nopCommerce vs. Magento Comparison: What to choose

The online retail industry has developed rapidly over the last few years, and that apparently leads to fierce competition between eCommerce platforms for businesses.

We can easily list some of the most famous names these days, such as Magento, OpenCart, or WooCommerce. Still, it’s not easy to make the final decision amongst hundreds of options in the marketplace.

That’s why we come up with a breakdown of the competition between 2 most well-known eCommerce platforms: nopCommerce and Magento.

Are you ready? Without further ado, let’s get started.

nopCommerce vs. Magento: Brief introduction

Magento

When it comes to eCommerce platforms, the first idea that comes to most developers, for sure, will be Magento. Sounds unbelievable, well the figures prove this fact.

According to BuiltWith’s data,

• The number of Magento websites that use Magento reaches over 748.000

• There are around 196.000 live websites using Magento

In fact, this popularity of Magento is understandable since it’s, from the start, developed to be the best option for eCommerce enterprises. Thus, Magento is an open-source platform with built-in PHP, allowing programmers to create multiple types of websites for business purposes.

Magento easily stands out from other competitors in the marketplace regarding professionalism and scalability. Merchants will get incredible flexibility with a wide range of customization options.

Newbies can approach Magento under the form 2 primary editions:

• Magento Community Edition (CE): Requires no fee to download Magento’s source code with a certain level of feature limitation and functionalities. Still, merchants get complete control over the Magento’s source code during the web development process

• Magento Enterprise (EE): A licensed plan of Magento comes with advanced eCommerce and features and dedicated support from Magento’s technical team

• Additionally, Magento Commerce Cloud: Magento’s superior cloud-hosted solution

Some popular brands that use Magento:

• Helly Hansen: A long history and well-known Norwegian company of sportswear and gear

• Ford: A giant in the automotive industry. One of the largest car manufacturers around the world

• Nestle Nespresso: A part of Nestlé Group - the world’s largest food and beverage brand

Related Post: Popular Magento Alternatives & Competitors in 2024

nopCommerce

Compared to Magento, nopCommerce, with over 54.342 sites running on this platform, is apparently less popular. However, this is not enough to conclude which platform is more powerful. First, let’s look at some basic information about this solution:

• An open-source solution based on Microsoft’s ASP.NET Core framework and MS SQL Server 2012 (or higher) backend database

• Come with a catalog frontend, an administration backend, and advanced shopping cart management features

• Highly focus on the mobile commerce industry, which enables users to build functional eCommerce apps for tablets and smartphones as well

Some popular brands that use nopCommerce:

• Hyatt: An American multinational hospitality brand manages and franchises luxury and business hotels, resorts, and vacation properties

• Asurion: A company provides insurance for smartphones, tablets, applications, jewelry as well as consumer electronics based in Nashville

If Magento is praised for high flexibility and scalability, then nopCommerce built its fan communities due to its security and stability.

Read more:

• Magento vs. Opencart: A Detailed Comparison

nopCommerce vs. Magento: The similarities

Magento and nopCommerce are competitors of each other in the eCommerce industry. So it comes as no surprise that both will have things in common.

Some aspects we can list out to help you better access the power of each:

• Both offer merchants an open-source edition of each platform so that merchants or developers can download, edit and customize the source code for free. Still, nopCommerce doesn’t have a premium pricing plan like Magento

• Both enable users with outstanding features to create and build an eCommerce website from scratch with full functionality

• For open-source version, Magento and nopCommerce give merchants complete control over the source code for a high level of customization

• High compatible with multiple extensions and plugins provided on the marketplaces to enhance the store’s functionality

Still, to come up with a final decision and answer for the question: Which is your most optimal option? Let’s dive deeper into each solution’s aspect and make a detailed comparison.

nopCommerce vs. Magento: Key difference

Functionalities and Features

Users of both platforms are equipped with a full list of essential features a primary online store requires, for instance, a shopping cart, checkout, B2B Signup or inbuilt analytics, etc. Each feature serves specific activities of the eCommerce business.

Feature lists of Magento (the left side) and nopCommerce (the right side)

Above is the comparison between the overview of Magento’s feature list and those of nopCommerce provided by Finances Online.

Just by looking at the “book cover,” both impress users by their wide range of built-in features, making it even more challenging to evaluate which’s better.

Our point of view when it comes to both platforms’ features:

• nopCommerce is a feature-rich eCommerce solution with handy tools from product management to SEO features and mobile commerce. So does Magento

• nopCommerce is good but might not be enough for scalable businesses since it doesn’t support Marketing Automation, Conversion Tracking, and Review Monitoring. Magento has these features

• Magento is more potent in terms of B2B features that perfectly streamline customer experience as well as enhanced site performance. Magento’s outstanding B2B features are the Request-for-quote feature, customer approval, share catalogs, line of credits, etc.

In comparison to Magento’s B2B features, nopCommerce focusedly develop features in multi-vendor, multi-store, global multi-vendor store, and dropshipping

In conclusion:

Still, it’s challenging to conclude the winner based on both feature lists due to some factors:

• The built-in features within Magento Community (open-source) and Magento Enterprise (paid edition) are significantly different regarding the capabilities of each feature, limitation of feature usage, user experience, etc.

• nopCommerce (the free platform) offers all required features similar to Magento enterprise marketing options. Still, when making a side-by-side feature comparison, the practical usage and user experience are not as professional as Magento

• You still need to install 3rd-party plugins or extension for the open-source version of both Magento and nopCommerce

• Finally, influenced much by the purpose of web development, long-term marketing goals, and so forth

Customization

The best thing about open-source platforms is that they provide users with extreme customization. You are free to download, edit and modify the provider’s source code. There is no limitation on how you build your web-based through the source code to meet any need.

Plus, you can alway personalize and upgrade the eCommerce site to your needs with a wide variety of extensions or plugins on the marketplaces.

That happens for merchants who opt for Magento Community edition and nopCommerce. There’s no winner in this aspect.

In conclusion:

Both have similarities as an open-source solution:

• Allow developers to use Application Programming Interface (APIs) to interact with databases, product feeds, and so forth

• Require no subscription fee to download and customize a web-based on the provider’s source code

• In-built functionality can be enhanced with advanced plugins and integrations, which can be founded on the marketplaces

• Both Magento and nopCommerce have their own vast marketplaces to meet merchants’ requirements. Offer free and paid plugins and extensions for different levels of usage

The only and most problematic issue is the high involvement of technical knowledge to develop, run, and maintain Magento/ nopCommerce-based websites. So we don’t have the winner in this aspect.

You, yourself, need to be a professional developer or have an in-house technical team to launch your site and accomplish other tasks for web development. This can cost a fortune for small businesses and startups.

Security

In similarity, Magento and nopCommerce are PCI-DSS compliant. You can rest assured that the software powering your store is handling your customers’ billing addresses and payment information securely.

Still, in terms of security, Magento and nopCommerce show a huge difference:

• nopCommerce is written on ASP.NET - An open-source web framework created by Microsoft to build web apps and services. In other words, it’s hosted on a Microsoft server

• Magento is written on PHP - a common open-source scripting language that is widely used for web development and can be embedded into HTML

To be clear, Magento’s framework is built using the PHP language, which is community-driven and typically hosted on a Linux server. Meanwhile, nopCommerce is hosted on a Microsoft service using ASP.NET

Compared to nopCommerce, Magento users have more chances to approach a variety of top-rated security extensions for Magento 2 sites available on the marketplace.

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In conclusion:

Both support a high level of web development, aiming for flexibility and extensibility. Still, in terms of security, nopCommerce is more trustworthy. Why?

• nopCommerce is based on ASP.NET - the platform released only one security patch since its first introduction. Users less likely to worry about security, vulnerabilities through several patches and updates

• Unlike nopCommerce, Magento users are forced to regularly update security patches to ensure there’s no existing vulnerability.

• ASP.NET is known as one of the most productive environments that require fewer resources and cheaper hosting cost, plus easier to customize the website based on the source code

• All shopping carts within nopCommerce offer default support for SSL certificates. Thus manual configuration is unnecessary, while Magento doesn’t

Needless to say, nopCommerce does its job better than Magento and wins hands down in terms of security.

Support

In terms of support, both Magento and nopCommerce offers their users:

• A large user community of users and developers

• A forum where merchants and developers can share valuable knowledge as well as get support from others

• Detailed product documentation gives you basic to advanced knowledge on how to use and master each platform. These posts are built for 2 specific user groups (developers and merchants). Extreme convenient for users

• A list of the platform’s certified solution partners to get professional involvement

Great points of Magento support:

• The FAQ covers the most common issues of users during the web development period

• A standalone web page for Troubleshooting where merchants can discover their issues and get valuable suggestions

• A standalone Announcements web page to inform users about the latest updates and patches

• Magento Commerce users get 24/7 professional support from Magento’s technical team through their ticketing system or by phone

Great points of nopCommerce support:

• 2 packages of premium support services: $499 for 3 months support period and $999 for 1 year support period

• All categories within the support webpage are well-organized, structured, and straightforward. People can easily search and navigate through the whole support page

In conclusion:

Magento gets a close win in this category. Most offer users plenty of support options, from detailed documentation systems to vast forums. Still:

• The number of Magento’s partners is 248 and covers a wide range of industries (Travel & Hospitality, Luxury, Home & Garden, etc.). Meanwhile, this number of nopCommerce is only 136

• Magento’s documentation system and posts in its official forums are more varied and covers everything from essential to advanced topics

• Magento does better in building its support page into different categories. All customers’ wanted information is displayed on one main page. While this step takes users more time to find Announcements info or Troubleshooting

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nopCommerce vs. Magento: Pricing comparison

As mentioned earlier, Magento and nopCommerce are open-source platforms, which don’t have any upfront subscription fees.

Still, it’s important to make the “Free” word clear since the option of an open-source platform always requires specific expenditures, in average:

• Website hosting: $3.75 - $730/ month

• Web Domain: $0.99 - $12/ month

• SSL Certificate: $0 - $849

• Template or theme: $0 - $499

• Plugins or extensions: $0 - $1000

• Magento specialist (optional): $17–$200/ hourly rates. Vary between different countries

If you have the advanced ability to fix bugs, configure web functions and accomplish other code-required tasks, the charge presented on the last dash is optional based on your needs.

These estimated fees vary based on each business’s situation, resource allocation, and development goal.

Average costs of a Magento website

A Magento-based website typically costs:

• Primary site (Magento open-source): Around $15.000 to $ 22.000 _ For small businesses that require a high quality and scalable eCommerce site to build an online presence and drive sales

• Custom site (Enterprise or Cloud versions): $22.000 - $70.000 _ For an already established eCommerce company that wants to migrate or upgrade from an existing site (with a large number of products and vast customer base)

• Enterprise site (Enterprise or Cloud versions): < $70.000 _ For the large company that has a robust financial resource and plans to tap into the complete inventory of Magento features

If your requirement for your site is complicated, the cost will be much higher. Magneto 2 delivers superior cloud-hosted performance at scale.

Above is the estimated cost of 2 Magento’s premium versions. Merchants get a comprehensive solution with an out-of-box functionality set. In return, Magento will charge them for a certain percentage of the business’s gross sales revenue.

Average costs of a nopCommerce website

The price we mentioned at the beginning is just the average cost of building an eCommerce website, not specifically on Magento or nopCommerce. Still, your cost of launching a nopCommerce website will include:

• Hosting charger: $3.75 - $100/ month or more

• nopCommerce copyright removal key (optional): $250.000 - $3.500.00 for multiple sites_ License removal cost you need to pay to remove the “Powered by nopCommerce” link in the bottom of the footer

• Custom themes: $100 - $400

• Plugins: $0 - $300/ a plugin or extension

• Premium support services (optional): $83.25 - $166.33/ month or $499 - $999/ year

• Web developers (optional): $17 - $150/ hour

You can expect to pay between $700 per month and $400 to go for nopCommerce on your eCommerce website. That’s the cost for a fully functional and well-designed nopCommerce-based web.

Still, if your site’s catalog has over 1000 SKUs, this number can go up to somewhere around $1000 and possibly $4000 for an enterprise nopCommerce site.

In conclusion:

It’s unavoidable that Magento and nopCommerce are a great starting point for modern merchants to scale their online presence competitively. In return, they can cost a fortune to launch and maintain the web in the long run.

When we put both platforms together, nopCommerce is actually much cheaper when compared to the cost of building a site on Magento.

Our advice is to try to have a budget in mind and keep your mind open before making an actual investment in any platform.

nopCommerce vs. Magento: What’s your optimal choice?

Short verdict

It’s up to you who can decide the most optimal investment that meets your business’s needs and situation. So let’s have a quick look at the criteria we use to compare Magento and nopCommerce:

• Functionality and Features: No winner

• Customization: No winner

• Security: nopCommerce

• Support: Magento

• Pricing: nopCommerce

Just by looking at the above criteria, nopCommerce apparently has more advantages than Magento does. However, for most informed decisions, we also include some difficulties for users on each platform.

nopCommerce vs. Magento: Difficulties for users

Difficulties of users on nopCommerce

• To get the best out of the framework, users must have skills in .NET, CSS, HTML, and MS SQL

• Customer service is not easy to come by. The price of getting professional technical support beyond the forums is actually high

• Compared to Magento, nopCommerce is a little slow since its foundation architecture doesn’t support load balancing

• Community support is limited

• Optimal mostly for SMEs, thus, limiting the store growth

• Lack of high-quality and advanced plugins provided in the nopCommerce marketplace

Difficulties of users on Magento

• The cost is much higher compared to other platforms in the marketplace

• Compared to nopCommerce, the structure of the Magento system is far more complex. That’s this platform requires a really professional team of developers, plus more time and effort to build the customized functionality

• Since it’s written in PHP, the Magento site uses larger disk space and memory. A dedicated server can solve this problem, or else you can face lots of difficulties while launching your web online

• Not suitable for businesses with a small number of products and tight-shoestring budget

nopCommerce vs. Magento: Your final choice

Magento and nopCommerce have lots of things in common.

• Both offer rich functionality and opportunities for merchants to scale their business online

• Come with a great learning curve and require high technical involvement about HTML/ CSS for web development and customization

Still, Magento is longer on the eCommerce market and, understandably, more popular at the moment. This explains a broader network of partners, extension marketplace, and Magento certified developers compared to nopCommerce.

Data according to SimilarTech

If you want to develop an eCommerce site with more advanced features and scope for scalability, and customization, choose Magento.

nopCommerce comes with many affordable prices for startups or small businesses. However, it is not comprehensively optimized for large companies with thousands of SKUs.

All in all, the final answer for the best eCommerce solution is highly individual. It comes down to which features you feel your business will benefit from.

But, if you’re just a startup or lack financial resources, between 2 platforms, nopCommerce will be a better choice. Always keep your mind clear and make a deep analysis of your requirements and business availability to have the most informed decision.

The bottom line!

Magento and nopCommerce are robust and scalable choices any business should consider when it comes to online presence enhancement.

This post covers almost every aspect you need to know about Magento and nopCommerce. It’s time for you to choose the software that works best for you.

Thanks for reading!