Magento Community vs. Magento Enterprise – What Magento says
Magento Community vs. Magento Enterprise
- Magento Community vs Magento Enterprise
Since we’re looking at Magento Community and Magento Enterprise let’s get started with what Magento itself has to say about their two editions. The following is from the official Magento page: http://www.magentocommerce.com/product/enterprise-community-faqs
What is the Magento Community Edition?
Magento was born as open source software. The reason this edition is called “Community” has its basis in these origins. This means that you, and anyone around the world, are free to download Magento, and make any modifications you may need to suit your requirements. Magento has had tremendous growth and with this growth there are now over a million people around the world who have downloaded Magento, and many of those have developed customizations, extensions and other changes. The Magento community connects on the Magento Community site forums to share their knowledge, assist each other, exchange tips and tricks and to offer support. Development of the Magento Community Edition continues at a rapid pace through this model, providing a basic and powerful solution for small shops looking for a state-of-the-art eCommerce platform.
What is the Magento Enterprise Edition?
Magento Enterprise Edition shares the same base as Magento Community Edition. However, as Magento adoption continues to rapidly increase, there are retailers who require more than the community can provide. Some need advanced features and deep customization, some require major functionality changes, and others require a higher level of support through Service Level Agreements. There are many reasons for this, ranging from business requirements to traffic considerations, catalog size and even the types of services retailers wish to provide. The Magento Enterprise Edition is therefore fully supported by the Magento team. Magento invests considerable resources for development and continued support of Magento Enterprise Edition and provides a longer support life cycle. This stable base, which can be easily customized if needed, offers exclusive advanced features and is backed by a solid support contract giving organizations the solution they need for a production ready, enterprise grade eCommerce platform with the full confidence of an SLA.
In a nutshell, all Magento Editions share the same genes at the core, but target very different needs. If you find yourself with more questions read below for a more detailed break down of some common questions.
The Magento Community Edition software is and always will be free of charge. It is available on an as-is basis to anyone wishing to download it and is supported by the community primarly through the Magento Discussion Forum. The Magento Enterprise Edition is available through a subscription which offers a Service Level Agreement (SLA) backed by Magento’s dedictated support team. Support is provided via email and/or phone. Magento Enterprise Edition subscribers also receive additional exclusive features, product enhancements including priority patches for critical and security updates as part of their subscription plan. Magento Enterprise licenses start at $15,550 per year. Please see the Enterprise Pricing page for more details.
