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Did you know that there are hundreds of options for open-source shopping carts and online catalogs? I didn’t. It almost seems like there are too many options.
Since we are talking open source, there is little competition or cooperation across programming languages. You can also build your shopping cart on top of various CMS. This yields a lot of variety, and since nobody wants to learn a new language or framework to work on a project without revenue, there is no incentive to consolidate.
I am one of the rare programmers that knows a little bit of a lot of languages, but has not committed to one yet. I want to help out with a great project and make it better, and at this point all options are open. The ideal project would have a wide, but solid foundation, designed with growth in mind.
So now I am calling out into open space to ask anyone that knows a shopping cart, online catalog, e-commerce, etc. project well to contact me and pitch why I should join the project. If you are building or using open source software in this category that you can honestly say is best of class, please let me know.
Here is what I have found so far. You will notice several of these work with WordPress. I started here because WordPress is the definition of a great open-source project, but I am open.
- http://www.zen-cart.com/
- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/eshop/
- http://shopplugin.net/
- http://www.magentocommerce.com/
- http://www.instinct.co.nz/e-commerce/
- http://tribulant.com/products/view/10/wordpress-shopping-cart-plugin
- http://www.markettheme.com/tour/comparison
I have also found a few blogs etc. discussing choice of shopping carts.
- http://www.s-page.net/en/2008/04/13/test_zenv138_and_wp25/
- http://www.cregy.net/wp-shop/
- http://n0tablog.wordpress.com/howtos/wordpress-zen-cart-integration/
- http://wordpress.org/tags/cart
- http://www.webmaster404.com/wordpress-shopping-cart/
- http://www.blogcatalog.com/topic/wordpress+shopping+cart/
- http://speckyboy.com/2008/10/23/10-powerful-shoppingecommerce-plugin-solutions-for-wordpress/
- http://www.davidbisset.com/2008/01/28/wordpress-ecommerce-shopping-cart-plugin/
- http://mu.wordpress.org/forums/topic.php?id=10307
- http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=41964
- http://www.briggs.net.nz/log/projects/yak-for-wordpress/
- http://www.idratherbewriting.com/2007/01/02/wordpress-shopping-carts/
- http://www.dotsauce.com/2008/03/04/wordpress-market-theme/
- http://www.websitetology.com/?p=184
- http://www.briggs.net.nz/log/2008/11/19/esoteric-functionality/
- http://blog.tribulant.com/shopping-cart-plugin/wordpress-shopping-cart-plugin-v12/
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Thanks for the info
This is a good list. I’m just not sure if a paid plugin or free is better…
This is a great list… but you are missing oscommerce which is also a great, free open source shopping cart system.
I used to use oscommerce easy but look difficult for me. I mean difficult to customize (or may be I’m not expert in CMS)
I think for the new trend it should be wp shopping because wp is the best for seo blog. It should be help to get traffic and get sale in the long term.
That is good to know if I decide to open my online store. I like anything open source
thank you for that tip! I
Oscommerce…..I love it….plenty of modules and easy to program too.
Thanks for this useful article. I’ve used OSCommerce and Zen-Cart before but actually prefer sites that are built from scratch and then link into a free online cart system such as Mals E-commerce (www.mals-e.com) as this gives complete freedom of design.
I’m using Zen Cart and OS Commerce. They are one of the best shopping cart I found on the web.
And there was me about to sign up for another paid version of Roman Cart. Can anyone with a bit of techy know-how recommend which of these is the easiest to set-up if you don’t have the aforementioned know-how? And also if any of them will work with WebPlus 10?
These blogs are really good sources if you want to compare diiferent open source shopping carts. I’ve been using zen cart and i can say I am definitely satisfied with it.
Fantastic selection of carts here.
Really Easy Cart is another great shopping cart system that also offers an amazingly simple CMS
thx for the best open source link bro… it was very useful for me….
Minor correction for you: the link to my site (http://www.briggs.net.nz/log/projects/yak-for-wordpress/) is not a discussion about “a choice of shopping cart” — rather it’s the project page for the YAK shopping cart for WordPress. So perhaps belongs in the first list.
Hi there. Thank you for listing the Tribulant WordPress shopping cart plugin! Best, Antonie
Another great open-source shopping cart is cubecart – it’s worth mentioning. If you want to use this shopping cart you can easily switch to it with cart2cart web service. It automates data migration to cubecart http://www.shopping-cart-migration.com
Great article,
We use Zen cart, but have thought about swapping our shopping cart for a while now,
Thanks
Keep working, great job, I love it!