Free open source eCommerce platforms – the good, the bad and the ugly

Open source eCommerce platforms are a great, inexpensive way of getting started with a web store.  Some open source carts use a freemium business model, this means that the basic cart software is free but you will have to pay for many (quite pricey) addons and support. We’ve stuck with PHP here – there are some ASP.net solutions but PHP is really where it’s at for open source software. This is designed to be a basic overview and may help top narrow down selecting between a few different carts. This is not a feature breakdown or comparison.

The Good:

• Magento: Some may disagree with this but Magento is certainly a powerhouse of open source eCommerce software. It’s certainly not for the faint hearted – you will often require a dedicated server (minimum VPS) to run Magento well and it’s a pretty complex system. However, with complexity comes great flexibility and Magento has been used in some very large projects and continues to grow from strength to strength. Unless you’re an experienced web developer, you would probably need some help setting up a Magento store. There’s a large Magento development community which is great for free support and there is a large amount of addons are available to extend the functionality. Magento uses the freemium business model.
• PrestaShop: PrestaShop is a relatively new open source eCommerce platform but has grown massively in its short amount of time. Not quite as scary as Magento but very feature rich and offers a great deal of flexibility. Development has been rapid but the release schedules always seem to be some way off their initial estimates, which can be very frustrating. A large number of users means there’s a decent support community and there are plenty of addons available – both free and paid. PrestaShop uses the freemium business model.
• OpenCart: Again, a relatively new open source eCommerce platform but development has been rapid and new features are constantly being added. OpenCart isn’t very demanding in terms of server resources, although it’s probably a good idea to run it on a VPS if you plan on being PCI compliant. It has a good approach to templating which lends itself well to rapid development. It may not be quite as feature rich as Magento or PrestaShop but there’s a good amount of addons available (both free and paid) and in general, the premium addons are the cheapest out of any of the shopping carts.

The Bad and The Ugly:

• ZenCart: Based on osCommerce (another to avoid!) ZenCart is not looking extremely dated and lacks many basic features that are standard in OpenCart, Magento and PrestaShop. There really isn’t a reason now to be using this above the other better open source carts. A few years ago this was about as good as it got, but thankfully things have moved on leaps and bounds since then leaving this cart looking shallow in comparison to its rivals. It recently received an update but prior to that, updates have been few and far between.
• osCommerce: Very popular once due to lack of competition but now osCommerce is lacking in features and is totally insecure. Again, there is no reason to use this above other newer and much better open source eCommerce solutions.
• Any WordPress eCommerce solution: Here’s the deal; WordPress is a great  (arguably the best!) blogging platform, but all of the eCommerce addons fall way too short of the mark. They do have some merit if your site is primarly a blog and you want to sell a few products, but other than this WordPress is simply not suited to eCommerce (yet).

Disagree with any of the above? Why not air your opinion in the comments section. Any other worthy contenders? let us know!