Magento and Virtuemart are two popular ecommerce platforms, selected by online sellers for their various benefits. Each platform has its own merits, and depending on your needs as a merchant, you may find that one is better than the other.
-You have time to learn and research the shopping cart functioning before starting the store.
-You are planning to manage hundreds of products.
-You are ready to invest a considerable amount of money and time.
-You need a shopping cart for rapid business growth.
If you answered YES to the above statements - Magento is the right choice for you.
Magento is an open source eCommerce platform popular nowadays for powerful functionality and innovative capabilities. It is more suitable for the owners of big online stores as it offers convenient multiple store management. The users benefit from professional administrative interface and a wide range of available modules. Magento has loads of useful features for the customers, such as customer accounts, order history, products’ comparison. The layered navigation makes it easy to find your way in the catalogues with multiple items. However, with Magento you should be ready to face high learning curve. The shopping cart is quite complicated and has high hosting requirements. To make it operate properly you’ll need considerable technical knowledge. Moreover, it takes time to get acquainted with operational aspects of the software, starting from the installation process, which is not easy as well. Though there’s a free community version, you are likely to choose paid version for effective business growth. So, the financial outlay is inevitable. Thus, the platform is challenging, but moving to Magento is definitely beneficial for large web store development.
If the previous statements are not about you, proceed to the following:
- You want to set up a store quickly.
- You don’t mind a shared hosting.
- Your budget is limited.
- You want to manage a shopping cart with minimal technical knowledge.
- You plan to have a small online store.
| Magento | Virtuemart | |
| Easy of Installation | One-click features are available depending on host. Developers are recommended to use the platform to the fullest. | Easy if you already have Joomla; if not you will have to install Joomla as well. |
| Ease of Use | Setting up should be taken care of by professionals. Using the system afterwards is straightforward. | Very simple to use, but may hold back power users. |
| Search Engine Friendly | Extremely SEO-friendly! | Extremely SEO-friendly! |
| Integration Ecosystem | Simple and straightforward integration with most major players. | Integrates with some other services, apps, and social media. |
| Cost to Maintain | Initially free, plus the cost of hosting. Many features are built in. Businesses can pay for extensions and developers to install them as the business grows. | Free plus cost of hosting. |
| Customizability | Highly customizable, especially for those with the skills, or with the budget to pay someone for customization. | Better for beginner users or those who want to keep things simple. |
| Hosted vs. Self-Hosted | Self-hosted | Self-hosted |
| Target Market | Large businesses with high-volume stores and agencies managing multiple stores. | Businesses that use the open source CMS, Joomla. |
If you answers were positive - you should consider VirtueMart cart for your business.
Unlike Magento, VirtueMart is not independent shopping cart, but an eCommerce addition of a Content Management System Joomla. It has both, pros and cons for users. Your control over the platform is limited by Joomla. However, due to the fact that VirtueMart is a plug in it is lightweight, easy in installation and customization. It is optimal for startups and small sized stores, as it allows to set up a store quickly. It is not so demanding as Magento in regards to hosting requirements, so you’ll not need special technical skills for managing the cart. The huge advantage of the shopping cart is that there is solid documentation for beginners to provide help with evolving problems. VirtueMart boasts of advanced Content management system features including SEO friendly URLs, template support, administrative panel with multiple languages. Therefore, if you are looking for an effective eCommerce solution with minimal time and financial consumption and easy administration, VirtueMart will suit you best.
Watch our video tutorial to see how easy it is to automatically migrate from Volusion to Magento with the help of the Cart2Cart migration tool:
Magento vs VirtueMart - FAQs
How do I perform a product export from VirtueMart to Magento (Adobe Commerce) store?
To automatically move your products from VirtueMart to Magento (Adobe Commerce), simply activate the needed checkbox(Products) while configuring your migration.
Can I export the VirtueMart database to Magento (Adobe Commerce)?
Please, complete these steps to move your VirtueMart e-shop database from to Magento (Adobe Commerce):
- Select VirtueMart and Magento (Adobe Commerce) carts from the list.
- Select the data you want to import to Magento (Adobe Commerce) and pick the supplementary migration options.
- Start free Demo transfer to see the service in action.
- Start the Full database import.
Is multiple language transfer to Magento (Adobe Commerce) possible?
Cart2Cart supports multilingual migration across different carts. Still, you should check the migrated data table above to see if this option is available for your migration case.
Having analyzed two platforms we are able to outline their peculiarities. Both of them are open source, and both have large communities which indicate their reliable position in the sphere of eCommerce. If you decided to move Magento to VirtueMart or visa versa VirtueMart to Magento, Cart2Cart will help you.
March 29, 2024 
