At some point every businessman comes to the idea to broaden the horizons of a business by means of the Internet. Good news: there's no need to write the code from the very first line in order to set up your own website. Furthermore, with the dense forest of shopping cart software available it's not necessary to be a software developer to successfully launch a site and sell your goods online. But, of course, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. This article will help you to distinguish clearly between hosted software and open source software in the case of Volusion and Magento. The table below also contains a comparison of hosted platforms Getsocio and Volusion.
| Getsocio | Volusion | Magento | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What kind of software is it? | Getsocio is dedicated to ecommerce software designed for entrepreneurs, not for web-developers. It enables you to start selling as fast and easy as possible. | A hosted online store builder with a set of necessary tools for selling goods on the Internet. | Magento is highly customizable open source website software for building online stores. |
| Are programming skills required? | No | No | Magento requires advanced development knowledge. |
| Is there a need to download and install software? | No. It's a fully-managed web service. | No. It's a fully-managed web service. | Yes |
| Does the vendor provide support? | Yes | Yes | Zero |
| Hosting | Included | Included | You have to find a company that specializes in Magento hosting. |
| Are there any transaction fees? | Yes, only on a minimal pricing plan. | No | No |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | 1Gb - 35Gb. | Unlimited |
The main thing in an ecommerce platform is functionality. Open source solutions are unequal in their potential. But the flip side of versatility and almost endless opportunities of a platform is the complexity of the work with it. Costs and time are important for a business. Unfortunately, Magento is far from being ideal in these terms both on the deployment stage and during further work. With a solution like Volusion or Getsocio you start to sell immediately while someone only tries to build a website using an open source platform.
To speak of start ups more than 80% of entrepreneurs will never take a decision to choose cms without support. A website is a key tool in online selling, it's a storefront. Not having a safety net for this core element of any online business is dangerous unless you're a developer. Hosted and open source pieces of software are different and can not be called direct competitors. That's why we think that comparing Volusion vs Magento is incorrect.
In the view of any entrepreneur the faster it is to start selling the better. Open source platforms are too complex for small needs as we have already found out in Magento vs Volusion discussion above. That's why our recommendation for those who want to forget about problems with security, updates, support and hosting servers is to make use of hosted solutions.
When we compare Getsocio to Volusion we will find out that they offer the same opportunity for business owners - building e-commerce sites without coding skills. Why do we think Getsocio is a great alternative to Volusion? Getsocio allows you to place an unlimited number of products and charges transaction fees on a minimal plan, which means you pay only when you sell your goods. Volusion has bandwidth limitations within every pricing plan. To put it simply, you pay for a number of products and for visits on your site. It's up to you to decide which platform to choose.