Magento vs. nopCommerce [closed]

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This question might be subjective, but I hope you read it thru and help me come to a conclusion.

I am an ASP.NET developer.

I recently got in contact with a big company that sells products and wants to open an online shopping center.

We want to use (at least for a beginning) an open source project. We're considering either nopCommerce or Magento.

Obviously, from a personal perspective, I rather nopCommerce since it's in ASP.NET MVC which is my mother tongue, PHP is totally foreign to me (also I like a layered application, and I think ASP.NET MVC is layered better than PHP, this of course can be just BS, whatever). Anyway, for the sake of the company (that I'm supposed to be the developer), is Magento better than nopCommerce? If yes, is it so much better that it's worth I should learn PHP and develop it.

We could hire a PHP developer to do the job, but I'm a partner in the company, and we do want I should have personal control of the code (the website will also have additional service other than a shopping site).

I'd appreciate any comparisons of nopCommerce and Magento, any links and articles will be welcome.

Hyetograph answered 22/10, 2012 at 0:31 Comment(11)

Learning projects should always go to trash bin, not to production. – Altercate 22/10, 2012 at 0:35

@zerkms, please explain more. I said it's a beginning. We plan to extend it and take out/put in the relevant parts. – Hyetograph 22/10, 2012 at 0:42

I've said - that if you don't know php, then you'll likely fail your project. Learning projects very rarely well written and production ready. – Altercate 22/10, 2012 at 0:47

@Altercate - that's why CMS's come in handy ;) – Momently 22/10, 2012 at 0:48

@Lodder: I'm sure they need to customize it. And any code change will make the terrible joomla code even worse – Altercate 22/10, 2012 at 0:49

@zerkms, which means I should go for the nopCommerce thingy. – Hyetograph 22/10, 2012 at 0:49

@Shimmy: perhaps. The shortest way is the one you're familiar with. – Altercate 22/10, 2012 at 0:50

@Altercate - there are of course a few things wrong with Joomla however I think it has been developed very well, allowing major flexibility and interesting to develop for. I wouldnt say it's been coded bad at all. – Momently 22/10, 2012 at 0:51

Hi everyone. I'm editing my question. I meant to say Magento. sorry sorry sorry. Updating question now. – Hyetograph 22/10, 2012 at 0:52

haha now you tell us. well my answer still stands. for a shopping cart and brill integration, Joomla and one of the recommended extensions would be a good idea. anyway in the end it's up to you. deceide with whatever you deem the easiest and more efficient. – Momently 22/10, 2012 at 0:54

@Momently thank you. Anyway, I'm wondering if there are any of you with experience with eCommerce in both ASP.NET and PHP. The question can also stand for PHP vs. ASP.NET MVC in general as a matter of code maintainability, and project lifetime. Thanks to all of you! – Hyetograph 22/10, 2012 at 0:56

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Joomla and nopCommerce are 2 different things. Joomla is a Content Management System (CMS) whereas nopCommerce is an Open Source e-commerce system.

With Joomla, you won't have to learn PHP, unless you want to develop your own extensions which most likely won't be necessary as the JED site contains over 10,000 of them, free and commercial. With Joomla, you could simply use an e-commerce extension such as VirtueMart or HikaShop, both being very popular and having many features. I have never looked into nopCommerce, however using Joomla makes building a website very easy and I would higly recommend for any e-commerce site.

Momently answered 22/10, 2012 at 0:42 Comment(6)

Thanks for making that clear to me. I'm looking for an e-Commerce website, that will also extended to more usages, such as CRM, etc. etc. – Hyetograph 22/10, 2012 at 0:44

CRM? are you referring to Customer relationship management? and if so, in what way? – Momently 22/10, 2012 at 0:45

I'll have to find another open-source project and blend them together, but as said, the first thing I need is a shopping cart. – Hyetograph 22/10, 2012 at 0:51

I've made a mistake, I said Joomla, in fact I meant Magento. Question edited. Sorry. – Hyetograph 22/10, 2012 at 0:54

Decision made: Gonna choose ASP.NET MVC, because it breasts PHP in almost all of my requirements. – Hyetograph 22/10, 2012 at 3:46

nopcommerce offers more features out of the box, easy to customize, and fully opensource... Read a full review here: nopaccelerate.com/… – Prankster 30/4, 2013 at 5:49

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This is how I would approach this situation:

I would get a list of all the features and requirements, then take a look at both Magento and nopCommerce to see how much of these features/requirement are already builtin and how much will need to be customization.
Then do some research to see if there are any free/pay extensions that provide the the additional features that is needed.
Download and setup a dev environment for both, then try to accomplish one of the simpler customization from your list and see how long it take.

Andriette answered 22/10, 2012 at 2:6 Comment(1)

nopCommerce 10 times more easier to work with and customize compared to Magento, and has most of the features Magento offers.. nopCommerce is actually replicating magento features in some ways. but nopCommerce has lesser plugins and themes compared to magento. – Prankster 19/7, 2013 at 12:29

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