Migrating from Opencart to Magento 2: What You Need to Know

Given that e-commerce is a critical part of the global industrial scenario, there are plenty of solutions that enable the development of such stores in the market today. However, there are a handful of options that fare as favorites in the industry: Magento and OpenCart. While both open-source tools are admittedly quite capable, but between the two, a significant majority leans towards Magento. It is even though both of them are developed in PHP; they offer support for a variety of language packs, and so much more. It can be understandably confusing when one sets out to pick a platform for their e-commerce store. So, we have put together a quick guide to help you see precisely why Magento 2 is the better choice among the two and other facets of the transition to it.

1. Why you should migrate to Magento 2: As mentioned above, OpenCart is undoubtedly a highly capable platform for e-commerce. But there are a handful of factors that have given Magento 2 an edge over it. Some of them are:
   • While OpenCart provides all the necessities, it can fail to live up to standards in the context of performance.
   • OpenCart doesn’t offer default caching capabilities, i.e., it necessitates additional investments for merchants when the need for caching arises.
   • Another department where OpenCart lacks, especially when compared to Magento 2, is customization.
   • Magento 2, on the other hand, is highly capable when it comes to not only scalability but also caching and customization.
2. An ideal approach for migration: For the migration from OpenCart to Magento 2 to be successful, it is imperative to adopt a strategically planned transition. Here are some pointers about how to do that:
   • It may seem a tad redundant, but the first step is to create a back-up of the whole store.
   • Test the custom Magento theme for your store, subjecting it to different circumstances to truly ensure it is robust.
   • Put together a custom script to ensure the seamless migration of custom data and files between the two platforms.
   • Once the migration is complete, it is imperative to execute an in-depth quality analysis for not only the back-end but the front-end as well.
3. Top issues you will face: Provided that you take the time and put in the effort to chart out a formal strategy for the transition from OpenCart to Magento, you are unlikely to run into any challenges. However, you are likely to face a handful of issues when you upgrade to Magento 2.2 from Magento 2.1. And these challenges will be based on the individual requirements of the project.

See, there’s no black and white solution here. And eventually, the decision to make the switch ultimately comes down to what your eCommerce store needs and how well Magento 2 can fulfill them. So, don’t forget to analyze this before you take the plunge.