Top 10 Open-source e-Commerce Shopping Carts

Are you looking into launching an online store but you are on a tight budget? You might want to consider using an open-source eCommerce shopping cart for this as paid solutions like Shopify and BigCommerce aren’t necessarily better than free applications.

For instance, open-source applications can have anywhere from dozens to thousands of active developers, so the development of features is faster compared to paid ones – at least for the most part.

Before proceeding, do note that most of these shopping carts will require you to have some technical knowledge of setting up websites, using cPanel, and the like. But if you aren’t too tech-savvy, don’t worry because every resource listed here has its own robust documentation. And if that’s not enough, you can always refer to their community forums for help.

1. OpenCart

OpenCart is an open-source eCommerce app that both beginners and seasoned online entrepreneurs can use to launch an online store. Right now, it’s probably the most popular open-source shopping cart with a large community of developers and users behind it who are always ready to help.

There are hundreds of both free and paid plugins in its marketplace, ranging from reporting tools, import/export, payment gateway integration, themes, SEO tools, and the like. The only downside OpenCart has is that it relies on plugins for it to fully work, so the setup might take some time.

That said, the developers of OpenCart regularly release software updates, and if you are technical enough to do your own customization, then you might just discover that it’s a really powerful tool.

As it is, it has a really good administrator dashboard that will give you a quick overview of what is happening in your store. Sales, customers, active visitors, and other widgets that you want to see on your dashboard.

Check out the demo here.

Pros:

• Multilingual.
• Supports product reviews and product ratings.
• Supports more than 20 payment gateways.
• Strong integration between OpenCart and external applications.

Cons:

• Lags behind in marketing-related features.
• Customization is limited to technically-savvy users.
• Takes a bit of time to setup.

2. AbanteCart

AbanteCart is another open-source shopping cart with a very active community behind it. Both users and developers are actively exchanging ideas to develop the software further. While it’s not the number one pick for many, AbanteCart has been around since 2011 and has seen its fair share of updates – and it’s still being constantly updated depending on the users’ needs.

In Tagalog (a major language in the Philippines), Abante means “to move forward”, so the developers are literally telling its users that AbanteCart was built to lead. And rightly so, it is 100% open-source, with accessible code that developers can use to customize online stores.

One surprising thing about AbanteCart is it has its own digital personal assistant like Siri – it features a voice-controlled dashboard…for some reason. Which is surprising!

Check out the demo here.

Pros:

• Supports multi-store functionality.
• Stock tracking and management.
• API integration.
• Good marketing tools like discounts, promo pricing, coupons, custom shipping rates, etc.
• Has a Siri-like assistant in the admin dashboard.

Cons:

• Regular users will find it difficult to setup.
• Documentation is not made for regular users.
• The UI is not exactly stellar.

3. WooCommerce

People who have used WordPress and are into online selling most likely have heard of WooCommerce at some point. It’s an all-in-one suite of tools that can be integrated with any WordPress blog so you can launch an online store.

At its default setup, you can already run your online store. It will probably take you around 30 minutes to set it up – products, shipping rate, attributes, and the like.

The only downside I can see with WooCommerce is that it only works on WordPress and heavily relies on paid plugins for advanced features. If you need to customize the attributes of products for variants, then you might end up needing to spend more and more money as you go along.

On the plus side, there are also a lot of free plugins and themes from external developers. Some work fine, some don’t, so it’s kind of a hit or miss. But that said, WooCommerce is easily one of the top open-source shopping carts.

Pros:

• Great for SEO.
• Great sales management.
• Easy to install, no need to be tech-savvy.
• There are an abundance of custom-made plugins (free and paid).

Cons:

• No built-in abandoned cart saver.
• A lot of advanced functions are paid, this could easily pile up.
• Some support inquiries are for premium users only.

4. PrestaShop

If you ask people who have been selling online for a while now which open-source cart they can recommend to you, 9 out of 10 will mention PrestaShop. And rightly so because PrestaShop is one of the leading open-source ecommerce software right now.

As of writing this, there are nearly over 300,000 online stores actively using it. It’s an all-in-one CMS for eCommerce businesses – offering analytics, an intuitive admin dashboard, a really well-designed UI, and a bunch of other features that would benefit free users.

The only downside is, if you want to customize your store and you’re not a web developer, chances are you’ll need to hire one. Aside from that, I think everything checks out for PrestaShop!

Check out the demo here.

Pros:

• An abundance of modules and templates for free.
• Easy to setup.
• Great UI and UX.

Cons:

• No abandoned cart saver.
• A lot of templates are messily built (code-wise).
• A lot of functions and templates are paid.

5. CubeCart

CubeCart is one of the most powerful shopping carts out there that businesses of all sizes can use. It’s open-source so it’s free, but unlike other open-source shopping carts, CubeCart offers support to all of its users.

The best thing about CubeCart is its integrations. It natively supports MailChimp, eBay, Amazon, Xero, QuickBooks, and a bunch of other applications that are necessary for an online business.

And since it’s free and open-source, you can customize it to your heart’s content. Also, if you’re not sure what you are doing, you can always ask the thousands of active users (both casual and developers) for help.

Check out the demo here.

Pros:

• Tons of free features that are not free in other ecommerce platforms.
• Has a very intuitive interface.
• API integration.

Cons:

• Templates could use more work.
• Official support channels may lag behind compared to others.

6. LiteCart

LiteCart is a simple but fully-featured open-source shopping cart that is used by thousands of businesses. At its default state, it features a well-designed interface, unlimited products, categories, customers, and the like. It allows users to add and customize product options, manage stocks, and many more.

The advantage of using LiteCart is that it is very easy to use and install. Unlike other shopping carts that require you to have a bit of knowledge in servers and coding, LiteCart can be installed automatically on your server. If you have cPanel, just look for Softaculous and you can find it featured there.

LiteCart also claims that it is faster than 99% of all websites, especially online stores. It has been continuously optimized to reduce the page load, server load, bandwidth usage, and power consumption — and these variables are also important for SEO, in case you didn’t know.

Check out the demo here.

Pros:

• Perfect for beginners and small businesses.
• It’s an all-in-one solution for beginners in the ecommerce scene.
• Admin dashboard and site speed is fast.

Cons:

• There is a glaring lack of public review from its users and other review sites, which is odd.
• Support quality is just average.
• Probably not the best platform for medium to large size businesses.

7. nopCommerce

nopCommerce is an open-source eCommerce shopping cart with a lot of features that online businesses can utilize. It caters to both beginners and established businesses with all of its comprehensive features.

Also, unlike others, it supports several languages like Arabic, Bengali, Danish, German, English, Japanese, Russian, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese among others.

One advantage of using nopCommerce is one of its features enables multi-vendor and multi-warehouse management, which isn’t something readily available to other eCommerce platforms, even for paid ones.

Check out the demo here.

Pros:

• Good active community support.
• Fully-featured ecommerce platform from promotions, marketing, mult-store, multi-vendore, multi-warehouse management.
• Great architecture for developers to build upon on.

Cons:

• Difficult to install for non-technical people.
• Updating the core system is a bit difficult to handle if you don’t know what you are doing.

8. Zen Cart

Zen Cart is another open-source shopping cart that you can literally download and patch up on your existing website to turn it into an online store.

Like other shopping cart plugins, Zen Cart allows its users to fully customize the checkout process, integrate with several payment processors, as well as integrate with other third-party applications for a more functional online store.

As of writing this, Zen Cart boasts thousands of free plugins and templates in its arsenal.

Check out the demo here.

Pros:

• Has a massive collection of free plugins.
• Works properly on its default setting without needing to install other plugins.
• Regularly maintained and forum is active.

Cons:

• Integration with new leading apps is scarce.
• Updates are a bit slow.

9. Spree Commerce

Spree Commerce is yet another open-source shopping cart that you can use to build an online store. It features a really good admin dashboard that is perfectly suited for beginners as well as advanced users.

Spree Commerce documentation is robust and if you are still confused about anything, there is a huge community of users out there who can help you.

The only downside I can see here is if you need technical support and you are in a hurry, you have a better chance of getting help if you hire someone to work on your issue, rather than fully rely on the community for help.

But that said, you can integrate a bunch of third-party applications with Spree Commerce, and it also works with dozens of payment gateways.

Check out the demo here.

Pros:

• Active community of Spree users, both regular and developers.
• Easy to setup.
• Tons of free third-party plugins for extended functionality.

Cons:

• Customizing will require advanced coding skills.
• Compared to other mainstream ecommerce platform, Spree has fewer integrations with applications that matter when it comes to an online store, like with Xero, ShipStation, and the like.

10. Mailchimp Open Commerce

Mailchimp is a well-known brand in the online world, so once Mailchimp adopted Reaction Commerce and renamed it Mailchimp Open Commerce, the open-source development of this eCommerce platform has just become better.

Mailchimp Open Commerce has an extensive documentation that beginners and experts can follow to install, customize, and launch an online store. It might not be the easiest thing for non-technical people, but if you get the hang of it, you’ll discover that compared to other eCommerce platforms, this one offers more advanced features – especially if you are heavily into APIs and developing your own custom plugins.

Pros:

• Acquired by MailChimp, a trusted company in the marketing industry.
• Speed of update is topnotch since there are hundreds of active contributors.
• API integration.

Cons:

• As of writing this, there are 91 open issues on their Github page that are stil unresolved.

More:

OsCommerce

OsCommerce Online Merchant is an open-source online shop e-commerce solution that is available for free under the GNU General Public License.

It features a rich set of out-of-the-box online shopping cart functionality that allows store owners to setup, run, and maintain online stores with minimum effort and with no costs, fees, or limitations involved.

CREloaded

CRE Loaded is much more than your average shopping cart. It’s the industry’s first downloadable e-commerce system that makes your store fully compliant with all Payment Card Industry (PCI) security rules.

Organize, manage, and ship your products from your online store. Accept credit card transactions safely.

Zeuscart

The Zeuscart shopping cart is based on PHP application, and it is used as a scripting language, which facilitates the developer in making dynamically driven websites. It is very facile to learn and understand.

To be precise, the application of PHP is most popular because of its functionality, which can be changed as per one’s requirements.

Agoracart

Offers an extensive range of features that allow you to set up an online storefront or shop ranging from a simple template-based store for novices to the integration of complex web design concepts created by your web designer.

VirtueMart

The complete e-commerce shopping cart solution for Joomla! – used by thousands of store owners. It can be run in Store- and Catalog-Mode.

With its powerful Administration Tool, you can handle an unlimited number of Categories, Products, Orders, Discounts, Shopper Groups, and Customers. VirtueMart works for both Joomla and Mambo.

RokQuickCart

RokQuickCart is a simple shopping cart for Joomla. It takes a simple, yet elegant, shopping cart script and integrates directly into Joomla.

It allows you to showcase products, inclusive of images, descriptions, and additional options, and purchase these items, with support for shipping and tax calculation.

SimpleCaddy

Integrate a simple shopping cart into your content. There is no need to set up a complete system like VirtueMart if you are only selling a few items or don’t want to set up an entire shop.

CS-Cart

CS-Cart is an “out of the box” e-commerce software solution with easy-to-use functionality that allows starting selling online immediately.

Its feature set fits into businesses of any size, from a small single-product shop to a fully-featured online storefront. Designed for ease of use and flexibility, CS-Cart is equipped with the latest e-commerce innovations (like one-page checkout, AJAX-based web interface, block manager, and others) built into a highly configurable and modifiable sales and promotion engine.

Fortune3 Ecommerce Software

Fortune3’s Shopping Cart software is a completely customizable and professional shopping cart that includes thousands of features and tools to make managing your online store easy and fast.

Their powerful Windows software, the Fortune3 Wizard, stands out from the rest, it includes a built-in HTML WYSIWYG editor and a superb Product Management interface that cannot be compared to any web-based e-commerce software.

You can download a 30-day trial of the full version of Fortune3, and build your e-commerce site for free for 30 days.

X-cart

X-Cart shopping cart software is based on PHP Smarty templates; this makes it very flexible and easy to modify.

The data is stored in a MySQL database. X-Cart is a turnkey package. Installation is handled by a web-based step-by-step wizard to make the system running immediately after receiving it. It is also search engine friendly.

A merchant can specify meta tags and define custom URLs for product and category pages that result in higher search engine rankings.

Pinnacle Cart

Pinnacle Cart is an extremely powerful PHP shopping cart and website builder. Designed from a marketing perspective, this eCommerce application is feature-packed, robust, scalable, and easy to use.

Pinnacle Cart is the clear choice for serious merchants focused on rapidly and cost-effectively deploying, managing, and growing a successful web-based business.

Cmsaccount Photo Store Script

Photo store software for selling your photos, images, artwork, audio, videos, vector illustrations, and prints online.

Ktools Photostore

PhotoStore allows you to set up a complete photo selling website on your server or hosting space in just minutes.

This is atmost suitable for professional photographers looking to sell their images or prints to their customers online.

To End

So, are you ready to start your online business now? It might take you some time to check and test which of these shopping carts is the best fit for your needs, but I hope you can find what you are looking for here. If we missed anything, please let us know in the comments!