TrustRadius

Magento Open Source vs. MBS inSite eCommerce

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Magento Open Source
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Magento 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
inSite eCommerce
Score 4.0 out of 10
N/A
MBS' inSite eCommerce is a platform designed to allow stores to stay competitive in the online marketplace by enabling them to build and manage a fully-functional eCommerce site where customers can shop, keep a wish list, and collect and redeem loyalty perks. MBS was acquired and is now supported by Barnes & Noble Education (February 2017).N/A
Pricing
Magento Open SourceMBS inSite eCommerce
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Magento Open SourceinSite eCommerce
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPricing for Magento will vary greatly depending on outsourcing support and maintenance services.—
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Magento Open SourceMBS inSite eCommerce
Considered Both Products
Magento Open Source
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose Magento Open Source
Shopify is a closed ecosystem; the moment a client has a complex, custom workflow or needs to integrate with a legacy ERP system, Shopify’s app-based model falls short. WooCommerce just does not scale like Magento, and its architecture is not made for enterprise-scale …
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose Magento Open Source
Magento is completely open source, and this means that not only is free, but can be adapted to your needings. Magento is also a framework, and this means the his customization capabilities go well beyond pure eCommerce functionalities. For this reason, if you need to create …
Russell Preston | TrustRadius Reviewer
Russell Preston
Senior Web Developer
Chose Magento Open Source
Magento was open source and customizable unlike Shopify. Also it was built using PHP which everyone was proficient in - which helps a lot! Joomla wasn't as e-comerce oriented under the hood compared to Magento - plus we had someone in the team who knew Magento well already as …
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose Magento Open Source
Magento is more advanced, but at the same time it requires more tech expertise to setup the store. It provides more freedom as compared to Shopify and WooCommerce, but at the same time it's comparatively difficult to use. Shopify is almost no code platform, but still we chose …
Shahed Nasser | TrustRadius Reviewer
Shahed Nasser
Senior eCommerce Developer
Chose Magento Open Source
Magento vs Prestashop
Magento is good for big-scale projects that require a lot of features or a lot of custom development. Prestashop is a good, lightweight platform that can handle most e-commerce use cases. When it comes to which is easier to use, especially for non-tech …
Ramon Khan | TrustRadius Reviewer
Ramon Khan
Freelance Marketing Consultant
Chose Magento Open Source
While Magento does have higher development cost overall, it is a much better platform for ecommerce and it does not a take a fee from your sales which is nice.
JB
Joe Blattert
Consultant
Chose Magento Open Source
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 …
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose Magento Open Source
The full customization and integration benefits made us stay with Magento.
Chose Magento Open Source
the shopping extentions for wordpress (whoocommerce) didn't seem to be the best fit. Drupal was too complex to start with.
We found a good partner that had experience with Magento development and we felt that they + Magento Open Source were a good fit for our needs.
especially …
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose Magento Open Source
Magneto Open Source allowed for a lot of customizations, and it seemed like a cheaper version. However, the cost added up really quickly. I would probably go with Shopify or BigCommerce for a small business when making decisions in the future.
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose Magento Open Source
I inherited the Magento Open Source website we are currently using, but after evaluating everything that was wanted for the new website, we switched over to Shopify. After using Shopify for some of our other websites, we learned that you have to pay a large sum each month to …
Chose Magento Open Source
OpenCart is a better shopping cart platform then Magento for larger corporate clients who may want a ton of customizations and very specific functionality. Although Magento is "open-source", its code is not as easy to understand and modify as OpenCart. Shopify is a better …
Vin Campbell | TrustRadius Reviewer
Vin Campbell
IT Director
Chose Magento Open Source
The three main reasons we went with Magento: 1. It was recommended by our NCR Counterpoint, VAR. 2. It's the best platform to integrate tightly with that NCR Counterpoint. It's also the best eventual platform to integrate with our wholesale ERP, so it's one platform to run …
Chris Putnam | TrustRadius Reviewer
Chris Putnam
Senior Web Developer
Chose Magento Open Source
Magento is the heaviest by far, in a few senses of the word. It has the steepest learning curve both for administrators and programmers, but it also has the highest potential to run a high traffic, high volume ecommerce store. Other products will get you up and running faster …
David Bryan | TrustRadius Reviewer
David Bryan
Managing Director
Chose Magento Open Source
In our experience, Magento is more robust but also more complex for users to maintain.
Brian Halstrom | TrustRadius Reviewer
Brian Halstrom
Director, Digital Marketing
Chose Magento Open Source
When compared to WooCommerce, we used Magento as we're able to have more control over our product listings, category listings, and shipping options.
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose Magento Open Source
Magento is excellent for large shops, with large quantities of products and makes scaling as the shop grows easy and quick. But it does truly require a dedicated server and an experienced developer to get things up and going.

I prefer WooCommerce for smaller shops as its quick …
Brendon Brown | TrustRadius Reviewer
Brendon Brown
Business Software Manager / IT Consultant
Chose Magento Open Source
WooCommerce, when fully "plugged-in" required server resources which drowned our host. We hit a wall with growth due to these resources and researched redevelopment on Woo or migration to a new platform. We chose the latter.
Shopify and BigCommerce were limited to their closed …
Chose Magento Open Source
Magento is hands down better than any hosted platform (i.e., BC), but only if you have a good development team. Hosted platforms are very limiting as to what you can accomplish "outside the box." Magento is much better than WooCommerce in its user friendliness and its …
Santiago Valdés | TrustRadius Reviewer
Santiago Valdés
Cofounder / Marketing, Growth, Technology, Experience
Chose Magento Open Source
In a few words:
  • WooCommerce: easy to setup, huge community and easy to customize. Hard to scale, but can be done.
  • PrestaShop: poor brother of WooCommerce. Less community, less customization... not sure why anybody would use it.
Max J. Jennings | TrustRadius Reviewer
Max J. Jennings
Inbound Marketing Specialist
Chose Magento Open Source
Magento is definitely built for developers by developers and in my opinion is best suited for large-scale e-commerce stores. When you need to create a large store or require advance customization Magento is really the only way to go. We have tried using platforms like …
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose Magento Open Source
I have worked with Shopify, osCommerce, and WooCommerce.
Matt Railey | TrustRadius Reviewer
Matt Railey
Director of User Experience and Technology
Chose Magento Open Source
Compared to other small - medium sized business e-commerce solutions, Magento is by far requires the most development resources to implement and maintain. Creating a custom Drupal or Wordpress based e-commerce solution requires development resources as well, but the complexity …
Nick Jastrebski | TrustRadius Reviewer
Nick Jastrebski
Business Analyst
Chose Magento Open Source
In the past, I've used Shopify, Wordpress + Woocommerce and Drupal + Drupal Commerce. Magento CE is much easier to use since it's open source and it's bundled together in one package. It's built specifically with e-commerce in mind so there are no worries about …
inSite eCommerce

No answer on this topic

Features
Magento Open SourceMBS inSite eCommerce
Online Storefront
Comparison of Online Storefront features of Product A and Product B
Magento Open Source
7.4
Ratings
5% below category average
MBS inSite eCommerce
-
Ratings
Product catalog & listings9.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Product management9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Bulk product upload9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Branding6.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile storefront4.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Product variations9.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Website integration8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Visual customization5.60 Ratings00 Ratings
CMS5.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Online Shopping Cart
Comparison of Online Shopping Cart features of Product A and Product B
Magento Open Source
7.3
Ratings
4% below category average
MBS inSite eCommerce
-
Ratings
Abandoned cart recovery5.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Checkout user experience8.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Online Payment System
Comparison of Online Payment System features of Product A and Product B
Magento Open Source
8.8
Ratings
5% above category average
MBS inSite eCommerce
-
Ratings
eCommerce security8.80 Ratings00 Ratings
eCommerce Marketing
Comparison of eCommerce Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Magento Open Source
6.4
Ratings
18% below category average
MBS inSite eCommerce
-
Ratings
Promotions & discounts9.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Personalized recommendations2.00 Ratings00 Ratings
SEO7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
eCommerce Business Management
Comparison of eCommerce Business Management features of Product A and Product B
Magento Open Source
9.6
Ratings
18% above category average
MBS inSite eCommerce
-
Ratings
Multi-site management10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Order processing9.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Inventory management9.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Shipping9.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom functionality10.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Magento Open SourceMBS inSite eCommerce
Small Businesses
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Score 10.0 out of 10
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Ecwid by Lightspeed
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus
Score 8.9 out of 10
Shopify Plus
Shopify Plus
Score 8.9 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
IBM Digital Commerce
IBM Digital Commerce
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Magento Open SourceMBS inSite eCommerce
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
6.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Magento Open SourceMBS inSite eCommerce
Likelihood to Recommend
It's well suited for large eCommerce stores as it requires much effort to set up and the development cost for setting it up is high. It's less appropriate to use Magento where you are looking for quick development and launch of the store. Also, it is required to have a developer or sometimes the entire tech team to manage an e-commerce store, so you may need to hire a few PHP developers.
Verified User
Anonymous
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Pros
  • Magento is perfect if our web design client likes a specific pre-made template and wants a fast solution.
  • Magento allows us to customize its open-source code to create additional features and functionality.
  • Magento saves small businesses time and money if they only need a simple solution.
.Kim Murphy | TrustRadius Reviewer
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Cons
  • Magento 2 community is full of known and new bugs with long-pending pull requests and the community is on the hook for changes. Submit an very obvious issue to the github repo, and you will likely be met with a "this is open source and you use at your own risk." I counter this poor attitude with the fact that open source community has standards, and we do not label a "release" until those standards are met. Otherwise it's just a alpha, beta or numbered build. We don't release obviously bad software until it's fully working.
  • Magento is expensive to maintain. You will need a well-paid php developer with apache and hosting knowledge, or you will have to hire an external firm. Either option will turn your website into an additional $100k/yr cost center, so you'd better be ready to ramp up sales. Every feature update or bugfix in the past year has uncovered more bugs, which my devs fix, but at the cost of timelines and billed hours way outside of my budget and target dates.
Brendon Brown | TrustRadius Reviewer
Brendon Brown
Business Software Manager / IT Consultant
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Likelihood to Renew
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.
Bret Williams | TrustRadius Reviewer
Bret Williams
E-Commerce Strategits
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Usability
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.
Verified User
Anonymous
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Shopify is a closed ecosystem; the moment a client has a complex, custom workflow or needs to integrate with a legacy ERP system, Shopify’s app-based model falls short. WooCommerce just does not scale like Magento, and its architecture is not made for enterprise-scale e-commerce. SAP Commerce Cloud is a very close competitor, but it comes with licensing costs and sometimes can be overkill. It's, however, perfect if the customer already has something SAP in their ecosystem.
Verified User
Anonymous
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • 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.
David Bryan | TrustRadius Reviewer
David Bryan
Managing Director
Read full review
No answers on this topic
ScreenShots