Is the future of Magento in doubt?

There's no doubt that you've landed here because you've heard the uproar about eBay spinning off Magento and uncertainy about Magento's future. We've also been following this story closely, and we want to show site owners their options if they choose to migrate to a different platform. You can get the nitty-gritty details from our references listed below. Here's the quick and dirty version of the story:

  • eBay, Magento's current owner, will spin off (sell) the division. As to who, is still unknown.
  • In March, Magento laid of 50 employees.
  • Magento Go and Prostores users will be moved (no option to them) to Bigcommerce.
  • The new version of Magento, Magento 2, has been delayed.
  • Many suspect the new owner to be corporate. The open source version may be discontinued.
Option What this means Here's what we think Get more information
Bigcommerce If you've been on Magento Go or Prostores, you may have already been migrated to Bigcommerce BigCommerce is a hosted shopping cart software provider. That means they host the software for you on their servers.  Sometimes called SaaS (software as a service), hosted software providers offer you the ability to build your website by logging into a store control panel account you have with the hosting provider. Services like this make it easy to startup an eCommerce presense and keep costs down. However, as a store grows, it will most likely require functionality not available through a service such as this. Also, your store is at the mercy of this company. If they change the rules or increase their prices, you have to abide or migrate to another platform.  Get Help
Shopify You can also migrate to Shopify with their migration tools.  Shopify is a direct competitor to Bigcommerce so it's mostly a matter of price (monthy fee) and available functionality as to which one you choose.  Get Help
WooCommerce (WordPress) There are plugins that can help you migrate to WooCommerce. Depending on your needs, some fields may not migrate easily.  WooCommerce is a plug for the popular open source CMS WordPress. This may be a good option if you don't like the subcription model (above) and you're online store is fairly small (not more than a few hundred products). Once you get beyond the basic e-commerce functions, WooCommerce will require additional plugins and/or custom development will become necessary. For example, will you have separate customer levels with separate pricing levels? Do you want to run a Buy 2 get 1 Free special for a product? Do you want to use coupons? If so, each of these will require an additional plugin with some small additional cost. The bottom line: if your features requirement list is fairly short, and your store has not more than a few thousand items, this may be a good fit.  Get Help
Drupal Commerce Medium size Magento sites can be migrated fairly quickly (see references below).  Like WooCommerce, Drupal Commerce is a module build for an open source CMS (Drupal). The difference is in flexibility, control, and scaleability. Drupal is used by large organizations like the U.S. government (whitehouse.gov) because of its ability to manage an unlimited number of content pages. Yet because it's open source, it's free. It also supports extensive control for users via roles and permissions so if you have multiple administrators of your store, you may need this feature. It processes commerce functions via a module known as "rules" which can be used to configure an almost unlimited number of different functions. For example, want to charge tax in this state, but not that state? Want to offer free shipping for these items, but not these? Sounds good? Get some free advice about Drupal Commerce  HERE.  Get Help
Other platforms Lots and Lots of options out there There are many other platforms out there, ranging from multi-million dollar platforms from large software companies like Oracle or small, open source packages like osCommerce. However, we strongly suggest the above solutions. They are well known, well documented, and in the case of WordPress or Drupal, backed by a huge community of active developers.  Get Help

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