The Best Open-Source E-Commerce or Online Shopping CMS

dotocom · Jul 25, 2010

Hi Blackhatters,

There's so many open source e-commerce CMS available.
I've done a fair bit of research but it's still very hard to make an informed decision on which service to use.

I hope this post will help find information on:
1. Pro/Con's for each service
2. What makes the service unique
3. The reason why X is the best service over all the others

Here are the lists of popular Open Source E-Commerce CMS:

1. Magneto
2. Zen-Cart
3. OSCommerce
4. Presta Shop
5. Open Cart
6. WP e-Commerce (WP plugin)
7. eShop (WP plugin)
8. YAK for wordpress (WP plugin)
9. Ubercart (Drupal extension)
10. VirtueMart (Joomla! extension)

As you can see, I've listed 10 and there are many more out there. Testing all of these thoroughly would take months so I would be grateful if the people who have used some of these could leave their feedback. Thanks!

dotocom · Jul 25, 2010

Wordpress
Pros:
-Search engine friendly and great support (auto-pinging, frequent updates of wordpress)
-Basic SEO plugin (like all-in-one SEO) makes it easy to set: title, description, tags

Cons:
-Very limited number of free e-commerce themes
-WP is designed for blogs, not for e-commerce (whereas other CMS designed specifically for shopping is more specialized and perhaps suitable for making shopping sites)
-May be difficult to customize pages for newbies (ie - featured products to come up on top, etc) - whereas e-commerce CMS may have that readily available

Magneto
I haven't tested this one.
However, the fact they have a PAID and FREE plan may make other CMS more attractive because they might cover those "PAID" features for free (please verify this someone!)

Paid vs Free Magneto

http://www.magentocommerce.com/product/compare

meathead1234 · Jul 25, 2010

Get Magento. Best by far.

dotocom · Jul 25, 2010

meathead1234 said:
Get Magento. Best by far.

Could you tell us why its better than the rest?

Thanks

meathead1234 · Jul 25, 2010

Good question lol. I'm not a developer but all my e-commerce sites use Magento. You don't need the paid version as you can get a ton of free plugins etc to make what you want out of it.

dotocom · Jul 25, 2010

Presta Shop looks like its in the lead according to the polls.

I found the following reviews:

Pros:
-good support with large number of users

Cons:
-many modules (/plugins) are PAID
ie- the SEO module costs 150 euros, Facebook Like button costs 30EUROS!!!! (thats insane!)

See Presta Shop modules here:

http://www.prestastore.com/

What are the other pros and cons for Presta Shop, would love to know!!!

dotocom · Jul 25, 2010

Here's a video review of Magento:

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/925-The-PeC-Review-Magento-Is-the-Open-Source-Powerhouse-

According to the guy:
Pros: wide diversity of functions (like comparing products)
Cons: difficult to take advantage of it fully due to technical knowledge requirement

dotocom · Jul 25, 2010

Electron said:
you should see if you can steal yourself a copy of this: http://www.bigcommerce.com/

interspire made it.

edit: nvm its hosted. i know the interspire shopping cart isnt hosted tho http://www.interspire.com/shoppingcart/

thanks for the link, but I'll stick with the legit CMS's because it's hard to find updated versions of PAID CMS constantly updated. I'm also scared of running into problems later when my shopping site's doing well

Thanks for the tip though!

dotocom · Jul 25, 2010

You can demo the PrestaShop here:

http://www.prestashop.com/en/showcase_demo/

I find it has 100times more features than any of the Wordpress plugins and is specifically engineered for e-commerce so I would say it's definitely better for this purpose.

dotocom · Jul 26, 2010

Haven't heard anything about Zen Cart.

Does anybody here have experience with Zen Cart???

Magento: installation turns out to be much harder than PrestaShop. Also, reviews from other people say Magento runs slower due to the complexity of the program compared to PrestaShop.

thegtz · Jul 26, 2010

I would say that your e-commerce cart depends on your preference and/or what you are selling. Like currently I am using Open Cart as it meets all my needs that I need right now.

dotocom · Jul 26, 2010

thegtz said:
I would say that your e-commerce cart depends on your preference and/or what you are selling. Like currently I am using Open Cart as it meets all my needs that I need right now.

I'm trying the demo of Open Cart:

http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route=demonstration/demonstration

I've OFFICIALLY given up on Magento. I truly believe it's one of the best CMS out there but I can't install it! Furthermore, according to the reviews I read, it gets even harder when you try to customize, fiddle with the program, etc.

I'm personally creating a store with ONLY a maximum of 25 items.
Magento is specialized for stores with 1000's of products. Thats why I'm making an ass-upmtion that other e-commerce CMS are better suited for small-to-medium users like myself.

dotocom · Jul 26, 2010

Open Cart Demo:

http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route=demonstration/demonstration

PrestaShop Demo:

http://www.prestashop.com/en/showcase_demo/

If I'm a customer, I would 100% buy from the Open Cart Demo store because it's more user-friendly. Browse through and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about (see individual product page). I'm sure you can configure that on PrestaShop but the standard store theme is more aesthetically attractive on Open Cart.

OSCommerce:
The demo is a complete joke. It's ugly and it looks like the site came from the 90's.

http://demo.oscommerce.com/

I'm not sure about the further improvements it can be made in regards to design.

SEO and Availability of Extensions
I'll assess the SEO capabilities of both OpenCart and PrestaShop.
Extensions on OpenCart are limited compared to PrestaShop but OpenCart offers more free extensions.

Fhenrir · Jul 26, 2010

Magento no question.

greyhatdude · Jul 26, 2010

I had bad experiences with both WP e-Commerce and eShop (Wordpress plugins) - the SEO might be great and the datafeed posts can be fed straight to twitter (which gets massive impulse-buying traffic) but if the sites are large (like with a datafeedr/commission junction site), then IMHO they're fugly and difficult to navigate. They're fine if you have less than 100 products, but beyond that they're ugly ass beasts. I'm switching my home site from Wordpress to Joomla this week because I want to build a few projects on that platform, and I like their menu/navigation/templating systems, so I'll be using Virtue Mart. Virtuemart looks very flexible and full featured including paypal functionality and automated dropshipping/inventory tracking - plus, the "VM Affiliate" plugin allows you to set up your own affiliate program. You could even theoretically setup a niche dropshipping business and then whitelabel it, charging people money for you to set up joomla/virtuemart stores that sell your dropshipped products through your affiliate program (edit: inventorysource.com can set up the dropshipping. I'm not sure anyone else does it.).

6hundy · Jul 27, 2010

interspire shopping cart is very nice and the new version 6.0 should be incredible. its not free but there are versions floating around that you can get. very easy to use and looks great.

juztin · Jul 27, 2010

1. Magento
2. Oscommerce
3. Wordpress

I started with Oscommerce and now running on Magento.
I am starting to use wordpress also. And I can conclude that Wordpress has the most powerful plugins for SEO

they just need to make more modules and with time wordpress will be a very powerful ecart

enetjojo · Jul 27, 2010

i'm using zencart at present, thought you have to pay for Magento. will try Magento on the next project since it has got many praise.

Deleted member 107938 · Jul 27, 2010

If you've given up on Magneto, Shopify is easy, cheap and all the rage at the moment.

Chojin · Jul 27, 2010

Could you recommend one that meet these requests?
- Easy to change the whole design and layout
- Supports custom fieds for products.
- Supports multiple images for products.
- Userfriendly admin interface

The Best Open-Source E-Commerce or Online Shopping CMS

The Best Open Source E-Commerce CMS

Magneto

Zen Cart

OSCommerce

Presta Shop

Open Cart

WP e-Commerce (WP plugin)

eShop (WP plugin)

YAK for Wordpress (WP plugin)

Ubercart (Drupal ext)

VirtueMart (Joomla! ext)

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