Migration from VirtueMart to Magento 2

VirtueMart is an e-commerce platform which is open source. It is an extension of the Joomla content management system (CMS). It is written in PHP and uses MySQL for database storage.

Magento 2 (now called Adobe Commerce) is also an e-commerce content management system, for creating a website. It is also open source written in PHP.

If your website is built on an e-commerce platform then you must be dealing with multiple collections of products. There are multiple types which are supported in Magento 2. The product types are-

• Simple Products
• Virtual Products
• Downloadable Products
• Configurable Products
• Bundled Products
• Grouped Products
• Gift (Adobe Commerce only)

However, if you are taking the VirtueMart platform under consideration then the major product support is Simple Products and the option for downloadable products.

This makes the Virtuemart platform useful only for small business owners. However, Magento is a must-have for the owner of a business that is on large scale.

Both platforms are having great community support and provide regular updates. That keeps the user engaged on the website. The developers of both platforms work to enhance the functionality of the product.

You can get free as well as a paid extension for both platforms. Delivered by a wide range of organizations. So if your website needs something additional than the default, you can easily choose an extension to fulfil the requirement of your business.

However, with a high number of members, the Magento 2 forum remains much more active as compared to the VirtueMart forum. Any issue on the platform could be promptly answered by the Magento 2 community.

The Magento 2 community is working day and night to build in the best features which are in rhythm with the latest technology.

Therefore, it makes sense to upgrade or better to do migration from VirtueMart to Magento 2 platform. Assuring continuous support from the community developers and agencies.

Magento 2 is a more powerful platform when it comes to interaction with any third-party modules as compared to VirtueMart. There are multiple extensions available on both platforms.

But as stated above the Magento 2 is much more flexible and capable. Magento 2 platform being more advanced than VirtueMart provides easy integration with third-party extensions.

Multiple companies offer Magento 2 extensions to make the website usable for digital commerce business purposes.

Thought Virtuemart is having a more simplified feature and the design can be modified easily. However, Magento offers a much more professional solution with a huge amount of customer purchases.

Following are the third-party extensions for your website-

Magento 2- https://store.webkul.com/Magento-2.html

Virtuemart- https://store.webkul.com/Joomla-Extensions.html

Today leading companies are among the ones opting for e-commerce. It needs to be efficient enough that has maximum functionalities and support.

Magento provides third-party hardware support and varnish-like features to enhance the website’s performance. Magento 2 even have the Elasticsearch engine in its core functionality.

However, the VirtueMart platform doesn’t have such support which makes the platform less efficient.

So, the Magento 2 platform in comparison to VirtueMart is much more scalable and offers better performance.

The PWA in today’s era is the most major part. They are a hybrid of a web app and a mobile app. It is the latest approach used by major retail companies operating in the e-commerce world.

PWA gives the features of universal access where the user need not worry about the browser. They can go for any browser to access your website.

Magento builds suites of tools for the creation of online stores such as PWA(progressive web App). For them, it is the future of the web. Core features of Magento’s PWA Studio are-

• Personalize the content,
• Uses only one code base, deployment, and app,
• Enhanced user experience with excellent CMS Theming
• Developers can now create a better prototype, easy debugging, receive feedback and increment in productivity.

However, there is a bit lacking on the PWA part on the Virtuemart side. We can create an extension to achieve the functionality, but no such tool is provided directly by them as in the case of Magento 2.

The Virtuemart platform yet being an efficient and oldest platform in CMS. It is not getting much recognition due missing adaption of such effective technology.

Magento uses both the latest API which is RESTful and GraphQL. The REST API is a structure that has a set of functions defined to which developers can request and receive the response.

The GraphQL API can be used to implement the technique of Machine Learning which is implemented effectively in Magento.

Whereas Virtuemart uses SOAP (simple object access protocol) which is not more than a protocol and requires more bandwidth for its usage. The SOAP messages use the XML format to pass on the data.

Both the Magento and Virtuemart platform uses PHP tools. But features like composer are inbuilt into the Magento framework, whereas it is just for the namesake in Virtuemart.

The composer is meant to manage the PHP dependencies. In the composer.json the developers define dependencies, which are then handled by the composer automatically.

In addition, it can be used to manage Magento extensions.

However, in Joomla, it only serves the purpose of installation, without being part of the framework as in the case of Magento.

Image Source- https://www.gavick.com/documentation/joomla/third-party-extensions/virtuemart/install-virtuemart

Magento has a console utility that saves 1000 of cache and manages them. Whereas, such functionality is missing in Virtuemart.

If you are running an e-commerce business the most vital feature here is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). All you need is a platform that makes the process easy and flawless.

Magento is said to be one of the best platforms when it comes to managing and integrating SEO. Right away from custom URLs to metadata, search analysis and Google integration, now you can discover what people are looking for and convert your store data accordingly.

However, the VirtueMart platform needs the extensions to work the same way as in Magento. The business owner needs to purchase the right extension to help them with the process. This makes the process expensive and complicated.

Magento framework has made its hashing algorithms (SHA-256) which are used in password management. It uses conventions that regulate the escaping of data in the output.

The Magento platform, unlike VirtueMart, releases its modified patches very frequently. Thus, providing complete security with the latest technological changes.

On the contrary VirtueMart platform releases are not that frequent, which makes them less secure due to the frequent new type of attackers.