Eye on 8 Top eCommerce Platforms in Europe

In our June post "How to choose an eCommerce platform" we prepared a brief overview of the most popular solutions worldwide. We continued with the survey of 20 eCommerce solutions that showed the market situation. We are glad to admit that both articles found a broad response among our readers, followers and fans.

This time we were inspired by the recent NBS System research of the top European eCommerce platforms - Intershop, Hybris, Demandware, Magento, PrestaShop, Drupal Commerce, OXID eShop, and RBS Change. We are glad to share the main ideas of this careful work. You can find the link to the full research at the end of this article.



Since Zen Cart, VirtueMart, and Interspire are not so popular in Europe, they are not included in this list. You won't find WordPress WP eCommerce among the competitors because it is still marginal in its functional coverage. Ubercart and osCommerce are about to disappear and were not studied as well.

The research reflects the tests, benchmark, and interviews with customers, end users, development agencies, partners, and editors. In some cases, there was no substantial response or no answer even from the editor, and sometimes there was no ability to test all the functionality.

Here is the comparison of eCommerce solutions based on technical and functional characteristics (the more stars, the better; grey background detects the leader according the criterion). As all the platforms are built upon different languages – PHP and Java – we grouped them according this criterion.

PHP Solutions

	Magento	PrestaShop	Drupal Commerce	OXID eShop	RBS Change
Cost
Mobile
Qty of developers in the market
Web service /API
Easy-to-use backend			No data
Technical maturity
Community
Functional coverage
Speed of the solution (frontend)
Speed of the solution (backend)
Easy-to-get started for developers
Performance & scalability
Availability of skilled resources
Sustainability of the solution

PrestaShop leads in this "race" with 8 advantages. The web service is one of the most advanced in the market. The mobile application is here again a key to success with the more convincing result. But if you decide to stop your choice at this solution, remember that it is not so technically mature as RBS Change, Magento or OXID eShop. Moreover, its functional coverage and speed leave much to be desired as well.

RBS Change is on the second place here with its high-rated performance, technical maturity, web service and easy-to-use backend. It is also considered to be one of the fastest solutions. But you'd better select something else if you expect to have many partner agencies or get a mobile application.

Magento got the best results in such characteristics as mobility, community, functional coverage and sustainability. The people asked admitted the low speed of this eCommerce platform at backend and hard to get started for developers. Probably this fact causes not so large amount of developers in the market as Magento users would like.

Drupal Commerce is the youngest eCommerce platform among the competitors - version 1.0 was announced in 2011. Drupal provides easy-to-modify and easy-to-skin online stores. One more very differentiating aspect is the large number of supported databases. It is also important to note that the Drupal community is very dynamic and passionate. However, we should remember that this framework is still young and the services provided are not as mature as others.

Being a leader in Germany, OXID eShop has gained the less number of advantages in comparison with other PHP solutions studied. Nevertheless, the experts admit that the code and models of this solution are "super clean" among the most qualitative on the market.

 

Java Solutions

	Intershop	Hybris	Demandware
Cost
Mobile
Number of developers in the market
Web service /API
Easy-to-use backend			No data
Technical maturity
Community
Functional coverage
Speed of the solution (frontend)
Speed of the solution (backend)
Easy-to-get started for developers
Performance & scalability
Availability of skilled resources
Sustainability of the solution

From a technical point of view, Intershop is a solution that provides a very good scalability. Moreover, it is a technically mature and reliable solution. But there is still no active community and network of partners is almost non-existent. Also, starting a project with Intershop will cost between 250 thousand euros and a couple millions euros depending on the size, ambition and goals of the project.

Hybris shows impressive results in terms of growth and performance. Selecting Hybris for your eCommerce project take into account that this is a longtime and high-budget project. Not being an open source solution, it will not be possible to find add-ons modules to improve the site.

Demandware is the only eCommerce solution here which is a «Software As A Service» (SaaS). It makes the software fully customizable to respond to various customer needs. The greatly designed and almost fully interfaced architecture of Demandware (especially advanced web services) provides many possibilities for its users.

Don't agree? Have something to add or object? As always, you are welcome to share your opinion in comments!

Source: The whitebook of eCommerce solutions