With people opting for digital means to purchase things, the importance of mobile and online journey have soared in the retail sector. Keeping this paradigm shift in mind, customers are leaning towards businesses that provide hassle-free shopping experiences through all mediums.
Due to this, many businesses depend on the IT industry and take inspiration from various eCommerce platforms to solve their digital dilemmas. Here, Magento plays a huge role as its incredible B2B and B2C solutions have helped many businesses, regardless of their size.
It is one of the most reliable eCommerce platforms available in recent times, which is utilised by many behemoths of eCommerce stores and giant brands. The list of comprehensive features, its smoothness, and user-friendly functionality have played a huge role in its rise in popularity.
It has two versions: Enterprise Edition and Community version. The former is a paid premium edition allowing users to utilise extensive features. While the latter is a free, open-source version.
So, how would you choose the best option for your business?
Community vs Enterprise Edition: Which Magento Version is Best for Your Business?
Before choosing the version, you should consider some factors. Each of the versions fulfils different requirements of different businesses. As a merchant, you should decide based on how best you can leverage each version’s distinctive features.
Apart from the functionality and features needs, a business should also consider its contemporary plans along with the future models to finalise the best version fitting its needs. Some parameters you should consider as a business owner are:
- The number of sales per month
- Total number of unique users per month
- Amount of time you are ready to spend on the implementation
Once you have decided on the version, start the research on SEO services Gold Coast companies as it will put you way ahead of the competition and give your business site a head start.
Enterprise Edition vs Community Editions: A Comparison
The open-source Community Edition is used by businesses that are looking for a cost-efficient solution for their shopping site to enhance the operation and shopping experience.
On the other hand, the paid version, Enterprise Edition, is mostly used by large-scale retail shops to get their hands on highly customisable features and advanced frameworks. Hence, evaluate your current requirements while considering future needs while choosing the edition.
To help you with that, here are five key differences between the two:
Cost
The paid versions start at $22,000 per annum and is laced with the latest features, exclusive product improvements, frequent and effective security updates, and many more. Although the community edition is free for low-scale business owners, it can satisfy all their needs and can transform your platform for good.
Execution
Online merchants opt for the paid versions due to their unlimited customising options. However, doing that changes for non-tech users can be a tad difficult. Additionally, you need to continuously perform redevelopment and redesign services in order to keep up with your competitors and make operations seamless to achieve your targetted business goals.
The limitation clubbed with the free edition makes the paid version more popular. Hence, many large-scale eCommerce business owners opt for Magento Enterprise development companies for a cost-effective way to implement it for their online store.
The Enterprise edition gains the upper hand over the Community version through its services like multiple database management, order and product data management, and a seamless checkout process.
Functionality
Both editions’ core functionalities are the same regarding online selling features. However, the extra price you pay for the Enterprise Edition offers you some modern functionalities like full-page caching, which will increase the site’s performance.
Another benefit of the pro edition is its personalisation options and customer division. With the help of this feature, online retailers can display their content dynamically and show pricing and promotion specific to boost their conversions.
On top of that, merchants can also offer rewards points to customers for purchases, reviews, and registration to boost conversion and revenue.
Now, all these features are available for the community edition but at an ordinary level.
Security
One of the most fundamental features of the Enterprise version is its security. On the contrary, the biggest drawback of M2’s free version, the community edition, is its non-compliance with PCI.
Additionally, the free version doesn’t have functionalities to offer you the ability to do credit card tokenisation or highly secured payments. Now, customers love to shop from a store that can offer not one but multiple secure payment gateways.
This is where the paid version, Enterprise Edition, has been winning the battle as it offers integration of Braintree, Authorise.net, WorldPay, PayPal, etc.
Conclusion
To conclude, the community edition and enterprise edition solve different problems with contrasting functionalities. Now, if you don’t want to go through the hassle of using a self-hosting platform, then you can use Shopify. Additionally, if you own a small to medium business owner, then the MYOB advance integration with Shopify will save time and money.
