What’s the best open source ecommerce platform out there for small to mid-sized business? There are a number of open source solutions worth considering. Each of the below solutions has a nice set of features and benefits that you will want to consider. Are you curious about best free open source ecommerce? Or about best free open source ecommerce platform? Read this article on free ecommerce platforms.
Open source ecommerce and review 2021. Using an open source ecommerce platform means that you can quickly and easily go live using off the shelf software. Open source is also ideal if you want to fully customise your platform.
The best open-source eCommerce platforms available. We have compiled a list of the best and top-rated open-source eCommerce platforms, both paid and free, currently available on the market. They range from Feature Rich, to Multilingual, to Responsive & Mobile Friendly
Most buyers get confused when selecting an open source ecommerce platform. You may have a lot of queries in your mind like free ecommerce platform or free open source or open source ecommerce etc. If this is the case, you just landed on the right place. In this article I am going to discuss all about best free open source ecommerce and you will know about different platforms which are absolutely free and hassle-free to use for any business. So without wasting much time, let’s starts with top best open source ecommerce platform.
What is Open Source ecommerce?
Open source software means that the user has complete access to the source code. This means that anyone can adapt and customize the platform to meet their business needs and use a composable architecture approach. Although by “anyone,” we really mean anyone with developer resources.
WooCommerce (On WordPress) – Best Open Source Ecommerce Platform
WooCommerce (read our review here) is a WordPress plugin, so you’ll have to install WordPress (open source) on your host, then install the WooCommerce plugin onto your site.
You simply just:
- Log into your WordPress site.
- Go to: Plugins > Add New.
- Search for ‘WooCommerce’.
- Select Install Now.
- Select Activate Now and you’re ready for the WooCommerce Wizard!
It automatically turns any WordPress website into a fully functional online store, with inventory management, coupons, and product pages.
CS-Cart Multi-Vendor
Well, if you haven’t read our CS-Cart review yet, here’s the gist of it- CS-Cart is a renowned Russian software company that has served ecommerce merchants since 2005.
Now, I’ve purposely left out the “Multi-Vendor” part because the company happens to distribute two different CS-Cart ecommerce applications.
For starters, there’s the “CS-Cart” platform, which is basically a shopping cart software with the essential features for getting a typical online store up and running.
Then secondly, we have the CS-Cart Multi-Vendor platform, which is also an ecommerce software, but a little bit different compared to its CS-Cart sibling.
You see, CS-Cart Multi-Vendor is not for online merchants seeking to set up ecommerce stores. Rather, it targets the big players (mostly enterprises) that would like to build marketplaces. I’m talking about creating websites like eBay or Etsy, which usually host numerous merchants under one roof.
So, in short, CS-Cart Multi-Vendor can help you build your own marketplace, complete with the corresponding features that small merchants might need to create their storefronts on your website.
The solution itself is self-hosted and comes with an open-source framework, which features over 500 ecommerce functionalities, as well as themes, and extra integrations.
The problem is, however, that CS-Cart Multi-Vendor is not entirely free. In fact, there’s nothing much you’ll be getting for free. The far CS-Cart Multi-Vendor goes is offering you a 15-day free trial, followed by a 30-day risk-free purchase period. That means they’ll refund all your money if you don’t like their software product.
Now, on the bright side, you won’t be paying for the service on a monthly basis. CS-Cart Mult-Vendor is provided at a one-off cost of either $1,450, $3,500, or $7,500. What you pay, in the end, depends on the features you’re looking for.
But, if you ask me, it’s totally worth the price since it offers everything you can think of. It even comes with its own layout editor, along with great SEO and marketing tools, an in-built content management system, a user-friendly admin panel, a responsive mobile-friendly structure, plus integrations for more than 80 payment and shipping services.
Then considering it’s an open-source application, you can, of course, build your own custom functionalities and integrations. The possibilities here are limitless.
Ultimately, you, as the purchaser, become the head of the marketplace. CS-Cart Multi-Vendor allows you to host vendors, all of whom you’ll coordinate from the primary admin panel.
In other words, the admin panel gives you the power to control everything about the marketplace – from its vendors and their accompanying payouts, to the overall marketplace architecture and design. It’s just like building an online mall from the ground up, and subsequently managing its merchants.
Well, the vendors, on the other hand, are required to register like they would on any other marketplace platform. Then once you approve their details, they can proceed to set up their own marketplace storefronts.
The storefronts themselves can sell different types of products and services. Both physical and digital products are allowed here. So, in the end, it all depends on what you choose to have your vendors dealing in.
That said, CS-Cart Multi-Vendors will give your vendors their own admin panels for managing their stores, as well as configuring features such as product categories, filters, search, shipping options, etc. Then in the meantime, you can have them pay via a monthly subscription schedule, sales commissions, or possibly both. The choice is yours, so be wise about it.
Otherwise, you can find out all the juicy details about CS-Cart Multi-Vendor from our comprehensive review here.
Magento Community Edition
With more than 200,000 users, the Magento Community Edition is one of the most popular open source ecommerce platforms available. Although it isn’t as robust as the Magento Enterprise edition, the Magento Open source Community Edition is still a strong choice for ecommerce stores that are committed to the idea of an free platform.
Who’s Using Magento Community or Magento Enterprise?
- Hello!Lucky
- Brewshop (New Zealand)
- Hu2 (UK, ships worldwide)
- Blik
- Bonobos
PrestaShop
PrestaShop boasts that more than 250,000 stores use their ecommerce platform. The forum for PrestaShop has more than 850,000 members and customers include Zippo Lighters and Fashion Stork, among others. The popularity of this open source ecommerce platform extends to more than 200 countries and as a result, PrestaShop has been translated into 65 languages.
PrestaShop is so well liked by developers and users, the platform has racked up awards around the world:
- Packt Publishing’s Best Open Source Business Application (two times)
- 2013 BSOCO Award in the CMS category
- 2013 #1 Open Source Shopping Cart Software by EcommerceBytes Seller’s Choice Awards
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.
Sylius
Sylius is an Open Source eCommerce platform based on Symfony – one of the best PHP frameworks. This solution is also part of the BDD (Behavior-Driven Development: Behavioral Development) through Behat – a reliable PHP framework that makes it easy to automate reading your wishes. It is relatively suited for all types of business. Sylius 1.0 – the first version of this platform – was released on September 13, 2017. Sylius has also released its latest version – Sylius 1.9 – on September 14, 2020. In addition, besides the free version called Standard, Sylius only has the Plus one. And, of course, you get what you pay for.
To add to the list of all things good, the 100% Symfony codebase lets Sylius’ core team follow the best coding practices and a stable release cycle for its popular PHP framework. It is developed with great attention to code quality and BDD methodology. That being said, every line of code is fully tested and ready to be tested at any time in the future.
Compared to other platforms, Sylius does not have many merchants, which is only 1.960 live websites, according to BuiltWith.
However, Sylius comes into play as a framework, making it easier for developers to create more organized eCommerce solutions. Therefore, it is a potential name to take the lead in the future, and many brands successfully run their web stores with the help of Sylius.
Wix Ecommerce
I bet you’ve heard about it already. Wix is undoubtedly one of the most renowned cloud-based online store builders. You can check out our detailed Wix review.
Although the bulk its packages are premium, it turns out Wix also offers an extra option that you can take advantage of to set up an attractive free website.
The best thing about this specific platform is this- even free users can take advantage of its intuitive drag-and-drop website builder to design an entire site without coding. As a matter of fact, you should be able to complete a basic free website within a couple of minutes.
The free plan is particularly ideal for beginners who need powerful tools for building and hosting a standard business website. It grants access to a wide array of customizable predesigned templates plus supplementary icons, clip arts, and images.
Then you know what? You also get to promote your free business site, thanks to the simple SEO and email marketing capabilities that Wix offers at no charge. You can combine that with many other free applications from the Wix App Market to form a dynamic marketing framework.
And in case you’re worried about space, you should rest easy because it’ll probably take you quite some time to exhaust 500MBs of free site storage. The corresponding bandwidth, on the other hand, extends to 1GB on a domain that rides on the Wix platform. In other words, your free domain name will be something like username.wixsite.com/site address.
But, here’s the thing. You still get secure web hosting, 24/7 unlimited support, plus automatic mobile optimization. So, of course, your visitors will be able to surf conveniently from any device.
Unfortunately, Wix will bombard your free website with ads. The only way you can avoid that is upgrading to one of the premium plans, which start at $4.50 a month. And that comes with a host of advanced features like form builder, custom favicons, email campaigns, etc.
That said, real ecommerce website tools are not accessible until you subscribe to the Wix eCommerce plan for $16.50 a month. And if you need superior online selling functionalities, you can scale further and settle for the VIP plan at $24.50 a month. This specific one is essentially optimized for growing ecommerce sites.
The Pros of Open Source Platforms
Cost Effective Most ecommerce platforms do not have any licencing fees or ownership costs. This single advantage can be a major driving factor for small enterprises or start-up ventures, where budget is a constraint. Since cost is an important consideration for them, opting for an open source ecommerce platform can help them stay within budget.
Flexible Hosting Open source software allow you to choose your own hosting solution. Some OSS providers may provide you with a cloud hosting environment and offer to manage it off-site. Else, you can look for a trustworthy hosting provider and have an on-premise hosting. Cloud environment or in-house hosting solutions do not come with unlimited bandwidth. So, make sure you check for the allowed bandwidth and choose optimum bandwidth packages.
Easy Integration Any ecommerce site needs lot of integrations with many external softwares, such as for payment gateways, CRMs, shipping vendors, shipment trackers etc. Most enterprise owners look for easy and customizable integration with third party software to ensure that their ecommerce site runs smoothly. Open Source platforms lead the pack with this advantage. With OSS, you can create custom integration, and easily edit existing modules or plugins that can be tuned to the third party software based on your requirement.
Conclusion
The open-source trend has impacted all walks of life, including the business world. Since its birth in 1998, many free; open source ecommerce platforms have thrived, and their usage has gained momentum. As a business owner trying to start an online store, it is important for you to understand that selecting an appropriate ecommerce platform can save you thousands of dollars.
Open source ecommerce platform is an open source application that can be used to set up, run, and maintain an online store.It provides the ability for businesses to create their own self-hosted online shops without any need for programming or coding.