| Magento Sucks! |
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Page 1 of 5 Simply one of the worst e-commerce platforms on the market today!...but disguised as one of the best. In this article we'll dive into the platform and really explain why we feel its not worth your time at all! I'll keep this article short and sweet. People are going to disagree, but only because they haven't really done their research. I don't think anyone who has truly spent a good amount of time working on the Magento platform will disagree with me. We may have different opinions, but the facts are the same. This e-commerce platform sucks out loud and I'm done with it. Along with that, it is my opinion that you should not waste your time with it. It is a trap that was built to pull you into needing support and paying the developers for to come to your rescue. There is no other reason to build a system that is so complex and fails to work 80-90% of the time from installs to upgrades. Trust me, I'm just like you. When I saw Magento for the first time I was REALLY excited. E-commerce is what I do. Its what pays the bills for me, and aside from that its my passion, I love working in this industry. I've worked with pretty much every shopping cart on the market from APS.net to PHP, I've tried them all and Magento looks better than any of them from the outside. But wow, does the old saying "can't judge a book by its cover" hold true here! As I mentioned before, I'm not going to drag this out into a huge review, that will come later, right now I'm just trying to save you some time and frustration. Though this may seem like the dream product it really is just the biggest headache you've ever had waiting to happen. Do not use this software if you need a website to be stable. DO NOT use this shopping cart if you want features and fucntionality that are production ready, DO NOT use this software if you ever plan to upgrade the system. I'm not just trying to be mean, take a look at the forums on the Magento website, they are litterally filled with people who are at a deadlock and can't get their store's up and running due to an upgrade or bug or any other reason.You'll also want to note that there is NO ONE from the Magento team there to offer help to the new comers. this is beacause the Magento team charges for support. That is their only business model to be exact. This means Varien (the makers of the software) only get paid when people need help. I'm not suprised that the system is so complex now....it makes perfect sense. Make product that is beautiful from the outside, but make it so complex that people are going to HAVE to have support in order to get things working enough to support a production e-commerce enviroment. -------Updated---------- I posted the article above a long time ago. I had just lost pretty much entire 2 weeks worth of work because I tried upgrading my version of magento to the latest stable release. Needless to say....I was bitter and just plain pisses off. So how have things changed now? I've had the time to rebuild everything I lost durring that first upgrade, and I've pushed the system onto a production website! It wasn't easy. I had to make tons of little fixes along the way. The permission issues with the file system is unacceptable, but since it exists in every update I assume the Magento team is ok with it or they would have fixed the issue by now. So now All the little fixes aside, like I said I pushed the site built on Magento into production.....and then another upgrade came down the line. At first I said to myself "No way, just keep using what your on. Don't risk it man...don't risk it". Well all the bugfixes and improved functionality got the best of me. I used SimpleScripts to upgrade my version (I us SS because I was told by the Magento team that most upgrade issues are caused by the users...way to blame the problems on everyelse guys). Plus Simple Scripts not only upgrades the software, but automatically makes a backup of the current version first in case of issues....this is Magento...there will of course be issues. So after I get the "Upgrade Complete" message from Simple Scripts I blast over to my site to see the new version running live (The site, although live wasn't being advertised at the time). So what do I see when I bring up the upgraded site? Of course I see errors! I really can't believe I expected to see anything else. I look into the issue, can't really find a problem, so I hit the Magneto forums.....but as I mentioned before, the forums are just for the community, you can expect no assistance from the team on any issues. Man are there issues, there are at least a have dozen threads, each with tons of replies complaining about how the upgrade broke their sites. Pretty much everyone is having similar issues. The entire site is either down, or the administration section of magento isn't in a usable state. You would think that with this sort of public outcry the develpment team would step in and make everything right with a quick fix right? Not going to happen. The Magento team rarely posts anything on the support section of the forums. The only realy help to be found is what the other users have been able to hack together and get working. In my opinion this is a direct reflection of the fact that Varien charges for support. This is why they are slow to fix problems, this is why the system is so complex. They want to make you feel like you need help. I'd love to say things turned out well for me and my Magento install, but truth be told I ened up trashing it and going with a different platform. A year ago I had an unlimited amount of hope for this product. But today I can say that I know what failure looks like, for I have used Magento.  Quote this article on your site
1. 26-02-2009 19:52 I agree 100% We're just winding down our first (and ONLY) Magento project. While we did eventually get the site working properly and looking good, the client is basically not going to be able to upgrade it herself at all due to the number of hacks to core features we had to apply to get it working. I'm not talking about modifying behavior, I'm talking about fixing bugs myself. Example: I had to hack the script that processes payments through authorize.net, something no one who is intending to just build a theme should ever have to think about. Without my hack, the client literally would not be able to sell anything with the system. The list of hacks we had to make is too long to put down, but they were largely required to make the thing work. Theme building is a joke. Themes are split into two seperate deep-level directory structures and use the most convoluted system of inheritance I've ever seen. Sometimes if a thing looks too good to be true it is. -Matt 2. 16-03-2009 15:00 Just found out that you can\'t change the jpeg compression for the image cache in Magento, unless you write your own version of the class handling it / change the core file. This can\'t be real... *sigh* 3. 24-03-2009 14:45 I know I am a bit late on this post but I would like to put in my input here. I think you guys are missing something here. The product is free and it is expected that if you are going to be making changes to the product you will be an experienced developer. Even though I know an experienced developer could have problems figuring everything out, to me this is just fine. Any other ecommerce platform that you have have is going to be just about as complicated and your not going to be able to ask people for help for free. At my job we are using a very expensive platform, one that I know you have looked at recently and I can tell you right now it is no better then Magento in terms of modifying core functionality. If you want help on it, you can't even ask anyone on a forum because there isn't one, you can either just have your developers figure it out or pay the company you bought it from like 200 - 300 an hour. When you talk about upgrading, it is also expected that usually once you buy an ecommerce platform you don't upgrade it. I'm sure you know that anyone who has bought an ecommerce platform from a major firm uses the same one they got when they bought it. It is a bit different with Magento because it is an Open Source project, so it might be necessary to make essential fixes to keep out hackers, but you should be able to do this without upgrading to a whole new version. 4. 26-03-2009 17:48 If not Magento as far as PHP carts go... then what? Zen and OS both suck. Presta is too French centric. So what are the alternatives? 5. 03-04-2009 21:46 I've been trying out Prestashop, I don't know what you mean by "French-centric"... The forums are divided into different languages and stuff and it uses a templating engine so it's pretty easy to update... The options for product placement, etc... are extremely robust... multiple pics, color swatches, discounting options, etc... Only place I've seen it's weak is maybe the amount of shipping/payment gateway plugins... And yes, OSC, et al do such and are dead projects as far as I'm concerned... 6. 03-04-2009 22:52 @ Carl. I was the same as you - looking for alternatives after years of using OSC. I looked at all the alternatives (including a hard and depressing few weeks of Magento) until I discovered UberCart (www.ubercart.org). It's built as an e-commerce application layer on top of Drupal. Been playing with it for a few weeks now and absolutely LOVE it. It's modular, extensible, fast, lean and flexible. Bonus is you get a kick-ass CMS and an ecommerce layer that plugs directly into and inherits all the core functionality. Huge, active community too - brilliant stuff. Well worth a serious look. 7. 09-06-2009 06:48 I totally agree with you mate! I wasted more than 2 months on a magento project, a project which was supposed to be wrapped up in a week!!! There's hardly any proper documentation, dull community support and lots and lots of bugs FOR FREE!! 8. 17-06-2009 08:01 From our experience there are three major failures people often do when they start with Magento: 1. Use an incompatible hosting and wrong file permissions. All files and directories must always be (at least at the point when you think about an update) writeable by the Apache/PHP process. Don't even think about using the Magento Connect Manager before you checked your file permissions. 2. Changing the default theme and skin. There is no need to change anything in the default directories, these are DEFAULT files and will be overwritten on almost every Magento update. If you need any changes, create your own directory/theme and copy ONLY the files you want to change into this folder. All unchanged/non existing files in your theme will be inherited by the default theme (this is really a cool feature and helps upgrading to a new version!) 3. Changing core files will lead into frustration. NEVER EVER change core files. Magento offers several mechanism (class overloading, observers etc.) to change it's behavior at almost every single point by your own modules located in app/code/local. If you follow these rules I think Magento will be less frustrating to you and perhaps you'll see that class overloading and dynamic layout updates are really cool features that enables you to build great ecommerce projects. However be warned: Magento is for experienced PHP5 OOP developers not for PHP tweakers who do "customization" in an OSC style. 9. 24-06-2009 22:14 Hi. I just did a google search for "magento sucks" and voila. I have to agree. I've been working with magento for 3 months and it is way too fucking slow. Also, I wrote a module for magento that I sell online and every version of megento renders the module obselete and unusable. I'm fed up. It IS a trap and it's so slow. I actually like the templating system, it's pretty straightforward. But, it's simply the waiting for pages to load that kills me. 10. 29-06-2009 22:47 I went through this twice with Magento before ponying up the cash to go to Pinnacle Cart. Sure it took some of my initial cost with the first cart, but you know what, THEY HAVE SUPPORT (which I rarely need as is). Either way, with all the problems and time I spent fixing them with opensource carts, paying for a little support ahead of time, was nothing compared to what I had previously lost. Just my 2 cents. - Rhett 11. 01-07-2009 11:56 I was also looking at magento and decided not to use. Just curious why are you still using it after telling people how much it sucks. and after first article I thought you were done with it, and now in second article which you wrote a "loong time" after you still using the software. Why not switch to something like Interspire? 12. 01-07-2009 23:09 HAHA! Ignore the naysayers, the man that wrote this post knows what he is talking about. If you don't want to take his word for it try this. Install magento, add some products and make one of them have shipping included. There is no box to check, there are 100's of config options you can easily get wrong. All the solutions you will find are at best hacks. Also did anyone mention slow? I had to laugh reading one thread in the forums where people that complained about it were told they need a dedicated server enviroment if they are serious about a shopping cart anyway. While I can see some good points for it's architecture, the whole attribute thing can become a nightmare. While it might work great for T-shirts, try a configurable product with many attributes. You will have to make a simple product for EVERY possible attribute configuration. Sometimes you can get around this with the use of custom options but not always. Say you have spent a good bit of time building a configurable product and have all the simple products and everything setup and decide you want to change your attribute set (for the many reasons you might find). Nope, that product is tied to that attribute set until the end. While you can update the attributes within the set the set is SET IN STONE. I could go on and on....... but I think the above article says it best. If you have highly configurable products or are not adept in PHP I would avoid magento like the plague. 13. 01-07-2009 23:17 @squidder What would you recommend then? Especially if you have a site with configurable products such as customizable apparel (sizing, colors, material, etc.)? 14. 10-07-2009 21:50 I just googled "Magento Sucks" to ensure the word is out there and to hopefully commiserate. Installation has unacceptable\undocumented requriements, once installed site still does not function properly due to js errors EVERYWHERE. The product cannot even appropriately reference the internal files it needs to function. The biggest testament to how bad this product is, is that the support team actually posts modified PHP pages in their forum and tell users to "overrwrite this file" to get the menu in the admin section to even show up..... I had not idea what I was getting into, but the customer had already purchased a template tied to Magento. And by the by I am a very expererienced PHP developer and have a 10 year background in OOP in general. No reason this should have been a week long installation.... 15. 13-07-2009 22:52 Just to throw in my two cents: I've looked at other ecomm and was excited about Magento to start but I have to give up on it. My client that uses Magento will be the only one. I had the same issues as squidder when it came to configurable products, but hacked around them. Still quite unsatisfactory. I ended up using simple products with lots of attributes. I hated the default style, and had to modify phtml and xml and stylesheets to hack around that. No hope for SEO. I've now gotten the site up and running, but have to use PayPal as the payment gateway because I had the same problem as Matt concerning Authorize.net. No help, no fix. No help from developers and learned all my hacks from the forum. I added functionality that should have been included using community plugins. Upgrades will be done, but only when necessary. All in all a very unpleasant experience which I won't repeat. Also, to reply to Dan Shields and Phoenix, who say this is free and I shouldn't gripe, I say, it's not free, it cost me time I can never replace. I'm just an unpaid alpha tester. I'll be looking at any other ecomm system before I hack through Magento again. I don't expect any of them to be simple, I don't believe that can be done, but there's a better solution than Magento. 16. 21-07-2009 10:44 Hello, So do you think that drupal Ubercart or drupal ecommerce is the best ? Thanks. 17. 21-07-2009 15:09 Ubercart is the best and it's only going to get better. It has a much more stable release for D6 which is key. It's also heavily supported by a community that is driving the development further and further everyday. I'm very disappointed to see drupal e-commerce's own website with advertisements for Volution. That doesn't make sense to have a site that promotes another shopping solution. 18. 21-07-2009 18:00 Hi all, I really don't know Magento so I won't argue on this. I'm a drupaler for 4 years now and I've been using Übercart since it's 0.7-alpha for Drupal 5. Great features, strong Drupal flexibility, even fixed a french payment gateway in a few hours (believe this is something cool, just a few hours). Then what... A few month later I needed to upgrade the whole thing: Drupal, modules, übercart core 1.5 and contrib. It just worked. Did I needing a full and long day? Yes, but that was the process (backup, upgrade, test, and this one more time, just to be sure, put the site offline and do it again just one last time). This my experience with übercart, hope it helps. 19. 21-07-2009 18:22 Actually, having programmed on ubercart, I wouldn't recommend it towards any business that wants to have a sustainable software solution. Ubercart falls within the category as toy. Ubercart has little documentation other then code docs, which is greek to our business department. They don't care what an API does, they want a chart of where the item is in the process so they can audit. The database is a mess. I don't even know how it works as it is... It seems like it runs on fairy dust and a bit of magic. Weights for shipping products aren't even stored in a normalized format. I could have 1 kilo, 1 ounce, 1 "", I guess the idea of a base unit is illogical or too practical for implementation. It seems like some of the tables do not even get used, but I was afraid to delete them. It's open source, but that's about it's only perk. But until it supports things like native coupons, discounts, credits/debits, multiple pay types, js fail, fractional inventory sales, auditing trails, and common business feature, I can't recommend it. The price is right, but sometimes it's better to pay for software when the software is the main source of your income. 20. 24-07-2009 22:38 I agree, I have been working with it for a month now and cant get over how much of a nightmare the site is. Tried to build a back end module - OMG! - it has to be the most over engineered thing ever and I think Magento have done it this way for a reason - Pay for support. Styling is easy enough and moving blocks around but extending is a nightmare and trying to use it as a cms / shop should be frowned upon - Your a Shop not Joomla/Drupal or any of the others. I swear I have seen the Unreal Source and Magento has more classes than that. 21. 08-08-2009 01:22 The funny thing is, when you go to Magento support site to complain people there act like you're a retard for having issues when it is obviously the most non-intuitive and horrible system on earth. I'm not a programmer myself, but pretty savvy as far as web stuff goes and can usually figure anything out when I need to. My mind is just completely boggled. After three months, I am finally getting this site to work properly and then I recently discovered that half the database is missing because either the person working before me didn't fill it in completely or magento deletes products that go out of stock, I can't tell which and either seems likely. UGH. This thing is fucking horrible. Just horrible. 22. 15-08-2009 03:36 MAGENTO SUCKS!!!!!!!! God, i can't believe I wasted almost a week of my life with this worthless piece of software. 23. 21-08-2009 12:37 It really sucks and i am forced to do unless i quit job. 24. 31-08-2009 17:39 ok.. just to create a featured product and have it display on the front page is a nightmare.. by da time you figure it out, your kid's kid is about to get married.. if you think its very easy.. than you are a very smart person. believe me... if u dont, give it a shot! ;) 25. 03-09-2009 20:02 Thank God. I, too, arrived here via googling 'Magento sucks' and I'm glad to see I'm not alone. Just installed Magento a couple of days ago and trying to change the template is a complete NIGHTMARE. A simple process like changing the template shouldn't be a four step process which more often than not ends up with the horrible error message on the homepage. Anyone else has good recommendations for other ecommerce solutions? 26. 21-09-2009 05:00 i agree, it freaking sux. 27. 21-09-2009 07:12 just spent over 60 hours to get magneto working, and have given up in frustration, now i am trying to delete the tables in mysql and there are dependancies in the table... one table at a time but i will get there and remove it permantly from my server... 28. 23-09-2009 21:54 YOU ARE ALL MISSING THE POINT. I have been developing custom e commerce sites as well as development on legacy platforms like os commerce, zen cart etc. all I can say is Magento rules and is the ultimate platform we've been wating for, for decades - The problems you guys are experiencing is because of a lack of understanding the Magento platform and API - Magento is a beast of a platform not meant for novice programmers and the likes, to fiddle with - Magento is a serious professional platform - if you need modifications done to it, I suggest getting a Megento certified programmer/developer to do it for you - but dont think if you have some low-level coding experience you will be able to modify Megento to your needs - wake up and realize that the company behind Magento have a bigger things in mind, one of which is a robust scalable platform meant for growth. 29. 01-10-2009 20:36 I would just like to thank you all because I have been watching magneto for quite some and wanting to try it. if i would have gone through something like that I'd blow their ass up. I looked at the forums and was very displeased. The templates did not do it for me either. But I need to create a an e marketplace or mall similar to ecrater or blujay and I am running out of options and support from my partners that something like this would be a great boost for our sales agents. If any one has suggestions please let me know. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it 30. 06-10-2009 02:16 We spent 12 months developing a joomla integration system, succeeded and then threw everything in the bin. We spent 10's of thousands of dollars and in the end I bit the bullet and pulled the plug entirely. What a heap of garbage, Magento sucks big time. I want to know to whom I can send an invoice to at Varien for all the bug fixes we had to make? Open source my arse - more like open sores. Needlessly complex and incredibly verbose. There is nothing succinct about it. Pretty on the outside, but inside an absolute dog. We have now gone back to our own proprietary software, and Improved on it. Beware prospective magento user, beware. Do not get sucked in by the good looks. BTW have ditched joomla too - it sucks also. |
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E-Commerce Blog Magento Sucks!