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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    LightCMS (discontinued)

    Score6.1 out of 10
    N/ALightCMS, from NetSuite, was a cloud-based content management system for building websites and eCommerce storefronts. It is designed to be used by individuals, non-profits, and small to medium-sized businesses. The product has been discontinued.N/A

    Magento Open Source

    Score8.1 out of 10
    N/AMagento Open Source is an ecommerce content management solution originally developed by Varien Inc and presently supported by Adobe. The Open Source product is for developers and merchants that is available as a free download, and supported with free upgrades from the Magento Community.N/A
    Pricing
    LightCMS (discontinued)Magento Open Source
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    LightCMS (discontinued)Magento Open Source
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—Pricing for Magento will vary greatly depending on outsourcing support and maintenance services.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    LightCMS (discontinued)Magento Open Source
    Considered Both Products
    Discontinued Products
    No answer on this topic
    Adobe
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Would buy again
    10 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    10 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    10 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    80%
    Implementation went as expected
    8 Answers
    Features
    LightCMS (discontinued)Magento Open Source
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of LightCMS (discontinued) and Magento Open Source
    Feature
    LightCMS (discontinued)
    8.0
    1 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Magento Open Source
    -
    Ratings
    Role-based user permissions8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of LightCMS (discontinued) and Magento Open Source
    Feature
    LightCMS (discontinued)
    9.1
    1 Ratings
    15% above category average
    Magento Open Source
    -
    Ratings
    WYSIWYG editor10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Admin section9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Page templates10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Library of website themes10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Publishing workflow8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Form generator7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of LightCMS (discontinued) and Magento Open Source
    Feature
    LightCMS (discontinued)
    7.3
    1 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Magento Open Source
    -
    Ratings
    Content taxonomy4.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    SEO support7.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Bulk management8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Community / comment management10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Online Storefront
    Comparison of Online Storefront features of LightCMS (discontinued) and Magento Open Source
    Feature
    LightCMS (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    Magento Open Source
    7.4
    29 Ratings
    5% below category average
    Product catalog & listings00 Ratings9.329 Ratings
    Product management00 Ratings9.029 Ratings
    Bulk product upload00 Ratings9.027 Ratings
    Branding00 Ratings6.727 Ratings
    Mobile storefront00 Ratings4.029 Ratings
    Product variations00 Ratings9.327 Ratings
    Website integration00 Ratings8.326 Ratings
    Visual customization00 Ratings5.728 Ratings
    CMS00 Ratings5.027 Ratings
    Online Shopping Cart
    Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of LightCMS (discontinued) and Magento Open Source
    Feature
    LightCMS (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    Magento Open Source
    7.0
    29 Ratings
    9% below category average
    Abandoned cart recovery00 Ratings5.424 Ratings
    Checkout user experience00 Ratings8.729 Ratings
    Online Payment System
    Comparison of Online Payment System features of LightCMS (discontinued) and Magento Open Source
    Feature
    LightCMS (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    Magento Open Source
    8.7
    27 Ratings
    4% above category average
    eCommerce security00 Ratings8.727 Ratings
    eCommerce Marketing
    Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of LightCMS (discontinued) and Magento Open Source
    Feature
    LightCMS (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    Magento Open Source
    6.4
    29 Ratings
    18% below category average
    Promotions & discounts00 Ratings9.329 Ratings
    Personalized recommendations00 Ratings2.022 Ratings
    SEO00 Ratings7.925 Ratings
    eCommerce Business Management
    Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of LightCMS (discontinued) and Magento Open Source
    Feature
    LightCMS (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    Magento Open Source
    9.6
    29 Ratings
    18% above category average
    Multi-site management00 Ratings10.026 Ratings
    Order processing00 Ratings9.328 Ratings
    Inventory management00 Ratings9.326 Ratings
    Shipping00 Ratings9.325 Ratings
    Custom functionality00 Ratings10.027 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    LightCMS (discontinued)Magento Open Source
    Small Businesses
    Umbraco CMS
    Score7 out of 10
    Ecwid by Lightspeed
    Score10 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Square Online
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Shopify
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    RWS Tridion Sites
    Score9 out of 10
    IBM Digital Commerce
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    LightCMS (discontinued)Magento Open Source
    Likelihood to Recommend
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (30 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    LightCMS (discontinued)Magento Open Source
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Discontinued Products
    LightCMS is perfect for 90% of websites out there. It has all the basic modules like calendars, photo galleries, news/blog, or forms building built in. Small businesses to mid-sized businesses are perfect for LightCMS. We use other solutions when the requierments for the website include a lot of third party integrations or custom modules. As a hosted CMS it has the same limitations as others with server-side development.
    Read full review
    Adobe
    Magento Open Source is an excellent choice for businesses that need a highly customizable and scalable solution and (most of all) have the technical resources to support it. It's ideal for mid-to-large-sized businesses with complex product catalogs that require complete ownership and control, particularly those with complexities such as multi-country/multi-currency stores.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Discontinued Products
    • LightCMS provides all the major functionality 90% of sites need. It keeps out of its own way by making these solutions intuitive and simple and not trying to solve every problem for everyone which would over-complicate the tool-set.
    • This is the easiest to use CMS we have ever seen. I tell my client's that if they can make a Facebook post, they can manage their website, and it's true. Their UI is so easy and keeps getting easier to use. Untrained users get it in minutes and are able to manage their sites without our help.
    • LightCMS's code is simple and light-weight. Sites are fast and the CMS doesnt get in the way of performance.
    • You can do almost anything you want (except server-side programming) with LightCMS. So, we can create any design we want and it works great with Light CMS's tokens and editable regions concept (which is also simple to implement.)
    • Constantly upgraded and fixed, the product is 1000x better after 10 years of working with it, but is still simple and not bloated.
    Read full review
    Adobe
    • It is very good when it comes to search engine optimization as it makes a good use of keywords and tags to improve the SEO score. It increases the chances of ranking up of the eCommerce store in the search engine rankings.
    • It makes the store in a very optimized way and despite being a very advanced system it is still very lightweight when it comes to website speed. The pages have a comparatively low loading time and a good speed.
    • It provides a lot more advance reporting features which are very helpful for businesses to do their planning.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Discontinued Products
    • While keeping it simple is LightCMS's thing, some of the elements/modules could use deeper options or control for advanced users.
    • Some content, such as calendars, cannot have data exported/imported easily.
    • Support was amazing 10 years ago. We openly talked about how awesome they were... it isn't as good as it once was, but is still way above almost every support of other CMS systems we have used.
    Read full review
    Adobe
    • Magento is not easy for a layman who is not tech-savvy to manage the website.
    • Magento is one of the only modern shopping carts in which one must manually clear the cache and "reindex".
    • Magneto has a lot of technical glitches - more than most of the other shopping carts we work with. Most are minor.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Adobe
    It's the dominant force in the SMB open source market. With the continued support of eBay/PayPal, Magento will continue to evolve and should be a market leader for some time.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Discontinued Products
    No answers on this topic
    Adobe
    Magento has a relly step learning curve. This means that you need to find experienced developers who can lead junior ones, otherwise the overall development process can be a disaster. However, once you are comfortable in developing on the platform, the customization capability are basically limitless and you can adapt the platform to any use case you can imagine. Also, there are many alredy developed marketplace modules that can solve, out of the box, many problems you may face.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Discontinued Products
    We have looked at hundrends of CMS's and LightCMS is a perfect entry-level system for most of our small to mid sized clients. LightCMS's feature set is less complex than almost every other system and the actual interface is miles ahead of most other CMS systems. It's simply thought out better. It lacks sensibility and an API as well as other advanced features many more expensive or more DIY systems have, but the simplicity makes up for it.
    Read full review
    Adobe
    In looking at a different platform to migrate to from Magento 1, we looked primarily at Big Commerce, Shopify and Shopify Plus. Our host was very negative about Magento 2, but we determined after a couple years it was due to the fact it had even more complexity (and very different) than Magento 1. Shopify Plus was attractive, but the cost factor for two sites led us back to Magento 2.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Discontinued Products
    • While I always think the price could be cheaper, LightCMS is incredibly inexpensive if you consider the costs of hosting, support, and upgrading is all included.
    • As part of their partner program, we are able to control client accounts from our master account, making moving between clients easier and supporting them faster which ultimately makes our labor costs better.
    Read full review
    Adobe
    • Better Total Cost of Ownership than bespoke e-commerce solutions due to being open source and the wide range of free/commercial extensions available to extend the platform.
    • Often more extensive to set up and maintain than other open source alternatives, such as WooCommerce.
    Read full review
    ScreenShots