Magento is a commerce content management system or commerce management system (CMS), you might be wondering about the difference between Magento and WordPress/Joomla/Drupal; the difference is that Magento is built from the ground up to do one thing which is build an online store, so its management system is optimized to do so and its themes are designed to serve that purpose. Many companies relies on Magento as a backbone for their eCommerce; Vizio, Samsung Online Mobile Shop, Lindt, Lenovo Outlet, Ford Accessories, get Olympus are just a few.
There are three versions of Magento; Magento Community which is the free open source version. The second is Magento Go which is a subscription service similar to Shopify, the subscription starts from 15$/month. The third is Magento Enterprise which is an annual subscription service that starts from 15,500 $ annually. Though Magento has a market share of more than 26% it still has many alternatives and Zen Cart is one of them.
Now, to the important question, why would you learn Magento? The answer is simple, Magento as a tool can empower you in many ways; if you’re a web developer and you’re relying on WordPress/Drupal/Joomla as a CMS for your websites and one of your clients wants you to build them an online shopping website then learning Magento would be a savior for you as it has everything you need just out of the box (no need to install special plugins and themes that would affect the performance of the website). If you’re a small business owner and you want to boost your business by creating an online presence then learning Magento would help you accomplish so without paying for a web developer. Finally learning Magento would help you find a part/full time well paid job as there’re few Magento developers right now but the online shopping industry is booming worldwide.