Magento is good, but take a look at my review here: http://www.pickledshark.com/magento-ecommerce-complicated-bloated-brilliant/
One great post found on Magento and VirtueMart Comparison : http://www.cabiritech.com/ecommerce/virtuemart-magento-comparison/ I hope it will be helpful.
Magento is hungry for hosting RAM: 1. 96 МБ + 300 Mb for normal work small site. 10k+ item only full dedicated server 2. But i have launched magento on shared, work slow, but it works. _youtube.com/watch?v=4gHVt4QEmdE
I spent 4 months dedicated to magento, and once you get the hang of developing themes for it it's super flexible, the one downside is getting a proper server configuration that will get it running at an acceptable speed. For a major client with 50,000+ products I was forced to move away from magento due to server speed being just TOO slow, it would hang up for 2-3 minutes sometimes, made it just impossible. I had it running with 4gigs of dedicated ram on a dedicated server, and even then it was killer slow. I am completely in love with the flexibility in magento -- especially how simple the syntax is once you get to know it. My best experience for basic sites so far has been with Interspire Shopping Cart (aka bigcommerce.com). Developing templates for it is relatively easy, there's not too too much support for it, but for running basic ecommerce sites you can't beat the speed. It's a paid solution, so if you don't have a budget for it, avoid it. If you're considering going to a paid hosted solution, it's worth checking out volusion.com too, they have a couple neat features, and if a non-tech person will be managing the site, it's built to be managed by beginners. I'd say the BEST thing about magento is the Layer Navigation -- for clients with technical products, it'll save you SO much time! It filters the products based off attributes -- and it does it really really well.
According to Magento: Magento Ecommerce Platform combines the flexibility of open- source technology with industry leading features to provide merchants unprecedented control over online store operations and get the online sales booming. Now a days Magento now is a leading Ecommerce Platform?
I would be very careful before getting into Magento. Their business model is like this: 1) Impress them with a great looking shop 2) Get them to start developing shops on the open source script 3) Hope that the developers get stuck with the overly complex code 4) Charge them for support, premuim hosting etc.
We've developed a module that reduces Magento Page Load times to .1-.5 seconds and can cache unique session pages. It also increase transaction rates by 10-100x faster than default Magento. Its called Lightspeed. Check us out at: http://www.delorumcommerce.com or check out our blog at: http://blog.delorumcommerce.com
You are comparing an ecommerce system (magento) with an ecommerce addition to a cms system (virtuemart). When you combine the glitches possible in joomla with zencart, that is when magento starts to be more viable as an ecommerce system. If you are looking to grow beyond a few products, I would seriously suggest going with Magento.
I dint satisfy with both , I am using Zeuscart, fully free and open source script for my online store which is going well.
Both systems will do 90% of the requirements for 90% of businesses. Magento will do that little bit more, but most people out there wont actually need that little bit (although I’m sure they think they will). Both systems also have a large development community, with Magento’s Enterprise model I suspect you’ll find more free help for VirtueMart although I have always received prompt and free help from the Magento team.
I want to quit Virtuemart as I find it’s evolution very slow and not powerful enough for my future needs (new ideas). My interests are on Ixxo Cart and Magento, but Magento beeing my first choice. So if someone does know how to import my products into Magento ... that would give me further 1346 reasons to change to Magento
I'll definitely go for VirtueMart. Magento is really a very heavy script but it's good and having some great in-build features. So if you are going to use most of the features of Magento and you've a good budget to spend on development+hosting then I'll prefer to go for Magento. Virtuemart is a great choice for SMBs.
I find good hosting for Magento about $4 per Mo - and i tested it and i seen clinet sites and it flyes fast and price is extreme low. I do not want to post public cause i want to host my magento affiliate shop there. I like Magento, just addicted - yes it is huge and sometimes not good for small shops, but i like it. Magento was based first on OsCommece - that fact told me Magento programmer chief in their office in Kiev (Ukraine) - Magento was developed by Ukrainian programers. You ca watch my custom magento template i made for myself - http://bandaevskiy.com/sapphired/custom_magento_template.html - its not commercial posting, just to review.
you are comparing two different thing with each other, Magento is independent online shopping cart development where virtuemart need joomla for CMS.
I have been using Magento for 2 years and it is good. However, there so many issues (bugs) that may prevent you from using certain features. So i would suggest you to test it before jumping into. My product required certain features that had bugs. Two years later, the bug exists. Yes, the website is running but not as good as it could be. Of course, i'm using the community version so i should not be complaining.
They have an SaaS platform now known as Magento Go. Pretty much as you have seen it, they are just there for your money, rather than actually HELPING the merchants. See this post for the reviews: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=2244078#post16845560 Never used it when it's still Varien, but after eBay has tipped in, everything seems to have changed. Avoid them.
Magento is the platform for a big scale business. If you have hundred of thousands products than this eCommerce solution for you. In other case it would require a lot of efforts and time OR money. Yes, it is highly customizable and you have no limits with Magento. But digging in PHP code which is complicated even for professional programmers is not a really good thing to do if you are a merchant who want to earn money. VirtueMart + Joomla in this case much better option if you have small-middle size store. It will do almost the same thing that Magento do but it is less resource consuming and easier to manage. Check this article if you don't know which platform to choose it really can help you.