i have built sites with magento and i can tell you, it is a powerhouse open source ecommerce CMS. because of this, it is a very complex CMS because it is unlike anything out there (framework)

so that means you'll have some learning to do. Forums help somewhat, you'll learn slow, but when you pick it up, you'll start appreciating it more.

I just wanted to weigh in on the whole Magento debate. I have been building with, advocating for, and using Magento for several years now. Here's my .02...

I am a major open source evangelist and when Magento first came out, I thought the world had changed. Even in the early beta stage I thought it was revolutionary and couldn't wait to install and configure it.

I have built multiple sites in it, including custom template creation. But recently, I have began to change my tune. Here's the reality:

It is slow...even with server optimization. I have gone through a number of different set ups and yes...it's slow. I put up with it in the beginning because I thought this (and other things) would be hammered out over time. Not true.

The code is nightmarish. And while I appreciate what some people have said on here, I run a business and have to stay up to date on multiple CMS, Blog Platforms, and simple cart plugins. Add in staying on top of new developments in JS, PHP, MySQL, HTML and CSS and there is not enough time in the day/month/year.

In the beginning it was promised that the community edition was going to remain as is...Free and Open Source. Technically, it still is. But anyone who has spent anytime in their forums, on their YouTube Channel or heard them speak CLEARLY understands where they are going and what they are concerned with.

I don't blame them for this and I don't have any sort of ill will. But they are moving further and further away from what was promised. New features etc. are all being driven towards the Enterprise Edition.

The biggest selling point with Magento was the modularity and extendability of the platform, along with a great back office GUI. I thought it was simple. What I came to find out was that not all of my clients agreed.

I have severe doubts and questions about where Magento is headed. Again, I'm not upset with them, but I have stopped recommending Magento to clients.

I am still a massive open supporter but eCommerce is one area that gets cloudy. Succeeding as an online retailer is extremely difficult. I have had happier clients and a better work week by recommending several hosted platforms. There is a balance between functionality and simplicity that needs to be maintained. It is different for every client, but I believe in simplicity with scalability.

I am a web developer and I make the most money and get the most referrals when I am launching sites quickly. Given the issues with Magento and the unknown future...I think this ship has sailed.

Make no mistake about it - magento is NOT free !
Yes there is a free version, but it lacks functionality that you almost certainly will need and really seems to act as 'fly paper' to funnel people to the paid version (which is stupidly expensive !!!).
I was somewhat involved in the earlier days - beta testing etc, and was assured (we all were) that magento would always be a free, open source community platform and was intended to be used by anyone, easily. We were lied to and we were used and abused. They got us to develop their 'free' script for them, then when it got close (ish) to decent they just slapped a huge price tag on it and went commercial, releasing the 'free but mostly useless' version to cover their asses.

As it turned out it doesn't really matter I guess since magento is just not very good. It's a total nightmare (and I do mean nightmare !) to template, it's slow (really slow !) and it will just eat and eat and eat your server resources 'till there's nothing left. Unless you have good dedicated servers don't even think about using magento. Oh yeah - did I mention the stupid install method ? Virtual install paths - yuk (: - this is one of the stupidest ideas I've ever had the misfortune to come across.
My best advice is to stay as far away from this turkey as possible - if you want a good free cart/shop then look at either opencart or prestashop, and if you want to spend a little money for something a bit more involved then look at cscart (not that opencart can't handle it, 'cos it can).

Anyone who claims users just need to learn to code to understand Magento are full of it. Magento violates almost all common standards of programming, regularly. Do you really want 7 or 8 levels of inheritance in OOP? Inheritances that are so convoluted, you can read in the code where they have to constantly back-fill broken methods in the last levels of inheritance because the coders had no idea where in the inheritance chain they had broken the original methods. 10,000 lines of javascript, 600 lines of CSS -- all delicately tied together so that the slightest problem breaks EVERYTHING. You cannot shop or order without javascript on.

Magento is horribly slow.
There are some funny comments telling people to buy a very fast webhosting, a very fast dedicated server, to buy a course to know how to re-program it, to hire a professional programmer...
Well, why not just buy a working of the shelf e-shop instead of Magento for the same total price?

I think Magento is really good, using a long time, and I released 4 shops on Magento.

However you need a powerful dedicated server, and a very good developer/programmer. Version 1.3.x is much more stable then 1.4.0.x. (don't use early 1.4.x )

It's not a good system for huge catalogs (due slow imports), and for companies that can't afford dev time/cost. However for small - medium catalogs ( with reasonable budget ) Magento is the best solution.

Magento is simply too slow, too buggy !!!

Magento is very badly coded and will never be bug free. Small changes takes ages. they do not use correct OOP.

J.T., Maybe if you pull your head out from Roy's buttocks, you could see the light and realize that magento is not an enterprise/advance solution for real business people that could afford to pay money for real ecommerce solution that actually works. See, after 2 years you still haven't figured out that you're being used by magento to make their product bug free.

Wow, interesting comments. Been using Magento for two years now, did developer training, migrated it, extended it, am in the forums a lot so hopefully my experience qualifies my post here. By the way, all that is on top of 4 years of osCommerce hacking.

I totally concur with ésjābē March 3 2010 12:50 pm. I understand why I hear so much baby-crying going on here. If you can't code, don't have a willingness to learn new stuff, if you don't want to pay for proper hosting and generally everything has to be free and working within 5 minutes, Magento will be one heck of a disappointment.

Sure, documentation is minimal but heck, it's Open Source. Look in the Source. The Source is with you. But if you can't read Zend Framework or EAV type structures and can't be arsed to learn it, then yeah, good luck.

Magento is for advanced people. With budgets. With vision. With a goal to be better than the rest. If you have average goals and an average attitude, steer clear of Magento.

If you go with Magento you either need (to develop) in-house expertise, or pay Western hourly rates to hire expertise. There is plenty of training about, specific to Magento development as well as to MVC etc. Outsourcing currently is much more expensive than for say osCommerce. Demand is high, supply of Magento expertise is narrow so the price hikes. All the more incentive to learn the ropes yourself.

Even after you get the hang of creating Modules to extend osCommerce, to get the same functionality done in Mage as you do as a contrib for osCommerce, it still takes you 3-4 times longer. That's true. Magento is vast and complex, with the benefits of leaving core code alone. After 4 years of customizing osCommerce, not one core file was left alone of the 1200 odd files. It's an upgrade nightmare ("luckily" the project had stalled big time). In 4 years, I will have no problem upgrading Magento core. It's all neat. You get what you choose. Takes longer, costs more, avoids headaches.

To say it should be removed from this site is nonsense. There are hundreds of free and open source community extensions available. It's as FOSS as most stuff here. Most users, or better abusers, fail to realize they have a moral obligation as part of the community. Magento lacks in documentation because 99% of abusers want everything for nothing, not even effort. They just want the best, which obviously is Magento, but don't care about contributing code, bugs, translations or documentation.

Magento is still in its infancy in many ways, so it's only logical you won't find 100 template makers, 10,000 programmers on GAF, a 1000 page wiki with step by step screenshots etc.

Anyway, I can bang on and on but in the end of the day, Magento is for proactive people, for winners. Not for crybabies who take more than they give. Not for garage-merchants slash eBay cowboys who want to make a quick buck at zero overheads. Go about Magento with the right mindset and it's a great ride.

Highly recommended.

(No, not paid to say this. Just a merchant with 7 shops all run off one Magento installation.)

Never heard so much moaning. You get what you pay for.

Yes, it is a bit buggy... don't install the latest version till you have read around the forums.. which are very helpful. I have never found a problem that was not fixed by reading the forums.

I even make a few quid by hosting Magento sites. It is not all that hard to get up and running and there is plenty of advice about how to optimize servers for hosting this.

I agree with a comment below. It's not Open Source in the true spirit. There are hardly any contributions in the public domain and to get a shop expeditiously to the net, you need to use one of the Solutions Partners. How open source is that!

I agree, Magento should be taken out of this site.

Many of the negative things people have said about Magento are true. However I've been using it for a live site for over a year in a shared hosting environment and have had acceptable to good performance the whole time.

When I first started using it I was pretty much a newb. The community does help, but issue are in general slow to be resolved. The problem is they keep adding features instead of going for a rock solid release.

You can't beat the functionality though. I'd recommend Magento if you have patience and if it has features you can't live without. Otherwise go for another solution.

the documentation is a joke, i'm fighting bugs every day ...wtf is wrong ?!stable version?? they need to test it more!!!!

what a shitty system :(

Magento is not really open source. Yes the code is, but documentation is pathetic. Even a seasoned coder will have trouble getting it to work. If you want Magento, you have to pay for the enterprise version and get popper support.

I give the application 5/5 which is completely wiped out by my -5 grading of the documentation and support.

The irony here is that packages like Magento are aimed at the commercial market, BUT the developers don't understand that COMMERCIAL means efficiency. Something that is totally lacking.

This open source project should be removed from this web site, and just roll over and die, make room for true OS projects.