[UPDATED] In the last few years, PHP opensource ecommerce platforms have completely revolutionized the online shopping industry. The reason? These platforms enable you to start your ecommerce store even if you don’t have any experience with ecommerce development. Just point, click, drag, and voila, your store is ready to launch. This is the charm of the best ecommerce CMS (Content Management Systems).
I have listed 13 of the most popular PHP ecommerce platforms that you can use to start your online business. Have a go through this list and select the platform that best suits your need.
List of Opensource Ecommerce Platforms and Shopping Carts
Here’s a compilation of some top ecommerce website builders to create an online store that are totally free:
1. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is one of the best free ecommerce platforms that’s based on PHP programming language. It is an extension of WordPress CMS made by Jigoshop. WooCommerce has almost 21% global market share because of its ease of use. It can be easily installed even by a beginner, while setting it up on any PHP Host is just a matter of seconds.. If you are using Cloudways, WooCommerce can be installed with just a single click. As it is used by 380K retailers until now, it offers a huge repository of plugins and themes.
2. Magento
Magento is one of the most trusted ecommerce platforms and shopping cart available for individuals and enterprises alike. The ecommerce system is based on a PHP based framework that lets you build scalable online businesses with ease. It comes with multiple extensions allowing easy integration of relevant third party apps with the ecommerce store. However, as Magento is initially developed for developers so they don’t have to start from scratch, building an ecommerce store on this platform would require certain level of expertise in PHP programming. Magento is third most used ecommerce store builder and has over 10 percent market share.
3. Bagisto
Bagisto is an open-source eCommerce platform powered by PHP’s Laravel framework. Bagisto offers a wide range of basic to advance eCommerce enabling features that is making it a go-to platform for startups, and entrepreneurs. With Bagisto, you can make a multi-vendor marketplace with RTL Support and powerful SEO features. You can control multi-channel inventories from a single website, link your store with multiple inventory sources, and easily monitor your product stock in a given inventory.
4. Drupal
Drupal commerce is an PHP opensource ecommerce solution that is used by a little over 5K sites. Drupal commerce keep an organized track of orders, receipts, payments and invoices along with integration of different options for shipping and payment methods. Drupal is based on Drupal content management system and offers complete administration system including checkout form and multi currency. It also offers third party integrations for social networks, fulfillment and accounting services.
5. Joomla
Joomla has almost six percent market share that shows its moderate popularity among ecommerce users. It is a content management system and mostly used by schools, churches, and individual ecommerce store owners. It has a thriving community of developers and designers and hosts more than 700,000 ecommerce stores and websites.
6. OpenCart
OpenCart is a very popular free PHP ecommerce shopping cart and platform. OpenCart has a very strong and a helpful community of professionals. OpenCart has an easily manageable interface with more than 8 methods of shipping, 20 gateways for payment and hundreds of gateways and shipping methods in the directory. You can customize your store by choosing any one of the 2500+ attractive themes. Its interface is not only visually appealing but also easy to use. You can find the complete guide for using opencart by clicking here.
7. Prestashop
Prestashop is a PHP based ecommerce shopping cart and platform that is built on the smarty template engine. Prestashop offers hundreds of features, including on page-checkout, downloadable products, features cross selling and one page checkout. Prestashop is used in 160 countries and has been translated into 63 different languages. This has helped build Prestashop a strong community around the world with more than 100,000 community members. Prestashop also comes with customizable themes and feature add-ons.
Bonus Tip: Always choose an optimized ecommerce hosting to ensure your store loads with lightning speed.
8. OsCommerce
OsCommerce is one of the oldest opensource ecommerce builder with more than thirteen thousand stores that are built using the software. Stores built on OSCommerce can be customized using thousands of add ons. The community around OsCommerce exceeds 280k members and is suitable to be used with PHP and MySQL based servers.
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9. Zencart
Another ecommerce opensource platforms based on PHP is the Zencart, which is basically an extension of the oscommerce and was branched in 2003. It has more than 16 categories and 1800 add ons and is going strong with a.community of around 150k active members that provide support for different languages.
10. X-Cart
First released in 2000 by Creative Technologies, X-Cart has now become a prominent name in the list of ecommerce solutions. X-Cart has the distinction of being one of the very first PHP based ecommerce software and it is now being used by more than 30k websites. X-Cart offers shipping carrier integration like FedEx, UPS, Canada Post and Australia Post. X-Cart has in-site Payment modules to ensure fraud screening.
11. Virtuemart
It is an free ecommerce platform which is written in PHP and was previously known as mambo PHPshop. It is suited for websites having low or medium traffic. It is a plugin for Mambo/Joomla that supports extensions like Zlib, XML and MySQL. Virtuemart is a customizable software where developers can update, view or customization operations according to their needs.
12. Jigoshop
Jigoshop is also an PHP opensource solution for ecommerce applications which is based on the popular CMS, WordPress. Like virtuemart, Jigoshop was also developed for small and medium enterprises. The first edition of Jigoshop was released on 31st may, 2011.
13. Zeuscart
Zeuscart is another PHP ecommerce platform that is very easy to use. Zeuscart supports many features that can help you increase sales and promote your business very well. It is a customized ecommerce solution that even a nontechnical person can start using to build an e-store with minimum efforts.
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Final Words!
So if you are looking to build a high performance ecommerce store that integrates advanced functionalities, this compilation is rightly made for you. While Cloudways also supports the majority of these ecommerce applications on its PHP hosting, so that developers could find ease to create desired online stores with preferred platforms.
I have just introduced you to some of the most known PHP opensource ecommerce platforms and shopping carts. They are free, opensource, and have multiple tutorials and guides available to get you started fast.
So, what are you waiting for? Start your ecommerce store today and establish your business online.
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Ahmed Khan
Ahmed was a PHP community expert at Cloudways – A Managed PHP Hosting Cloud Platform. He is a software engineer with extensive knowledge in PHP and SEO. He loves watching Game of Thrones is his free time. Follow Ahmed on Twitter to stay updated with his works. You can email him at [email protected]
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Keep reading the article at The Official Cloudways Blog. The article was originally written by Ahmed Khan on 2020-08-18 18:00:21.
The article was hand-picked and curated for you by the Editorial Team of WP Archives.