Magento

Magento
Developer(s)	Magento Inc.
Initial release	March 31, 2008
Stable release	2.4.7 (April 9, 2024; 7 months ago) [±]
Preview release	none [±]
Written in	PHP
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	Content management software; eCommerce software
License(s)	Open Software License v3
Website	MagentoCommerce.com

Magento is an eCommerce and content management web application most often used to create and manage online storefronts. Developer Magento Inc. offers a free open-source version called Magento Community, as well as two commercial proprietary versions: Magento Enterprise and Magento Enterprise Premium.

Product history

Los Angeles-based company Varien (now Magento Inc.) was working on an eCommerce application called osCommerce in the 2000s. With aspirations of establishing a unique e-commerce application, Varien initially decided to create a fork of their osCommerce project, but later decided to write an entirely new system under the Zend Framework instead.^[3]^[4] Dubbing the new project "Magento," development officially began in early 2007.^[5]^[3] Seven months later, on August 31, 2007, the first public beta version was released,^[6]^[2] with an official 1.0 release arriving at the end of March 2008.^[1]^[2]

On June 1, 2010, the company announced a beta launch of Magento Mobile, a tool that allows store owners to create native mobile storefront apps.^[7] The public launch of Magento Mobile followed in September 2010.^[8]

Work began in late 2011 on Magento 2, with an initial commit for the project being uploaded to GitHub on November 30, 2011.^[9]

As of February 2, 2012, Magento has passed four million downloads of its software platform.^[10]

Features

The main features of the Magento Community edition include^[11]:

a persistent shopping cart
flexible pricing rules
support for multiple stores/website views
analytics and reporting
layered navigation
multilingual support
support for shipping rules
payment configurations and gateways
product configurability
support for up-sells, cross-sells, and related products
search engine optimization support
coupon and promotion support
customer accounts management
order management
mobile support

The commercial Enterprise editions offer even more features. You can make product comparisons on their website.

Hardware/software requirements

An Apache web server, PHP installation (with extensions), MySQL installation, and a valid SSL certificate are needed for a proper installation.

Please consult the Magento website for a complete list of system requirements and installation tips, as requirements may change with updated versions.

Videos, screenshots, and other media

A wide variety of tutorial screencasts for Magento can be found on the company site. Screenshots are also available.

An online demo of the Community and Enterprise versions can also be found on the Magento website.

Training resources

Click2eLearn

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Click2eLearn is a privately owned company offering high-quality and low-cost web-based training and tutorials for primarily open-source software platforms. The company offers more than 130 tutorials on the open-source eCommerce application Magento. Training plans begin at $33 per month.

Tutorials are broken down into 10 categories:

Getting Started: Concepts - These related tutorials focus on the architecture and basic concepts of Magento.
Getting Started: Installing and Configuring - These related tutorials focus on how to prepare for and install Magento properly.
Getting Started: The Administrative Panel - These related tutorials focus on the administration of users, roles, and stores in Magento.
Operations: Catalog Setup - These tutorials explain the various factors involved in setting up and organizing catalogs in Magento.
Operations: Selling - These tutorials discuss the related features of selling, including setting up taxes, shipping options, and localization settings.
Operations: Promotions, Marketing, and Content Pages - The tutorials in this section discuss the facets of promoting your business using Magento.
Operations: Customers - These tutorials focus on Magento's customer data and communication management features.
Operations: Reports and Analytics - These related tutorials explain Magento's reporting and analytics tools and how to use them effectively.
Operations: Managing Orders - The tutorials in this section provide an overview of how to manage customer orders and the options associated with those orders.
Operations: User-Generated Content - These tutorials focus on Magento's management of posted and shared user content as it relates to your business.