Hi There

I am looking to set-up a Magento (Community Edition) installation for multiple clients and have researched the matter for a few days now.

I can see that the Enterprise Edition has what I need in it, but surprisingly I am not willing to shell out the $12,000 odd yearly subscription.

It seems there are a few options available to be but I am worried about the performance I will get out of the various options.

Option 1) Single install using AITOC advanced permissions module So this is really what I am after; one installation so that I can update my core files all at the same time and also manage all my store users from one place. The problems here are that I don't know anything about the reliability of this extra product and that I have to pay a bit extra. I am also worried that if I have 10 stores running off this one installation it might all slow down so much and keel over as I have heard allot about Magento's slowness.

Module Link: http://www.aitoc.com/en/magentomods_advanced_permissions.html

Option 2) Multiple installations of Magento on one server for each shop So here I have 10 Magento installations on one server all running happily away not using any extra money, but I now have 10 separate stores to update and maintain which could be annoying. Also I haven't been able to find a whole lot of other people using this method and when I have they are usually asking how to stop their servers from dying. So this route seems like it could be even worse on my server as I will have more going on on my server but if my server could take it each Magento installation would be simpler and less likely to slow down due to each one having to run 10 shops on its own?

Option 3) Use lots of servers and lots of Magento installations I just so do not want to do this.

Option 4) Buy Magento Enterprise I do not have the money to do this.

So which route is less likely to blow up my server? And does anyone have experience with this holy grail of a module?

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any help - Chris Hopkins