When discussing the differences in Magento Community and Magento Enterprise versions of the platform one must take into consideration the circumstances of one’s business and also budget. Magento Community is free for download and usage and it suits the needs of small to medium stores. On the other hand Magento Enterprise pricing range starts from around 18000$ or almost 13000£ and is more suitable for larger sized stores.
Magento Support and Features
There is a significant difference in features when comparing these two platforms. The common features are robust rollback/back up, management of costumer attributes and RMA (return merchandise authorization) system. The features mentioned in the Magento Community version tends to be hard to work with and slow in execution speed, while in the Magento Enterprise version, their speed is much greater. Also there are certain features only found in the Enterprise version such as gift wrapping options, advanced search capabilities, scalability based architecture etc. In terms of support those who have bought Magento Enterprise in case of any problems, will have support staff ready to provide assistance. Magento Community users on the other hand don’t have direct support, but can only rely on the community itself, which could result in more time in searching for the solution.
Differences in Performance
When adding a new product you instigate a big number of processes within the platform. With Magento Community this could take anywhere between 10 to 20 minutes, while with Magento Enterprise, it is instant most of the time. Simply Magneto Enterprise is built to manage large product bases.
So in the end how do you decide? If your business is smaller in size and your budget is limited, Magento Community is a solution that you can more than benefit from until your budget or number of products increase. With Magento Enterprise you get a higher price but also an investment worth taking as it gives you stability in features, speed and support.
