1C-Bitrix Editions: Selection, Comparison, and Upgrade
You bought "Small Business," launched a store, traffic grew to 5,000 unique visitors/day — and the site went down. Composite cache? Only in "Business." Web cluster? Same story. Upgrading means paying the price difference plus the work of configuring new modules. Had you chosen the right edition from the start, you'd have saved both money and headaches. We help you pick the edition that matches your real-world needs, configure it, and migrate if necessary.
1C-Bitrix Editions: Site Management
Four editions, and the difference between them isn't about "number of features" — it's about which core modules are available:
Start. The bare minimum — content modules only:
- Information blocks (
iblock) - Web forms (
form) - Basic SEO
- Email newsletters
- Vendor support
- Best for: business cards, landing pages. There's no
salemodule here — you can't build a store
Standard. Content + communications:
- Everything from "Start"
- Blog, social network, forum
- Extended support
- Best for: corporate sites, portals with UGC, online communities
Small Business. The first edition with e-commerce — this is where the sale module appears:
- Catalog, cart, orders, payment via
sale.order.ajax - 1C integration through the
catalogmodule - Basic set of delivery and payment handlers
- Up to ~10,000 products — a comfortable ceiling without serious optimization
- Best for: small stores, catalogs with ordering
Business. The full package — including key modules for high-load scenarios:
- Everything from "Small Business"
-
Composite cache (
main.composite) — HTML is served without launching PHP. In practice, TTFB drops from 800ms to 50-80ms. A difference every visitor can feel -
Web cluster (
cluster) — horizontal scaling: multiple application servers, load balancing, MySQL master-slave replication - Multi-site — multiple sites on a single license with a shared admin panel
-
Multi-warehouse —
b_catalog_storewith separate stock levels - REST API — for mobile apps and external integrations
- Best for: large stores, marketplaces, projects with 10K+ visitors/day
Bitrix24 — A Separate Product
Bitrix24 is a CRM and corporate portal. Don't confuse it with "Site Management" — different license, different product:
- Free — up to 5 users, basic CRM, tasks, chat
-
Basic — up to 5 users, CRM without automation, built-in online store (not to be confused with
salefrom "Site Management") - Standard — up to 50 users, CRM automation, business processes
- Professional — up to 100 users, end-to-end analytics, HR
- Enterprise — from 250 users, cluster, HIPAA, multi-portal
On-premise versions are a separate license tier (CRM, Company, Enterprise, Holding).
How to Choose: Specific Criteria
By project type:
- Business card, landing page → Start (
salemodule not needed) - Corporate site with blog/forum → Standard
- Store with up to 5,000 products, traffic up to 1,000/day → Small Business
- Store with 5,000+ products, marketplace, traffic 1,000+/day → Business
By modules — hard limitations:
- 1C data exchange (
catalogmodule) → minimum "Small Business" - Composite cache (
main.composite) → "Business" only - Web cluster (
cluster) → "Business" only - Multi-site → "Business" only
- REST API → "Business" only
By load:
- Up to 1,000 unique visitors/day — any edition will handle it
- 1,000-10,000/day — "Small Business" with nginx/php-fpm tuning hits its ceiling. "Business" with composite cache is the right choice
- 10,000+/day — "Business" with composite and cluster. No alternatives
By budget:
- The difference between editions is 2-5x
- Upgrade at any time — pay the difference in license cost
- Our principle: go with the minimum sufficient edition. But if you know you'll need composite in six months — get "Business" right away, because upgrading also means configuration work
Edition Upgrade
1C-Bitrix allows upgrading editions without reinstallation — your data is preserved:
- Pay the price difference
- Activate the new key in "Settings" → "Updates" → "Registration"
- Install newly available modules via "Modules" in the admin panel
- Configure the new functionality
- Test compatibility
What we do during an upgrade:
- Check custom code for conflicts with new modules — especially if there are custom event handlers like
OnBeforeOrderAdd,OnSaleBasketSaved - Enable and configure composite cache — not just flipping on
main.compositein settings, but setting proper exclude masks for dynamic pages (cart, checkout, personal account) - Set up multi-warehouse if needed —
b_catalog_store, warehouse selection rules - Run the full functionality through staging
- Document all changes
License: Renewal and Risks
An active license provides:
- Updates — new versions, security patches, bug fixes
- Marketplace — installing solutions from the catalog
- Vendor support
- SiteUpdate — the module update system
When it expires, the site keeps working but without updates. For stores, this is dangerous — security patches close vulnerabilities in sale, catalog, and main modules. A data breach from b_sale_order or b_user is a matter of time. Renewal costs significantly less than purchasing a new license.
"Site Management" + Bitrix24 Bundle
A common scenario: a site on 1C-Bitrix + CRM in Bitrix24:
- Orders from
b_sale_order→ leads/deals in Bitrix24 CRM automatically - SSO — single sign-on between the site and the portal
- Client database and order history synchronization
- Site forms (
formor custom) → leads into the CRM funnel
These are two separate licenses and two separate products — but the integration between them is native and works reliably.
Practical Recommendations
- Don't skimp on the edition if you know for certain you'll need the functionality in six months. Upgrade = the same price difference + configuration and testing work
- "Business" for projects with growth ambitions — composite cache pays for the price difference with the first traffic spike. Without composite, at 3,000+ unique visitors/day the server starts struggling
- Bitrix24 ≠ "Site Management" — different products, different licenses. Confusing them costs money
- Renew your license annually — renewal costs significantly less than buying a new one, and without updates you're left with unpatched CVEs
We'll consult you on edition selection — we'll tell you what fits your specific project, current load, and growth plans.