PrestaShop vs Magento: Choosing the Best Platform for Your Online Store in 2019

Anyone who works in the world of eCommerce knows that at some point, they have to choose a platform from which to run their online store. When you’ve come to this point, it can be difficult to know what is best for you; after all, both Magento® and PrestaShop platforms have different characteristics and specialties. But we want to make eCommerce platforms comparison to understand which platform will serve your business needs.

PrestaShop vs Magento

PrestaShop was first released in 2007, a full six years after Magento (2001). Then Magento 2 version came up in 2015. In 2013, a poll showed that nearly 30% of e-commerce market shares took place on Magento platforms; meanwhile, just over ten percent used PrestaShop.

In recent research, Magento has been shown to power 13% of the top million online sites. PrestaShop, on the other hand, runs around 5% of the top million websites. While Magento is a leader in the field, PrestaShop is close on the list.

Usage Prospects

According to builtwith.com:

• 214 K live websites are using the Magento.
• 39 K live sites are using Magento 2.
• 247 live websites are using PrestaShop.

Market Share

Magento 2: 49% market share lies in the United States, 9% – in Great Britain, 6% – in the Netherlands.

PrestaShop: 41% of its market share lies in the United States, 11% in France, and 7% – in Spain.

To determine which platform is better, let’s take a look at what Magento 2 and PrestaShop have to offer.

Difference Between PrestaShop and Magento 2

Both platforms use open source technology, so can customize your store pretty much however you wish.

What is Open Source? Glad you asked! Technology and software that is open source use source code that can be edited and modifies frequently. That is what allows you to customize your website. From colors to plugins, it’s all up to you. Some of the platforms are open source but may vary with functionality, price and overall performance.

Plenty of “big name” companies are currently using Magento 2: from Land Rover to Huawei, the platform has proven its versatility. In comparison, PrestaShop doesn’t have as many large brands or corporations on its side.

The problem with PrestaShop is that it lacks the experience that Magento 2 has. Magento has had an extra six years to perfect its services, while PrestaShop still has issues with payment, bugs, and templates that are entirely out of date. Let’s compare these two platforms.

Packages and Pricing

One of the most important aspects of deciding on a certain platform is cost. Here we will consider how much is Magento store costs and what is the PrestaShop sale price?

PrestaShop is free for use. While expanding with the website will result in additional costs, you can efficiently use this platform at no added costs to you.

If you have a small to medium-sized business and more prone to Magento 2, Community Edition is a good choice. You can use Magento’s Community Edition for free. It’s a quick download, and then ready for use with out-of-the-box features.

Magento 2 is known for being an expensive platform to run if you have a larger company. For the extra security and experience, you can expect to pay a higher price. For extensive business, you can buy the Magento 2 Enterprise Edition. Here, you’ll be spending a fee of at least $22,000 per year. Apparently, this version is better for larger businesses.

Admin Management

PrestaShop has everything related to the content of your store at the back office (i.e. admin panel).

Magento 2 has a pretty simple admin panel and you can find all the sections of your store and settings right at the backend. You need to log in and start exploring it.

Dashboard

The PrestaShop dashboard allows you to check the statistics of your shop’s daily activities, different graphs (sales, orders, visitors, etc.).

The same with Magento: all the important analytics regarding your sales, orders, customers and daily activities you can find on the dashboard.

Payment Methods

Magento 2 offers you Braintree and PayPal as a default payment gateways. For the rest, you need some extensions or add-ons. However, you have plenty of options on the market, and you can choose various payment gateways according to your business needs. Additionally, you can set a price rule, or use zero subtotal feature for certificates and vouchers.

For PrestaShop, you have Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal by default and you can let your customers choose the option that will suit them best. In addition to it, you can offer an electronic wallet or card payment, payment on delivery, in-store payment and prepayment.

Shipping Methods

Magento 2 has plenty of carriers by default, so you can choose among UPS, USPS, Royal Mail, DHL, and FedEx. You also have the option between free shipping, flat rate, and table tax rates for your store.

As for shipping options, you can integrate standard delivery firms and carriers for your PrestaShop store, set and edit carrier information due to your store location and your client orientation. As well as that, free shipping is available according to the carrier rules, handling costs, and out-of-range behavior. That means if your carrier has no shipping costs you can indicate how your store should react.

Prestashop vs Magento Performance

Magento 2 has the following tech stack to use it:

PrestaShop has almost the same technology stack to run it successfully:

The downside to using Magento is that you need a server that performs well and that it does not work as quickly as its competitors. If you look at PrestaShop, you’ll see Magento requires a bit more technical resources and that’s why sometimes has performance issues.

eCommerce Functionality

PrestaShop is also known for being easier to install than Magento is. If you aren’t incredibly tech-savvy, then this might be the better platform for you. You’ll be able to set up your store without any extra skills.

When you’re using Magento 2, you could find yourself contacting the expert team pretty often. Still, any Magento version comes with a support team and several developers, while PrestaShop does not.

Themes and Plugins

Magento 2 has a lot to offer to the eCommerce world. First of all, customers and clients will find that there are additional 1,500 add-ons that they can choose from on Magento Marketplace. And regarding themes and modules, Magento 2 is hugely customizable.

While PrestaShop has an overwhelming 25,000 plugins, not all of them will benefit you, and PrestaShop customization could be a bit complicated. Magento might have plugins of better quality. The large world community of web developers works on it.

Community Support

Magento has a big community of developers, so you always can count on stable updates and quick reaction to solve some issues. Regarding functionality, you can find answers through Stack Overflow and Magento Stack Exchange. For some simple questions, find a solution with Magento Technical Support and look through different sections. However, to fix some problems programmatically, you need to have your in-house or outsourcing team of developers.

Regarding PrestaShop, you have a couple of options to find the solution to your questions. PrestaShop technical support offers various Support Plans on the main website as well as Community Help and Support to answer common questions on installation, updates, and development.

Installation and Usage

PrestaShop provides you with Store Demo and the complete Installation guide.

Magento has Demo that can be requested from the official website. If you want to explore all the features from the backend admin, check our Demo overview. To install Magento get a developer help as it requires 1 to 2 hours of work. Nevertheless, Magento has you covered with notifications of each release, you can update the security or the whole store.

After we have observed the features and overall information about both platforms, let’s conclude them with the pros and cons of each solution.

Prestashop vs Magento: Who Is the Winner?

Let’s summarize both platform results!