E-commerce solutions are a new trend in business. An e-commerce platform can get you boundless business options. Recognizing the benefits of e-commerce platforms, more business firms are switching over to it. In a hurry to join the bandwagon, the business firms are opting for e-commerce packages rather than a custom-designed e-commerce platform.
Here lies the problem. An e-commerce package will not be suitable for your business. Each business is unique. Hence, the e-commerce platform must be designed according to the product and company. The customized e-commerce solution only can deliver you the intended result.
Alas, it will be too late by the time you realize the problem. Shifting to a new platform can create chaos and confusion. You are thus affecting the business. Potential customers, tired of the repeated glitches, difficulty in browsing an unorganized website, may stop using your online platform. It will be the best thing to develop a custom-designed e-commerce website according to your product/ service/ business/ need. Thereby, you can add all your essential features effectively along with specifically formulated modalities.
‘Framework’ Explained
A few functionalities of e-commerce platforms are common across all shopping sites. This includes a shopping cart, history, payment options, and security, and so on. The framework contains a collection of source files with essential utilities embedded into it. You can use the frameworks, thereby avoiding wastage of time redeveloping the subject functions.
In simple terms, using frameworks is similar to constructing a house with cement and bricks. You do not have to manufacture either of those. You can buy the material for constructing your home from the market. Won’t that be foolishness to manufacture everything by yourself?
When you can use the already available raw material, why waste time on that? Just identify your requirement, collect the materials/ functions, and assemble it to suit your needs. So that you can design the e-commerce platform in a short time itself and make the website live, further, it will also give enough time to address the teething troubles. If any (HatchingWeb, the leading e-commerce developer, has recently redeveloped their e-commerce platform using the PHP-Laravel framework. You can read about it at the end of this article).
Designing and developing an e-commerce website is a complicated task. It necessitates close involvement of experienced UI designers and UX developers. They are to work in tandem with each other to achieve a productive output. The expertise of the developers and e-commerce solution providers matters a lot in ensuring a successful e-commerce solution.
The e-commerce solutions company should also be well versed with the latest technological advancements. To integrate those effectively into your e-commerce website. The website designed must be future-proof to enable easy adaptation of new technologies and updations.
Magento or Laravel, Which is better?
This question has been bothering clients who think of e-commerce development. The lack of in-depth knowledge about both is resulting in a dilemma. Here we will look into the pros and cons of both Magento and Laravel. You can weigh the advantages of both and decide on it.
Magento: Magento came into existence about a decade ago. It has been the favorite of e-commerce developers. Estimated to have more than lakh e-commerce platforms have been developed using Magento. The platform, Magento, is considered an all-encompassing one and hence a “matured” platform for developing e-commerce solutions.
Laravel: Developed in 2011, Laravel was redesigned in 2013. It flies on the wings of the latest technologies. Hence, Laravel has received more acceptance than Magento in recent times. Subsequently, The demand for Laravel has been growing remarkably, with more developers choosing it for the development of e-commerce platforms.
Experts Availability
Since Magento is a comparatively old platform, you can find more number of adequately experienced developers. Therefore, you will get experienced developers at comparatively less payment.
There is a shortage of experienced Laravel developers. This causes the firms to pay higher for the Laravel experts for designing and developing e-commerce solutions. As a result, the development cost becomes higher. Due to the same, many companies still prefer Magento to Laravel.
You may consider using Laravel if budgetary constraints are not there. Besides, PHP experts with experience in the MVC platform could be trained to use Laravel. As Laravel is also an MVC based platform, they will be able to learn quickly.
Coding Issues
Magento was developed more than a decade ago. During the years of existence, it has gone through several alterations, updations, and corrections. This has increased the complexity of the code. Consequently, Magento becomes slow and redundant quickly. Further, the code could be difficult to read, debug, and defect investigation/ troubleshooting.
Magento is a convenient, easy to use platform. However, the complexities overshadow the positive aspects. In addition, it will be difficult for a person to read the code written by someone else. This will be an issue when your employee is replaced.
Laravel uses ORM (Object Relational Mapping) based coding. It is thus making the database operations easier with PHP based syntax instead of traditional complex SQL scripting. It is also easy for every qualified person to read the coding. The MVC framework helps in easy understanding, troubleshooting, and debugging.
Support
Magento being an old platform, there are a lot of technical experts aware of the in and out of it. In case of any issues, you will get community support easily. Thre are several forums, communities, and groups extending support regarding Magento.
Laravel experts are less in number. Hence, it will be a difficult task to get community support, guidance, and advice if you face any issues. Your expert must have overall knowledge to liquidate the defect.
Open Source Platform
Both Magento and Laravel are open source platforms. This helps the developers to customize the platforms according to the requirement. However, the expertise of the developer matters. As any loophole in the basic structure/ coding of the platform can cause attacks from hackers.
Conclusion: Magento or Laravel, which one to choose for your e-commerce development?
HatchingWeb, a leading e-commerce developer, has redeveloped its e-commerce solution using Laravel. The platform they were using had become sluggish due to several codes added during the usage. Maintaining, updating, and defect identifying of the enormous database had been a daunting task.
HatchingWeb ascertained the risk factors, budgetary requirements,s, and performance data. It was decided to redevelop the website using a PHP framework. Magento, Laravel, Yii, and CodeIgniter were compared before developing the e-commerce platform. And concluded that Laravel is the best solution among the lot.
Laravel has a clean coding style, MVC architecture, ORM-based data access model, and ready-to-use e-commerce features. HatchingWeb could complete the migration to Laravel in one year. Now, the company has a high-performing e-commerce solution with remarkably higher performance, comprehensive user interface, better error handling characteristics, and tracking capabilities.
