It is not easy to choose the right CMS for your online store, because it has a great impact on the future of your webshop. There are so many platforms that are great, you sometimes cannot see the forest for the trees. That’s why we placed two important platforms opposite to each other. Magento and PrestaShop are both great e-commerce platforms. But which one best fits your business?
PrestaShop and Magento 2 are both open-source e-commerce platforms with plenty of features. This means that both platforms are flexible and can be customized in endless ways. PrestaShop was released in 2007. Magento already in 2001, and presented its updated version Magento 2 in 2015. Both platforms are used by thousands of online shops. But which one best fits your needs? Allow us to walk you through and let’s compare!
Choose for yourself which wins this war: Magento or Prestashop. Because in the end, it’s all about finding a solution that better fits your needs.
#1 Resources and technical requirements
PrestaShop is running on four operating systems: Windows, Linux, Mac en PHP 5.6+. Magento is running on Linux and PHP 7. Curious about the server requirements of both? In short: Magento needs more resources.
Magento (the newest version 2.3):
- Needs a minimum of 2GB of RAM
- Users need to have Apache 2.2 or 2.4, or the Nginx 1.x webserver
- Users need to have MySQL 5.6 of 5.7
- Supported PHP: 7.1.x or 7.2.x (from September 2019, Magento 2.3.3 will support PHP 7.3.x)
PrestaShop (version 1.7):
- Needs a minimum 256 MB of RAM
- Users need to have Apache webserver (2.2 or later), or the Nginx 1.x webserver
- Users best use MySQL 5.6 or later
- Supported PHP: 5.6 or later
See our agency profile on Adobe Solution Partner: partners.magento.com/baldwin
#2 Features for e-commerce
In terms of features, no other e-commerce platform can beat Magento. The Magento marketplace is full of add-ons, modules, and highly customizable templates to empower your webshop. Coca-Cola, Huawei, Christian Louboutin, HP, Sigma Beauty, and Nestle Health Science Care are just some big companies that are using Magento 2. PrestaShop doesn’t have as many known brands on its side.
However, PrestaShop is a great competition for Magento. Thanks to the amount of templates, easy website builders, and payment gateway solutions, PrestaShop keeps up to speed with Magento.
Both platforms cover the basic functionalities an e-commerce platform needs. However, the number and quality of the Magento features for e-commerce makes the platform the absolute king. But if you only look for a basic webshop without any hassle, Prestashop is just great!
Do you know Baldwin likes to contribute to the Magento Community? Read here about how we developed a new module: FAN Courier module for Magento 2.
#3 Ease of use
When it comes to the ease of installation and customization, PrestaShop wins the war with Magento 2.
PrestaShop has an interface that even a beginner can handle with some effort. Magento has a more complex architecture, which requires technical skills. If you’d want to use Magento, you should have either knowledge of the product, or rely on an experienced developer.
In terms of use after the installation, Magento 2 has a friendlier admin dashboard than PrestaShop. All functionalities are intuitive, and allow anyone to easily manage an online shop.
Here are some interesting trends published by builtwith.com:
- 539.199 live websites are using Magento
- 374.623 live websites are using PrestaShop
#4 Security
Both CMS are ensuring the security measures each online shop needs in order to offer a safe shopping process for its users. Since data breaches are not exactly a selling point for your business, you need to make sure your webshop has no vulnerability. Magento 2 often releases new versions containing security fixes. To make sure your Magento shop has powerful security, it suffices to keep it up-to-date.
Articles that may also interest you:
- Magento vs Shopify: the e-commerce battle
- Why to upgrade from Magento 1 to Magento 2
- Why is Magento the best choice for an Omnichannel approach?
#5 Price
Both platforms offer free versions – which are preferred by the business owners with limited budgets. PrestaShop offers a couple of paid modules you need in order to add certain functionalities to your webshop. Magento 2 also offers a paid version, which is including various advanced features useful for webshops.
#6 Support
One of the advantages of an open-source platform is the communities and documentation from around the world. Magento, as well as PrestaShop, have a large community of users willing to support you and help you out with any problem you have. You can also use official documentation as a resource for both platforms. An extra advantage of Magento is the official support team you get when you buy a paid plan.
Conclusion
Magento versus Prestashop does not turn up to a clear conclusion since each platform offers its own benefits
Both are excellent e-commerce platforms. Your choice should mostly depend on what you need. PrestaShop is the ideal solution for small businesses with low budgets that want a basic webshop – but it may not be the best for larger companies. Magento 2 is suitable for business owners who want to be able to expand in the future and who seek to differentiate their brand from the competition through a highly customized webshop. Magento 2 offers great control over each aspect of the business.
If you want to discuss with us what platform best fits your company or need e-commerce consultancy, don’t hesitate to contact us!
