The question of Magento Community vs Magento Enterprise confuses a lot of new Magento merchants.  Most get fixated on the price, with Community being free and Enterprise coming with a large price tag.

But is that the only thing one should consider?  Probably not.  While most Web 2 Market clients use the CE edition, some clients absolutely require the EE edition.  Here are two quick lists that will help you make the decision quickly.

Why Magento Community (CE)?

• First of all, it is free; you just can’t beat the price.
• More than 3,000 extensions are available
• It is designed for small and medium owners.
• Handles 10,000 visitors per month with less than 500 orders.
• Install Responsive Designer themes without messing up the core code files.
• Setup payment modes like Credit Card transactions, PayPal and PayPal Express, Amazon Payments, Google Checkout, Money Order, Checks etc.
• Set up Shipping Rules for Free Shipping, Ship by Weight, Flat Rates etc.
• Integrate Shipping Options like USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL etc.
• Setup Tax Rates per location.
• Setup more than one store in many languages and local currency or retail and wholesale sites.
• Single admin interface to monitor and maintain the  stores.
• Persistent Shopping Cart.
• Layered Navigation for filtering products in categories and search results.
• Manual cross sell and up sell of products.
• Setup promos and coupons using the Pricing Rules.
• Web Services API to connect with 3^rd Party software.
• In addition, the ability to edit customer info.
• Create newsletter subs and Polls.
• Bulk upload products and images.
• Create virtual, download and digital products.
• Create single, configurable (size, color, brand), Bundled and Grouped Products.
• Full page Caching for quicker loading time of the page.
• Auto-generated site map and Google site map (XML) so search engines can index all the pages.
• Create search friendly URLs.
• Add keyword rich Page Titles and Meta Description.
• Allow Gift Messages.
• 24 x 7 x 365 Customer Support.
• Finally, it includes Google Analytics links.

Why Magento Enterprise (EE)?

• To start with, it includes all the above Magento Community Features.
• Caters to large scale merchants.
• More than 3,000 extensions are available
• It runs fast with more than 3,000,000 products in a store.
• Accommodates more than 50,000 visitors per month with orders over 1,000 per day.
• Scales so that the high traffic load is spread over several servers.
• In addition, fast indexing of Large Catalogs.
• Instantaneous update of price and new products.
• Quick and easy Rollback System so mistakes are easy to correct.
• Gift Wrapping for certain products.
• Gift Registry.
• Privileged Private Sales function.
• Loyalty Programs.
• Store Credit and Gift cards.
• Restricted Permissions Access and Login for admins on per site basis.
• Built in Returns Management System so you have fewer customer service calls.
• Automated cross sell and up sell  for selling more products.
• Advanced Tax Management according to Zones, States and Country so you can sell in any country.
• Finally, a personalized Shopping Experience with Customer Segments.

Magento Community vs Magento Enterprise

In conclusion, which is best?  Generally, we’ll recommend EE for clients with higher volumes of traffic and/or large numbers of products.  However, there are other factors to consider as well.  In doubt?  Talk with one of our Magento Certified Solutions Specialists.