As developers of Actinic for over seven years, we think it is important to to check what else is available and how it might benefit our clients. New software is being launched and improved all the time meaning that new, shinier alternatives might exist. Even better they might be free! So first of all, what are today’s options? osCommerce, Magento and Joomla/Virtuemart are the solutions we will look at compared to Actinic. Lets be clear, there are plenty more to choose from. However I would only really consider options that are established, have a sizable community and have a history of developing new and improved versions. I am sure that many would argue that others should be added to this list, but this is what we consider to be the serious major players for the UK market. Also smaller commercial offerings just don’t provide the development commitment, meaning that if you run into a brick wall, you might never get a solution.

Actinic comes in two main flavours; Catalog and Business. Although Catalog is a great entry level product (£399.99+vat), we always recommend the Business version (£799.99+vat) as it contains features that most online shop managers will want to start using straight away. These features include; marketing tools, customer accounts, Sage integration, additional product fields and the ability to take mail or telephone orders. Actinic is a software installation that is primarily designed for a PC although can be run on a Mac with windows installed. Addon software is available from specialist developers allowing you to extend the functionality in certain areas. Mostly this software is purchased outright although some developers charge an annual fee. There are a few free enhancements available as well as plenty of script modification guides in the community forum.

osCommerce is now looking quite dated and has not had a version release for some time. There is an alpha release (still in development) available for download however it was posted over a year ago without much sign of progress . As an open source project it has the benefit of being free, although this is not always a positive as there is no real organisation to be accountable for its products, and hence makes it a risky choice for a commercial organisation. osCommerce does have a massive community following , supported by an active forum and an extensive contribution library (enhancement software) with most offerings being free of charge. As a server install it can be used on any computer with Internet access.

Magento is a fast growing server based ecommerce solution that is available in three versions. The free Community edition is well featured although most of the exciting features have been saved for the Professional and Enterprise versions. The main consideration with this solution is ongoing cost. With a minimum of $2,995 USD/yr for the Professional version this could make for an expensive solution. Due to the complexity of development you can also expect both initial build and maintenance costs to be higher than that of the other solutions compared here. However, if you need the advanced functionality offered by Magento and your budget can stand the ongoing cost then it is a viable alternative to bespoke development.

Joomla + Virtuemart is not strictly an ecommerce solution but rather a CMS (Content Management System) with an ecommerce enhancement bolted on. Joomla is a great CMS and being free of charge it is unchallenged by all except the latest version of WordPress (and is still better in our opinion). Virtuemart is essentially an extension for Joomla although there is a combined installation available for ease of set-up. Virtuemart is a complicated affair which leaves you feeling that it has been ‘strapped on’ to Joomla, making it only really useful for sites that want to bolt-on ecommerce as a small section of their website.

Cost

If you want to go free, then osCommerce is the way to go. However as it is now rather dated (and some might say abandoned), you risk wasting development money on something you then have to rebuild in another solution. Same goes for Virtuemart. If you are happy with the community edition of Magento then that could also be an option. However with no paid support option unless you upgrade to the Professional version ($2,995 USD/yr) it is quite a risk to take to save a few hundred pounds on an Actinic license. Actinic scores well here assuming that you are looking for a professional solution with access to support. You get a lot of functionality for not a huge amount of money.

Ease of use

Any decent, well featured ecommerce solution will take time to learn and therefore it is unlikely that any contender will produce something you can pickup and run with. Both osCommerce and Virtuemart have dated interfaces and are really quite unpleasant to use. If you don’t make many changes to your site then this might not be a problem but otherwise it is quite frustrating. Both Actnic and Magento have well designed, slick interfaces although it may take some time to work out where everything is.

With Actinic (unlike the other online script based solutions), everything is kept in the software and uploads are performed to update the website. To be honest, this is probably one of the most frustrating elements of this software as uploads can take quite some time and can often tie up your computer until they are finished. That said, the latest version of Actinic (Version 10) is much more efficient at uploading and seems to be quite nippy at making little changes and tweaks. Since version 9 you have had the ability to upload a single section which can be very quick indeed. Unfortunately this facility is not available for non product pages meaning that as a CMS, Actinic can be slightly labourious. The positive side of this is that you keep the master copy of your website. If you have any problems with your hosting or just prefer to keep ownership of your site then this is ideal.

Features

osCommerce can be extended to use many free (and paid) contributions that extend the functionality of the core product. These include language packs and payment service provider scripts offering a wealth of new and developing features. One drawback of this is that they are usually unsupported and cannot all be guaranteed to play nicely together. Virtuemart suffers from a similar problems although offers a smaller selection of extensions. Both Actinic and Magento are feature rich meaning that you will have 99% of what you need built into the core software. This helps with overall stability and means that if you have a support package you can get assistance with your whole set-up. Although Actinic offers a big list of desirable bells and whistles, online customer account creation is still absent until version 11 comes along.

Development

Developers often choose an ecommerce package based on their skill set and hopefully on what their customers are demanding. Each solution has a particular learning curve and requires specific skills to be able to customise as per each clients requirements. Magento, osCommerce and Virtuemart are built around the PHP language and use mySQL databases. These are very popular skills and there are many developers who can work in this environment. Actinic is software based and uses CGI and perl scripts in a closed environment, meaning that developers are limited on how much they can adjust of the ‘inner workings’. This is both a good and a bad thing, good in the sense that it keeps the core software safe and separate to the styling and layout areas, bad in the sense that it means that external developers cannot create paid or free extensions for the software.

Scalability

Virtuemart and osCommerce are not very scalable unless you really know what you are doing. Usually the cost of such development work would have been better invested in a more scalable solution. Magento Community edition has upgrade options to the  Professional and Enterprise edition along with an opensource code structure for unlimited development options. Actinic Catalog offers an upgrade path to Actinic Business or Actinic Enterprise (uses MS SQL rather than an MS Access database). At this stage Magento offers more flexibility for higher end projects due it’s open source structure, Actinic version 11 may offer something to challenge this, as it is rumoured it will have a web based database.

Support

Support is critical for any serious ecommerce solution. This is where all options will fail unless you are happy to rely on forums or take out a paid support package. With Actinic you get access to the community forum as well as free email support. Users that take out the additional ‘cover’ package will get unlimited telephone support during working hours. Although the support can be limited (depending on the knowledge of who you are speaking to) it is usually helpful and in some cases lifesaving. The only other solution that can better this, is the Magento Professonal or Enterprise packages which include 24/7 support as part of the annual fee. It is worth pointing out that this is a call back service so you will not always get an instant answer.

Conclusion

If you want a free solution, are prepared for some compromise, a lack of scalability and are confident that you or your developers can make it work without support, then osCommerce still has some potential. If you want a free solution with great potential, have a good development budget and are prepared for the costs of the the full license, then Magento Community edition is worth a look. If you want to build an affordable website with plenty of upgrade potential and are prepared to pay for the ongoing support then Actinic is for you!