About Magento

Magento is an open source e-commerce web application that was launched on March 31, 2008. It was developed by Varien (now Magento Inc) with help from the programmers within the open source community but is owned solely by Magento Inc. Magento was built using the Zend Framework. It uses the entity-attribute-value (EAV) database model to store data.

As an e-commerce platform, Magento allows for features including product display options, mobile templates, transaction options, multi-store and multi-site functionality, user accounts and loyalty programs, product categorisation and shopper filtering, and discount and promotion rules.

As a web platform, Magento uses its own model-view-controller (MVC) model. The differences between the traditional model and Magento's model are the following:

• The use of a layout file to control what's displayed on each view.
• The use of "blocks" that can be inserted into any view easily via the layout.
• The use of a model re-write system.

Why Use Magento?

Well there are quite a few very good reasons to use Magento:

• A Simple Intuitive Interface
• Easy To Download, Install & Maintain
• Built on current technologies unlike other systems.
• Multiple Site Functionality
• And best of all…It’s free and open source!