tell me which is better for developing modules and why?

Answer 1

Magento is a very complex solution for large shops that require good hardware base to handle more than 500 products. Although even though there is a lot of resources to start with Magento.
I have personally found out that building themes is really easy once you find your way around few annoying things like XML layout dependencies (there is barely anything documented on XML, which is the base for making good themes for Magento) and objects in PHP (some functions and data is not accessible from certain parts of the template just because).

I'm very comfortable with working and writing my own apps in OO PHP but stuff that Magento pulls off sometimes is really annoying and also directory structure and the way themes are being handled is awkward...

On the other hand, PrestaShop is fast (after few tweaks), but still requires some work in the back-end. I am developing a lot of back-end modules to help people get the most out of this system as it's worth it. Plus the community is growing and developers are fixing everything they can.

One more thing: writing both, back-end and front-end modules for Prestashop is incredibly easy, plus using SMARTY for templates is a good choice.

Edit: Magento is very easy to break during or after deployment (especially between localhost and a hosted space) and maintenance in SVN might be a pain for inexperienced devs.

Answer 2

If it is for a 'little' shop don't bother using magento.

Answer 3

I tried both, first I use magento, which is powerful but also very require a good php setting for the server. prestashop is more easy to use, if you are small store you may choose prestashop.

Answer 4

I haven't used Prestashop but I have recently deployed a Magento store. As others have said, I wouldn't suggest it for small, simple stores. Also, if you are on an economy server, you're likely to have sluggish page loads.

The good news is that (after a steep learning curve), it's incredibly flexible and powerful. I personally think the templating system is great.

Answer 5

PrestaShop is your best bet. The only problem with PrestaShop is that uses smarty template engine and rather than write clean PHP without the need of loops etc, in smarty they have made it a very great deal of effort for the average person to theme.

I will stand behind PrestaShop 100 percent if they get rid of smarty and implement a simpler templating system such as a main html file with includes that you can just embed PHP template tags into.

Answer 6

Having looked under the covers of both of these beasts I can't say that I actually like either of them as they're both rather ugly when you pop the bonnet and something like OpenCart is actually a much nice and easier to work with solution. However, from a feature perspective OpenCart is nowhere near either Magento or PrestaShop and unlike PrestaShop it doesn't have a team of developers behind it. However having said that it is much easier to understand and modify for anyone with a basic knowledge of OO PHP. It is much better structured. PrestaShop is actually a bit ugly under the covers and CSCart (which is an open source, but not free alternative) may also be a viable solution as it only costs like $300 so not that much. I'd have to say I'd personally go for either PrestaShop or CSCart as they do have a lot more features than OpenCart and at the same time also don't cost anywhere near Magento to setup and run. Magento is an absolute nightmare if you're looking to change anything even if you really know what you're doing... Too many layers.

Another cart I would suggest to anyone who isn't fussed about technology is nopCommerce. It's a ASP.NET based shopping cart and it's very well architected and full of features. It is also very easy to modify for anyone with ASP.NET experience.