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Open Source vs Commercial E-commerce Costs

When you’re deciding how to set-up an e-commerce site, there are many options and different ways you can go. Both have advantages and disadvantages. The method you choose may depend largely on your budget.

If you are a big corporation, you can throw tens of thousands of dollars at shopping cart software, databases and servers. With the luxury of money at hand, why not? Most expensive shopping cart solutions include end user support, as well as updates, and they might even fly you out to demo the solution. Fancy Schmancy!

If you are like most of us, budget is always a concern and spending as little as possible is usually priority one! With that in mind, the world of open source starts looking pretty attractive! The software, platform, and databases are all free of charge. They are usually licensed under the GPL or Gnu Public License.

Open source software is usually built and contributed to by a worldwide community of developers. This same community usually continually develop new features in the form of addons, again all for no cost under the GPL. Support for these usually also comes in the form of a worldwide community of developers offering free and paid help. So here is where you start seeing the costs of open source come into play.

If you go the open source route, you don’t have to pay for the software, but likely you’ll still need to hire a web developer to implement it. Usually you pay him, so there are costs to open source. However, usually when you are paying someone, they can guide you into a better product than you would have gotten on your own with your out of the box software.

I always go open source, because I know how to implement it. You or your organization may choose to pay for your software, but just remember what you are really paying for is that call center that answers when you call, the training sessions that you’ll need to be able to use the software in the first place, and the salaries of the companies employees.

Or you can just hire a guy like me! To find out what I would charge for your project, contact me!

Are paid carts better than open source? I don’t think so. Some may disagree.

Open source product, Magento Commerce absolutely rocks! http://magentocommerce.com.