What is Sylius? A Brief Introduction

Today, people heavily rely on their smartphones, which ensures excellent business for the e-Commerce platforms. The common question that bothers most companies is the best e-commerce platform to use. Some advocate for CMSs (Content Management Systems) like Shopify or WordPress; others often pick the more complex software, such as Shopware or Magento. But among these names, have you ever heard of Sylius? Do you know how it works or the features it offers? 

In this article, we will explore in-depth this solution, its tools, and the possibilities it offers. But first, let’s understand what an open-source ecommerce platform is. 

What Is an Open-Source Ecommerce Platform?

It is essentially software useful to run and manage an online business, with direct access to the source code. Usually, these solutions are free, and the costs to be borne consist of development, hosting, and customization. However, a user can decide how much to spend on each process, giving complete control of your finances. 

In the open-source platforms, as the users can access the source code, they can add the features as per their need or modify the existing one. Hence, open-source platforms offer great flexibility and scalability to users and ensure that a solution can meet the user’s business requirements. Next, let’s explore Sylius.

How Good Is Sylius as An Open-Source Ecommerce Platform?

It is an open-source ecommerce platform based on the Symfony framework and is built from decoupled components that can be independently used in any PHP app even if the app doesn’t use Symfony. Accordingly, decide whether to go with the complete platform offered by the creators or use standalone elements to your advantage to craft a custom solution. Sylius is an API-first solution which means that it can be used as a backend to implement JavaScript ecommerce software such as a single page app, a progressive web app, or a native mobile app. Sylius can also create an online shop that suits businesses of any size, whether small, medium, or large enterprises. 

Is Sylius free?

There are two versions of Sylius – Standard, and Plus. The standard version is free, whereas the Plus version requires payment from the users to access. The free version uses open-source MIT licenses, while paid has a commerce license with an annual subscription. The amount depends on the Gross Merchandise Volume achieved with the ecommerce platform. The standard version has basic functionalities. The Plus version is equipped with the standard features and consists of enterprise-grade features such as multi-store (allows users to sell products from multiple business units or legal entities), returns management, and a loyalty system. Now let’s explore the features offered by the standard version.

Features of the Standard version

Sylius Standard allows users to create a fully functional online store with several valuable features, like:

• Order Management: Each order is linked with the channel (whether mobile app or website) it came from and the language used by the customer to make that order. 
• Shipments: Each order can have multiple shipments. 
• Payments: The solution offers support for multiple payment providers
• Taxation: Right taxes are used for different products & billing zones.  
• Product association: Here, the store owner can suggest products to customers that complement the one they are currently viewing on the ecommerce store. 
• Product Reviews: This functionality allows customers to write products reviews as per their experience with the purchase. 
• Sylius theme: This option works great when the store has more than one channel and wants a different look and feel for every channel. 

But Why Should You Use Sylius?

Now you know the main features offered by this tool; however, if you are unsure, we hope these six reasons will help you make up your mind and go with Sylius.  

• Flexibility: Owing to its astute and modern architecture and Symfony framework, every part of this platform is easily customizable.
• Scalability: Sylius is easily used on a single server or in the cloud on a multiple server architecture autoscaling. It can work wonders for large projects.
• Community: The solution enjoys a vast community with 4000 product owners, developers, and other tool specialists gathered on the Sylius channel on Slack. Anyone can join this community to get support or offer support.
• Developer-friendly: The Sylius platform offers premium code quality, a robust testing environment, and business-driven development. As tests are written in a business language, the app’s testing is faster. 
• Multiple Devices: With built-in ecommerce app interfaces in Sylius, it is easy to create native apps for Android, iOS, or progressive web apps. 
• Open-source: the platform allows the users to take part in tool development.

Sylius plugins

The organization that came up with this platform created six open-source plugins, one being Invoice Plugin that generates an invoice once a customer has made an order. Both customer and the admin can download this document.

There are more than 80 plugins in the Sylius store, which are free. The Elasticsearch plugin provides a complete search mechanism, separate from the database, which helps relieve the store’s resources. Elasticsearch allows intelligent search and offers product filters. This plugin also enables smart search and offers product filters. Developers can easily create new ones once they know how they can be written. Another helpful plugin extension is the CMS plugin that integrates the store with a CMS (content management system). This is useful to create a subpage with online shop regulations or a more effective homepage.

There is also SyliusReportPlugin by Odiseo, which allows users to add a reporting interface to the platform’s administration. It is also helpful for creating custom reports. Concerning statistical data Analytics Plugin can be used, and it adds Google Analytics tracking to the store. Or Facebook Tracking Plugin is also a good idea that allows adding Facebook Pixel for tracking visitors that come to the website through the Facebook channel. 

We hope this gives a clear idea about Sylius plugins, and you can perform integration with external systems through these plugins or even consider writing your customized integration. 

As we conclude this article, we can say that Sylius is great for many reasons, but the reason we like it the most is the flexibility it offers. The platform is easily customizable, so the business can fully get the online store made to serve their business requirements. Many companies are using this platform to create a multiple-vendor marketplace, where even the merchants selling their products can access their orders, shipping methods, and payments. Vendors also receive notification as a new order is placed, saving time spent otherwise to manage orders. 

If you need any assistance with your next e-commerce project then get in touch with Emizentech. As we have professional Sylius developers offering services globally.