Platform for an e-commerce website - Web Server Dev

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Platform for an e-commerce website

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I have zero knowledge of web-programming. A project on which I am currently working needs to go online and it needs a payment gateway. As I have some time and interest, I thought of learning some web-programming myself and making the website. My main requirements are as follows -

* Having a webpage which is dynamic. (I must be able to change it at any point of time.)
* It must have a secure payment gateway with a shopping basket/cart facility.
* I shall be able to upload image files and pdf files on it.
* Preferably open source.

Any recommendations? Is it too difficult for a newbie to build a webpage with all the facilities listed above?

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[Magento Open Source](https://magento.com/products/magento-open-source)

According [to Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magento#Magento_Open_Source):

> Magento Open Source, previously Magento Community Edition, is an open-source eCommerce platform. Developers can implement the core files and extend its functionality by adding new plug-in modules provided by other developers. Since the first public beta version was released in 2007, Magento Open Source has been developed and customized in order to provide a basic eCommerce platform.

> but it will be limited in what it allows you to do compared to Magento/Drupal I have to say that this is an assumption. But then again, maybe flexibility doesn't matter as much right now since your requirements are very common to have in a shop.

[Long comment ahead. Not sure if worthy as an answer since it's a generic "advice"] A thing to be aware of with solutions like Magento Open Source and Drupal Commerce is that you have to set up hosting yourself. You also have to configure the payment gateway as well. The payment gateways are separate "modules" you have to choose yourself and install. With these solutions, you'd still pay a monthly fee/transaction fees but directly to the hosting and payment gateway companies. And to implement your other requirements would most likely require installing and configuring modules/plugins instead of actual web programming. You can learn web programming if you choose to customize a behaviour and their API definitely have more flexibility than solutions like 'Shopify'. Solutions like 'Shopify' on the other hand have hosting and payment built-in. You can add custom behaviour / features with their API---which is where you'll have an opportunity to learn web-programming--but it will be limited in what it allows you to do compared to Magento/Drupal. Shopify is not open-source but a quick google of shopify-like open-source alternatives shows that there are open-source alternatives. With these solutions, you pay a monthly fee and transaction fees to the e-commerce company (e.g. Shopify, PrestaShop, etc.) but you don't have to worry about managing the hosting/payment gateways and configuration.

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