Are you curious about ecommerce systems 2021? Or about best open-source ecommerce platform 2021? Read this article on ecommerce software open source Ecommerce software open source is a kind of software which is used to build online stores where users can buy and sell goods online. This type of software is free as well as open source. There are many open-source platforms used as e-commerce software, but there are some better ones too. Before deciding to use a particular platform, there are so many things that should be thought over.
If you are an entrepreneur or planning to start an online business then before starting your business, you need to find what is the best eCommerce platform in 2021. It has to be user friendly and must support all the features. We have a compiled a list of some great e-commerce software open source that will help you in starting or growing your business.
Become an open source guru in no time with these free open source ecommerce software downloads. Information about best open source ecommerce software is everywhere, but finding the right open source ecommerce software can be more of a challenge. Here’s a list that you might find useful, should you have any questions regarding open source ecommerce software or the best free open source ecommerce software.
If you want to learn about Best Free Open Source Ecommerce Software, you have come to the right place. We have researched the product listing of various ecommerce platforms, and included both free and paid options in our comparison chart.We have compared various open source…
SaaS vs Open-Source
SaaS
Software as a Service is a software licensing and delivery model in which third-party providers host key functionality such as eCommerce systems, CRM, or Content Management and make them available to website owners for an ongoing fee. Figuratively speaking, it is like renting a house; merchants pay a fee for as long as they want to use the platform.
SaaS platform providers are securing, maintaining, and hosting the platform on their own service. This means that users are limited in their ability to edit or change the software’s code.
SaaS has its own promise and appeal, and let’s face it – in our everyday lives, we prefer those types of products and services, right? And suppose you’re running an eCommerce business. In that case, you have quite a lot on your plate, even without having to endure the blame game between the developers and a hosting company or worrying about how and when to apply the latest security update (will it break something or not?).
This promise of simplicity and focusing on growing your business above all else makes SaaS solutions very interesting to many folks. One of the most popular SaaS eCommerce solutions is Shopify.
Open-Source
Open-source means that software allows its users to view, change, and distribute its source code for its own purpose. This means that the website owner is responsible for installing the system on their own server, configuring the hosting, ongoing management of all the technology, security, updates, and general running of the site.
The main advantage of an open-source eCommerce platform is that online retailers have full access to the software’s source code. If there’s functionality that you’re missing, you or your agency can build it specifically for your needs. There are also large development communities built around the platform that you can leverage. Open-source software is known for its customizability and flexibility.
Open-source platforms are powerful and customizable but also very complex, and certified developers best handle changes. Open-source software is often developed collaboratively, and there are often communities built around development related to individual platforms.
Open source solutions sound like something that solves the challenges and restrictions of SaaS, right? Well, yes and no. You can certainly accomplish a lot more with an open-source platform; however, sometimes, it can be hit and miss when selecting a good platform and, more importantly, good partners to work with.
Square Online
If you’re not particularly eager to join the Wix premium plan bandwagon, you might want to try out Square Online.
Now, for a long time, Square had fundamentally existed as a versatile payment solution. Until it finally decided to spread its wings by setting up a multi-faceted business ecosystem. You can read our full Square Online review.
So far, quite a number of people are aware that Square increasingly facilitates merchants dealing with physical businesses restaurants, coffee shops, and so forth. While that’s fairly accurate, it turns out that Square has now grown to be much more than that.
In essence, the platform offers a myriad of extensive features plus integrations that not only support brick and mortar businesses, but also ecommerce websites.
And no, we’re not only talking about digital payments here. But rather, the entire ecommerce framework. Square offers tools for pretty much all the critical online store functions- from inventory management and sales, to marketing and team coordination.
All things considered, the most outstanding feature here is the ability to set up a fully-functional ecommerce website for free.
You don’t need to pay anything to build an online store. Not even for hosting. In fact, you can proceed without the slightest bit of knowledge about coding.
Creating free ecommerce websites with Square is as easy as 1-2-3. After you select an ideal theme from the array of predesigned customizable options, just make some tweaks, and voila!
Ultimately, you’ll achieve the full online store experience. And in case the default features happen to be inadequate, you can leverage Square’s integrations to link your free ecommerce website with third-party apps for booking and scheduling, employee and inventory management, accounting, plus much more.
But that’s not all. If you have some coding tricks up your sleeve, you can consider capitalizing on the Square Connect API to build your own specialized integrations. Otherwise, it’s also possible to link free ecommerce sites with their corresponding offline brick and mortar counterparts. This feature alone is particularly handy for streamlined multi-store selling and product management.
That said, I can guess what you might be wondering at this point. How the heck does Square generate revenue from this?
Well, interestingly, there are no ecommerce web monthly plans on this platform. Not even one. Instead, it basically charges a fixed rate of 2.9% plus 30¢ for each online transaction. Therefore, ecommerce sites are genuinely free on a permanent basis.
Ecwid
Ecwid essentially translates to “ecommerce widgets”. And just like the name suggests, this is not a distinctive ecommerce platform. Check out the detailed Ecwid review.
Instead, it’s a shopping cart that you can integrate with any site to transform it into a fully-fledged online store. However, as you might have guessed already, you need some lines of code to achieve that.
While Ecwid offers three paid packages, it also provides a free option- which, unlike Jimdo, comes with decent ecommerce capabilities. Apart from unlimited bandwidth, you get a mobile responsive design, two product categories, and support for 10 items.
Sadly, you won’t be able to sell digital products at that level. Plus, your online store functionalities will be limited to a one-page ecommerce website. The only way to escape from that, of course, is subscribing to one of the premium plans, which start at $15 per month.
Magento Open Source (Community Edition)
Magento is an Adobe-owned open-source eCommerce platform, and many merchants think it is the best open source eСommerce platform. It holds a large share of the e-commerce market and has been an industry leader for years. Magento and open source are still at the very core of our beings, and it’s clear that Magento is the best solution with the most feature set and robustness for B2B and B2C merchants. We have worked with clients from almost all continents who needed Magento development services of the highest quality. All of them decided to trust us in delivering great business results from their eCommerce projects.
The most notable features are using different currencies and supporting languages, managing multiple stores, and customs modules.
Another benefit of using Magento is a wide range of plugins and add-ons. It’s strong extension provider community already solved most of the merchant’s needs with different extensions available on the Marketplace. Magento is also a multi-store eCommerce platform. That way, this platform provides users with flexibility and infinite scalability.
And this comes with a price, though, especially around making sure merchants can manage their solution on an ongoing basis and ensure it is kept upgraded and secure. With Magento 2, the days of operating a relatively inexpensive website on this platform are long gone. Magento 2 has been live since December 2015, and many merchants are still considering whether or not they should take the leap. Many still hesitate and, even though we were previously also very cautious about recommending the move (mainly because of the early issues Magento 2 versions had), now is the time to plan it!
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a beginner-friendly open-source eCommerce solution for businesses. To be more accurate, it’s a plugin for WordPress rather than a full-fledged platform.
It’s free to install, making it ideal for cost-conscious users, but you’ll need to pay for things like hosting and security nevertheless. WooCommerce doesn’t offer a cloud version of its product, which means you will have to have an on-premise installation (by securing the services of a hosting company).
With WooCommerce, you can create a truly bespoke, enormous online store with the developer’s support. Another great thing is that WoCommerce has a very large community of developers.
It’s wildly popular and runs on almost 400,000 sites. It comes with practically all of the functionality you’ll need to open an online store, and it also has several advanced capabilities through its extension system.
Running a store on WooCommerce means you’re in the game, but you have a lot of room for improvement.
Upcomers – Shopware, and Sylius are the next big thing
Aside from Magento and WooCommerce, many players are vying for the throne, and it’s hard to separate one. We listen to the market and gladly accept platforms that bring freshness to the eCommerce system. As the best upcomers, we choose Shopware and Sylius.
Shopware
Shopware is an open-source eCommerce platform that comes as a modern, simple, and quality solution for the growth and development of retailers in an eCommerce business.
It is owned by the German company Shopware AG, founded in 2000 with its headquarters in Schöppingen. For the past 20 years, the company has been continuously investing in the platform’s development, which, thanks to its quality, has become the fastest-growing in the DACH region. With the Shopware 6 version, it is ready to take its share in the world market.
The big community around Shopware provides users with over 4,000 extensions and certified professional support. Today, more than 100,000 companies are running their stores on the Shopware solution and its popularity in the DACH region.
Shopware 6 uses modern technologies, Symfony (backend) and Vue.js (frontend), which are more attractive for developers to use compared to more traditional technologies used by competitors.
We have recently explored this platform in the local market, and we can say that both developers and retailers have seen its potential and are accepting it as the next big thing.
X Cart Ecommerce Platform
X-Cart is a solid open source platform. This PHP shopping cart offers something you won’t find in most freemium carts. A lifetime license. Built on solid source code with an extensive feature set available for paid plans, X Cart offers hosted and self-install options.
Although the feature list is impressive, upgrading can be expensive – we’re talking $495+. For a store that’s performing well, it’s a decent option and considering the license is a lifetime one, it’s not a bad deal.
You’ll need to manually code and use HTML to get the most out of this ecommerce option, but there’s ample room to customize if you’ve got the time or staff.
They do have great design and development support along with hosting to make things easier for the less technical. Their enterprise edition is also worth a look. Theres also no transaction fees.
Who’s Using X Cart?
- OrthoticShop
- O-cha.com
- La Mer Collections
- Goat Milk Stuff
nopCommerce
nopCommerce is a free and open-source eCommerce platform based on ASP.NET Core. If you were looking for a PHP-based solution – you can skip to the next option on the list.
The user interface of its admin panel is clean and easy to use. If you’ve used OpenCart – you might feel the similarity (but I’m not complaining). By default, it has got all the essential features while offering a responsive design for mobile users as well.
You get access to an official marketplace where you can get supported themes and extensions. You can opt for premium support or manage it yourself for free.
To get started, you can download the package with its source code from its official download page if you want to customize it and deploy it. In either case, you can also download the complete package to get it installed on a web server quickly. You can check out their GitHub page and the official website to learn more.
Is Open Source Ecommerce Really Free?
Open source ecommerce solutions offer a wide range of features and complexity. Before choosing one, you need to be honest with yourself about your web developer skills and your budget to pay for support and help. Regardless of price point, however, an open source platform with an active developer community offers the benefit of a global community of people working to improve the software.
At the same time, it’s usually the freemium plans that have a dedicated team of full-time developers and support. If you need help and you aren’t using a freemium open source platform with the option of paid technical help, you might find yourself in trouble if you come across a new bug in the code.
Conclusion:
It’s hard to find good ecommerce software. If you are the ecommerce store owner, you should care a great deal about your choice of ecommerce software. It impacts your business in many ways, like uptime, reliability, speed, scalability, flexibility and security. No matter what is your purpose of picking open source ecommerce software for your commercial interests, this article can be helpful for you.
Ecommerce platforms 2021 The ecommerce industry is continually growing, and this growth is expected to continue for at least the next 5 years . A recent study suggests that online shopping sales will reach 2.4 trillion USD by 2021 and increase in average by 10.6% per year. This inevitably will lead to a vast increase in the number of people who choose ecommerce software as an alternative to traditional shopping.