The 15 Best Shopping Cart Software In 2022 (Reviews)

Shift4Shop (previously 3DCard) has had a remarkable record over its 20+ years in the ecommerce world.

The ecommerce software by Shift4Shop has gone through eight different versions with the ninth in the making. It’s safe to say this cart is here to stay.

Let’s see if it lives up to its reputation.

Features

With 200+ built-in features, Shift4Shop has a comprehensive offer.

Features that catch the eye include user-friendly product listings management, unlimited product variations, one-page checkout, coupon management, digital downloads, automatic tax and shipping carrier cost calculation, abandoned cart saver, and much more.

3DCart puts focus on growing your business. Which is why it comes with in-depth marketing tools.

Its claim to be the best storefront software for SEO is solid too. The SEO prompts and pop-ups make it a great learning experience for beginners.

It offers over 200 apps, and the partnership with Zapier adds over a thousand more integrations. Whatever you need, you’re covered.

Shift4Shop is among the best shopping carts for building and growing a business, though it might be overkill if you only have one or two products.

Ease of Use

One drawback of having so many features is reduced user-friendliness.

The admin layout is straightforward as can be. However, the sheer amount of options makes navigation difficult.

It’s a bit like riding a bicycle, really. It takes a few days of practice to get the hang of it.

Once you learn what is what, though, you’ll manage your store with ease.

Design Options

Shift4Shop offers 41 free themes and 43 paid ones, priced between $149 and $199.

The templates are responsive, and the design is decent.

However, customization is stiff without digging into HTML and CSS. If no template fits your needs, you might need to get a developer to tinker with the design.

Payment Processors

Shift4Shop has more default payment processors than any software—over 160.

If you want variety, you’re covered. Chances are you’ll find your favorite processor here.

Pricing

There are five plans. The pricing goes as follows:

• Startup Store – $19/month
• Basic Store – $29/month
• Plus Store – $79/month
• Pro Store – $229/month

You get a 10% discount if you pay for an entire year instead of paying month-to-month.

You also get 50% off your first payment. If you pay annually, this gives Shift4Shop a very affordable cost of ownership.

The plans differ in their features and the number of staff accounts.

You can discuss adding extra features to your plan. This comes at a higher cost, but it can pay off.

Plans have a revenue cap. Unlike with most carts, though, exceeding the suggested revenue does not bump you to a more expensive bracket automatically. Instead, a company representative contacts you to discuss the plan upgrade in time.

Admittedly, some standard functions are only available as paid apps. It’s worth taking a closer look at the features before getting a plan.

All in all, the pricing is in the low-end of online shopping cart services, though a few carts have cheaper plans.

Support

Shift4Shop (the support page still redirects to the old 3DCart domain) has a comprehensive knowledge base and forum, though a few articles are slightly outdated. You’ll find answers for most problems there.

It also offers 24/7 support via email ticket. Phone support is available with the $29/month plan.

Sales support is supposedly available 24/7 through live chat, but they do not seem to be there at all times.

Ultimately, the support team is good, but the wait times could be shorter. The lack of a live chat is definitely noticeable.

Around the Web

Shift4Shop gets positive reviews from its users. The users praise the features, payment options, and plans.

The users who complain primarily want the dashboard to be a bit more straightforward.

Overall, though, the reviews lean heavily to the positive.

PinnacleCart is a shopping cart software for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. Its mission is to help people with zero technical knowledge get better stores, more customers, and better conversion rates.

Let’s see how well it does.

Features

PinnacleCart’s goals mean it focuses on expansion. It does it with an effective SEO, reporting, and marketing toolset.

On top of that, it offers utility features like tax and shipping calculators, multiple language and currency support, CSV import/export, inventory tracking, one-page checkout, guest checkout, and dozens more.

Thanks to the many features, PinnacleCart doesn’t need an extensive app marketplace. You get just over 50 integrations, many of which are free.

Feature-wise, PinnacleCart can go toe to toe with the top shopping cart platforms.

Ease of use

Installing the software requires technical knowledge. PinnacleCart does offer cart installation for $125.

From there, everything is clear-cut. Handling essentials like adding products is effortless and navigation is intuitive.

One thing that takes time is customizing the design. Otherwise, PinnacleCart is as straightforward as they come.

Design options

PinnacleCart comes with around 30 free responsive templates. They are sleek and visually appealing.

There are three customization tools for users of different skill levels.

First, the drag-and-drop editor lets you add, remove, and reposition page elements. For more in-depth changes, you can edit the visual properties of individual items. Finally, technologically apt users can edit the HTML and CSS of each element.

Where customization tools are concerned, this is the most complete online shopping cart system. It takes a bit of clicking around to figure it all out. Still, you usually have enough time when you’re dealing with store design.

PinnacleCart remains a user-friendly solution.

Payment Processors

PinnacleCart lists 30 payment processors. These are their partners, so they offer special rates.

If you prefer a different processor, PinnacleCart supports a bunch more. Feel free to ask the support if your favorite is in the mix.

Pricing

Alright, buckle up.

The full PinnacleCart software costs $1,495.

Still here? Good. I’ll explain why the price is better than it might seem.

The initial investment gets you updates and full technical support for one year. Afterward, it costs $299 per year to extend everything.

Contrast this with carts that offer full features for $800+ a year or charge a few hundred per month for support.

That’s not all. PinnacleCart’s support handles all software-related issues as with a hosted shopping cart software. You don’t have to pay for a developer.

The initial investment is considerable, true. In the long-term, however, PinnacleCart saves you a ton of money.

Support

Technical support provides a great experience.

They are polite, easy to work with, and, most importantly, competent. They will effortlessly resolve any issues that may come up.

PinnacleCart imposes no support restrictions. The support team handles any and all online ordering software-related issues you might have.

One caveat is that support is not available 24/7. Phone and chat support are available during specific hours, and email support can take a while to get back to you.

One condition for requesting immediate support is if your entire store goes down. Still, it would be nice to have 24/7 support for the minor issues as well.

Aside from technical support, PinnacleCart offers other shopping cart services like outsourcing them your support, custom theme and website design, and a complete SEO overhaul. The services are pricey, though.

Around the Web

PinnacleCart gets positive reviews overall.

The majority of users like the feature-rich platform, and most praise the smooth and useful integrations. Most have also had positive experiences with the support team.

As for the negatives, a few users would like 24/7 support and more straightforward layout customization.

All make fair points.

All things considered, though, PinnacleCart’s offer is more than tempting. It qualifies as one of the best shopping carts in 2020.

Established in 2009, Square has dedicated 10 years to letting anyone accept payments easily and securely.

It boasts easy payment processing for any business and offers a straightforward shopping cart to boot. I tested it out.

Features

Square focuses on smaller businesses.

You can easily import inventory, manage taxes, shipping, get reports, customer data, and set up discounts. All in all, you get all the essentials for running an online store.

One of the key features is the point of sale. You can handle your physical and digital business with one solution. If you run, for instance, a restaurant, and want to offer takeout online, Square is the best shopping cart for you.

You can try to run a vast ecommerce operation through Square, but you’ll quickly find the features wanting. They’re only geared toward smaller businesses.

Ease of Use

As Square offers only the essentials, it’s one of the most straightforward shopping carts.

Everything is easy to set up and manage from the dashboard. Even complete beginners can find their way by intuition.

Square is only less than ideal for adjusting shipping rates by product size or weight. It’s fastest to change the price of individual items.

It’s not really a problem for smaller stores. Changing the price of ten products takes a few minutes. If you have a thousand items, though… You get the idea.

Otherwise, Square has the best ease of use among shopping cart solutions.

Design Options

Unfortunately, the design options are lacking.

You only get a few templates, and you can only customize text and images. It’s a bit of a letdown for the creative types.

You get a simple store—bells and whistles not included.

Payment Processors

Square offers its own end-to-end payment processing system. As Square profits from the processing fee as well, it can offer the cheapest plans in the game.

Yet, this is also limiting. You can only process payments through Square and, with more expensive plans, PayPal.

Pricing

Square comes with a free plan and three paid ones, priced at $12/month, $26/month, and $72/month. Also, as a payment provider, Square charges 2.9% + 30c on all ecommerce transactions. You get a special rate with the most expensive plan.

These are the costs if you use Square’s servers and connect the store to your site. Self-hosting the code costs about $5/month on top of that.

The more expensive plans come with more advanced features and shipping carrier discounts, plus some other options.

Even with the additional $5/month, Square’s offer is as cheap as they come. If you want the best shopping cart software for a small budget, look no further.

Support

Square customer support is excellent, but not always available.

The paid accounts get phone support, which is a bit slow. The rest have to rely on emails.

This is a bit of a compromise. You might have to wait a few hours if something doesn’t work.

A redeeming feature is that Square stores require less maintenance than most other carts.

Around the Web

Square is well-loved by its community.

Users love that Square is easy to implement, use and that it offers all the essential features.

They complain that Square has an overly aggressive security policy. Namely, it withholds funds if it detects suspicious activity. Many users have had to prove their identity to get the money.

This is great for fraud prevention. Nevertheless, it can be frustrating. It’s not like you can choose a more lax payment processor.

AbanteCart might not be the oldest cart here, but the 31,000 sites that put their trust in it are nothing to scoff at. The company boasts a small, but strong client base.

Plus, it makes some bold claims about being suitable for any business.It also likes to boast about the quality of its features, so let’s put the claims to a test.

Features

AbanteCart offers plenty of features.

The noteworthy ones include robust product listings management, bulk import/export, multi-language and multiple currency support, SEO tools, managing discounts, managing shipping rates, and more.

The app store offers around 300 extensions. Some are free, while some can cost up to $150. A couple are a bit outdated, so be careful to check when an app got its last update.

AbanteCart advertises its features as enterprise-grade. In truth, the features are perfect for a small or medium business. Large businesses can also run on AbanteCart, with a few interventions from a developer.

Although AbanteCart is powerful, it’s suboptimal for huge operations. Once you get to a seven-figure income, be ready to switch to a different digital shopping cart.

Most businesses, though, will find the features outstanding.

Ease of Use

Even the best open-source shopping carts require frequent maintenance. However, AbanteCart is unique in this regard.

Setting the software up is simple. Many hosting providers even offer a 1-click installation through Softaculous.

AbanteCart suggests A2 Hosting as a partner that supports this. This hosting company has some of the best features for ecommerce, so it’s worth checking out—if you haven’t picked a provider already, that is.

Managing everything else is intuitive as well. Granted, the dashboard looks a little dated, but this hardly matters.

The important bit is that navigation is as straightforward as they come. You likely won’t have any trouble getting the hang of everything.

That being said, you may benefit from getting a freelance developer for certain tasks. You’ll likely find it effortless to use the shopping cart program, but a developer can help you get the most out of the online ordering software.

Design Options

One way AbanteCart remains profitable is through templates. That’s why only the default theme is free. You get 16 paid ones, ranging in cost from $25 to $60. As with apps, a few have become outdated – though still functional.

The page editor makes customization fairly simple. However, the editor can only take you so far, as the themes are a bit hard on the eye.

This is one of the instances where you ought to hire a developer to edit the store CSS. AbanteCart already uses Bootstrap so a few lines of code can overhaul the entire appearance of the store.

Payment Processors

You get a few default payment gateway providers and around 40 payment integrations, 17 of which are free. Some integrations are outdated here too so you should be careful.

The offer is alright, although other carts offer a wider variety of processors.

Pricing

AbanteCart is free to download and install. You just need to plan for expenses like integrations or hosting costs – essentially the lowest cost of ownership you can expect.

Still, AbanteCart is exceptionally user-friendly as far as shopping carts go. This means spending less on developers and customer support. In the long run, it is one of the more affordable options, making it a good fit for smaller businesses.

Support

AbanteCart is open-source, so you get no guaranteed support.

The support team is available via email, but this is usually only for simple queries.

It usually directs users to the forums. The forum sports one of the best shopping cart software communities, though.

Even though AbanteCart might not be the most popular cart, the community is very active. The AbanteCart team participates in the discussions, and provides answers for most issues.

You can purchase support if you need it. This is fairly costly, though. There are several plans, but getting 24/7 support costs at least $99/month.

It’s not an outrageous price for an open-source shopping cart, but it’s not cheap either.

Around the Web

Plenty of users like that AbanteCart developers are active on the forums. The developers are indeed friendly, and it all adds to the feeling of a tightly knit community.

Most users would at the same time like more themes and integrations. It’s understandable AbanteCart can’t match the more popular carts here. Still, I have to admit the offer is somewhat slim.

User reviews are overwhelmingly positive, though.

Though the offer might not be the most extensive of the bunch, AbanteCart does make up for it by being among the least demanding open-source shopping carts. Open-source carts are usually too much for small businesses. Yet, AbanteCart is the top shopping cart in that category.

Powering stores in 172 countries, CS-Cart takes the title of the most international shopping cart provider. It powers 35,000+ stores, including some of the world’s most popular e-marketplaces.

With such a presence, I would be remiss if I didn’t give it a test run.

Features

CS-Cart is in the golden middle between power and ease of use. It is robust, but it doesn’t overwhelm the user.

All plans come with the same features. These include:

• SEO tools
• promotions
• cross-selling and upselling
• support for multiple languages and currencies
• tax and shipping rates calculators
• speed optimization features

… and so much more.

Plus, you get 30 free tools you can activate from the dashboard. These include non-essential functions like age verification and banner management.

For anything else, there are the shopping cart apps. You can get all the most popular addons, though the more obscure ones might be missing.

The features are more than enough for any mid-sized business.

Ease of Use

CS-Cart hits the sweet spot between functionality and user-friendliness.

You can run a CS-Cart store without knowing the first thing about code. There is a learning curve, but it’s mild.

Most users can handle everything with just common sense and a few knowledge base searches. CS-Cart is for you if you want a powerful software without having to deal with the technical details.

Design Options

CS-Cart comes with a few free themes and a few hundred premium ones. The templates are decent if a little bland.

The visual editor makes up for it. You can easily customize any theme to your liking without touching code.

If you are an avid developer, you do get a code editor. You can change the template design or even implement custom solutions.

CS-Cart makes customization easier than any other digital shopping cart.

Payment Processors

Operating in over 170 countries, CS-Cart has proven to be fit for international retail. Consequently, it features 70 different payment processors. You’ll never have to worry about payment processing.

Pricing

There are no monthly plans. CS-Cart only charges a one-time payment of $385. If you want to run multiple stores from one admin, the price is $865. Both plans come with the full set of features.

If you wish to receive updates after one year, you can renew the license for $99/year.

This makes CS-Cart lucrative for mid-sized businesses. The annual price is lower than that of your average shopping cart monthly plan. To top it off, the feature set is among the best out there.

CS-Cart can also be a powerful solution for small businesses. However, it’s a good idea to plan out the necessary expenses. Otherwise, the charges might go beyond your budget.

Support

CS-Cart has a top-notch support team. As it should be, since support is paid.

You get 50 support credits when you purchase the software. You can use these to purchase support services.

There is a whole payment structure you can check out. Additional credits are expensive, though, and they go pretty quickly.

It’s best to solve issues on your own if you can. A trip to the knowledge base can save you a lot of money. Only use support as a last resort.

Around the Web

CS-Cart seems well-loved. Most shopping cart software reviews commend the quality features, and countless users praise the support team.

As with any provider that charges extra for support, CS-Cart gets a few complaints. Support is expensive for smaller retailers, so it’s easy to see their point.

All in all, though, the reviews lean heavily to the positive.

PrestaShop might not be as old as a few other solutions, but it is just as influential. It supports over 250,000 websites in 60 different languages. Plus, the platform is free to download.

All this makes it a great candidate for the best shopping cart.

Features

PrestaShop comes with over 600 features out of the box. Including that many functions shows dedication, even though more than just numbers goes into shopping cart comparisons.

The noteworthy features include an SEO tool, tax calculation, abandoned cart notifications, automated emails, support for multiple languages and currencies, and much more.

The PrestaShop marketplace has over a thousand additional apps. Thus, you can get all the functionality you might need.

If you want a feature-rich store, PrestaShop is the way to go.

Ease of Use

PrestaShop dashboard is surprisingly simple, considering the number of features. It has a bit of a learning curve, but most users get the hang of it fairly quickly.

Everything else, though, takes some experience.

Installing PrestaShop, for one, requires creating a database and using an FTP client.

The apps don’t always work with one another either. It often takes changing the code to put everything together.

PrestaShop is not the best shopping cart solution for DIY users. If you’re not comfortable dealing with code, you might need to pay for maintenance.

Design Options

First, for the good news—PrestaShop has over 3000 themes. You’ll never lack options.

Now the bad—only the default theme is free. The rest cost upwards of $50.

From there, the editor offers better customization than most. It’s a breeze to get the appearance you want.

You can also edit the website code. All in all, PrestaShop does splendidly in the design department.

Payment Processors

PrestaShop has no out of the box payment processors. Customers can only pay by wire transfer or check.

250+ payment gateways are available as integrations, though. Seven payment integrations are free—this includes popular ones like Stripe, Skrill, and PayPal.

The transaction fee is what matters here, though. It might be worth it to spend a few bucks to get better rates.

Pricing

PrestaShop is open-source, meaning you get the full shopping cart experience for free.

Apps, on the other hand, don’t come as cheap. Getting a couple of integrations can cost a few hundred dollars.

That’s why PrestaShop is best for medium-sized businesses. If you run a smaller business, you could find a cheaper online ordering software.

Support

PrestaShop offers no support by default. You can purchase it from the company, but it costs a minimum of $399 a year. This gives you 6h of support time for the whole year—how lovely, right?

What PrestaShop lacks in support, it makes up for with an active community forum and the knowledge base. It is rich with guides and training courses.

PrestaShop counts on users doing their own research (or paying for technical help).

Around the Web

PrestaShop gets mixed reviews.

Many users like the easy customizability and the variety of utility features.

The lack of support and the addon incompatibility annoy some users.

Asking someone experienced for advice can help with the addons. Otherwise, you might have to pay to fix everything.

All things considered, PrestaShop offers great features. It can be the best free shopping cart, but, ironically, you need good budgeting.

Famed as the first PHP ecommerce software and the fastest shopping cart, X-Cart has quite a reputation to live up to. Plus, the base version is completely open-source.

These reviews wouldn’t be complete without it.

Features

X-Cart has one of the best offers in the game.

The free version comes with bulk import/export, one-page checkout, XML sitemap creation, tax rate and shipping quote calculation, refunds, and a bunch of other powerful features and integrations. You can check out the full list on their website.

Features are abundant, and they showcase real quality. X-Cart gives you everything you need to design a high-level store.

Ease of Use

X-Cart might be one of the best open-source shopping carts, but open-source still means less invested developers and a somewhat quirky product.

Installing it or connecting it to your site does require technical expertise. You can do it yourself, or you can pay the X-Cart team $75 to set it up for you. The latter is probably safer.

From there, the visual interface is actually remarkably user-friendly. Despite the sea of features, even first-timers can navigate the dashboard easily.

Just keep in mind open-source storefront software can get messy. You’ll probably need someone to do occasional maintenance.

Design Options

This is the one area where X-Cart stumbles.

The free version offers 2 free templates and about 50 paid ones.

You can customize the themes with the drag and drop editor. This offers some customizability, but for a unique appearance, you need to edit the CSS.

You can make your store look unique, but it does take work (or money).

Payment Processors

X-Cart offers 67 payment gateways, 36 of which come out of the box. The rest are available as paid apps. X-Cart targets international vendors so you aren’t starved for choice.

X-Cart also offers an X-Payments package, which adds 55 more gateway providers. It is PCI-Compliant and ensures the security of transactions and customer data.

It is costly, however, priced between $49.95/month and $199.95/month. Still, you can easily ensure PCI-compliance with it. Plus, it makes you nearly invulnerable to fraud.

X-Cart is the only shopping software that handles payments this well.

Pricing

The free version is, well, free. Its features are nevertheless everything a medium-sized business can ask for. Of course, you still have to pay for a theme, apps, and other services.

If you want more advanced features like two-factor authentication, the Business plan costs $495.

You get a lifetime license and updates for a year. Afterward, updates cost $99 per year.

$495 might seem excessive, but it’s kind of fair for a one-time payment.

All things considered, X-Cart will always cost more than the average cart software. That’s because it’s meant for stores with more revenue.

It doesn’t work for small stores, but it is among the top shopping cart choices for large businesses.

Support

X-Cart functions as an open-source solution. This means support is not included.

Luckily, you can pay for some. You get basic email support for $165/month or premium support via phone and chat for $250/month.

The price is at the high end, but the service is top-shelf. It is one of the most praised features among X-Cart users.

Just read the terms before purchasing support. The support team won’t fix all issues, but they cover the crucial bits.

Around the Web

X-Cart gets positive reviews from experienced coders and non-technical users alike. They mostly praise the great features and consistent updates. Users almost unanimously agree the software has scaled amazingly over the years.

There are astonishingly few negative reviews. The more common complaints are that X-Cart is expensive and highly demanding on the servers.

Both are true. For a free shopping cart software, X-Cart can be expensive. Seeing that X-Cart caters to larger businesses, though, higher costs are understandable.

All in all, X-Cart is a fantastic solution for those who can afford it. This usually means large retailers exclusively.

CoreCommerce started out as a proprietary shopping cart. In 2008, it became available publicly.

Today, you can use it as a regular website builder, or you can integrate the storefront into your existing website. It powers stores in 70+ countries! No wonder it considered one the best shopping cart software for international stores.

Let’s see how well it matches your business model.

Features

CoreCommerce has an array of quality features

A few important ones are the SEO Tools, analytics, one-page checkout, guest checkout, excellent multilingual and multi-currency features, tax and vat calculators. It also offers a plethora of in-depth features.

You can ask CoreCommerce support for the full list of features. The offer is fairly comprehensive and can accommodate even large businesses just fine.

Mind that, unlike other shopping carts in these reviews, CoreCommerce is primarily intended as a SaaS solution. Though you can easily integrate the store into your website, it can only be hosted on CoreCommerce’s subdomain.

This is a plus, on the one hand, because you don’t have to worry about increased hosting costs. On the other hand, you don’t really own the code of your store, and you have to run it according to CoreCommerce’s terms of service.

Your store’s downtime even depends on CoreCommerce. Still, CoreCommerce transferred to AWS nearly a year ago, so server integrity shouldn’t be an issue.

This option is definitely more convenient for beginners. Still, you do have to sacrifice more control than with typical shopping cart solutions.

Ease of Use

You don’t have to deal with installing the software. This makes setting everything up reasonably straightforward.

The visual interface itself got a recent upgrade. The admin dashboard is among the simpler ones. You can also hover over question mark symbols that explain what each feature does. It’s definitely among the more user-friendly shopping carts.

With that said, there are a lot of features. That, in and of itself, entails a bit of a learning curve. All in all, CoreCommerce is simple, but not as simple as, for instance, Square.

Design Options

You get 18 free responsive themes. There are two more unresponsive themes, but responsive design is a must-have. The number of themes is fine, but not amazing.

The designs are modern, though, so your store will look good as long as you customize it well.

As for customization, you can use the drag-and-drop editor to move around page elements. It’s also fairly easy to change the colors and the fonts. It’s enough to make the storefront match your website.

If you’d like to fine-tune your store, you can also use the core editor.

All in all, CoreCommerce offers better customization than the average shopping software.

Payment Processors

You get 60+ supported payment processors, including CorePayments—CoreCommerce’s payment system.

Note that you’re obligated to use CorePayments if you go with the cheapest plan. This can be annoying.

CoreCommerce does lower the CorePayments transaction fee to 2.4% + 20c with the most expensive plan. It can be a very lucrative payment processor.

Other than that, the number of processors is decent.

Pricing

CoreCommerce strives to accommodate businesses of all sizes. The plans are as follows:

• Personal—$19/month
• Pioneer—$41/month
• Progressive—$71/month
• Pro—$144/month
• Premier—$203/month
• Enterprise—$540/month

The prices are steeper if you pay month-to-month.

The plans mostly differ only in the sales cap. For instance, the personal plan has a cap of $24,000/year, while the premier caps at $1.6 million.

The personal plan is relatively limited—you can only sell three products, and you get 1Gb of storage and 2Gb of bandwidth.

Most other plans remove these limitations. However, I do recommend at least checking out the features of each plan carefully before going with one.

All in all, the pricing is in the low-end of shopping cart software. Considering the features you get, it’s a fair deal if you pay annually.

Support

The knowledge base covers the basic issues well, though it’s not the most comprehensive.

Fortunately, the support makes up for it. The technical team is available through phone, email, and chat. It is fast and resolves all problems quickly.

You can also hire CoreCommerce’s team to make technical tweaks or custom-code some features.

This is fairly expensive, though, costing $50-100 per hour. Seeing as your store on their servers, though, you have little choice if you need custom features.

Around the Web

CoreCommerce gets predominantly positive reviews.

Satisfied customers praise the ease of use and quality support.

A few users complain that CoreCommerce has increased the prices without prior notification. CoreCommerce did upgrade its system massively, so the price increase seems justified. It is somewhat neglectful if the existing customers went unnotified, though.

Still, reviews like these are best taken with a grain of salt. They can point out crucial factors about the service but tend to be very subjective nevertheless.

All in all, the reviews are mostly positive, though CoreCommerce needs more time before it’s the most popular shopping cart.

Verdict

CoreCommrece has plenty of attractive features and is reasonably priced as well. It’s a reliable solution, but you should keep in mind you cannot host its code on your own server, which means you miss out on some control.

As the name suggests, OpenCart is an open-source shopping cart. The creators like to brag it’s the best solution in the market.

Here’s how much truth there is in those statements:

Features

OpenCart has all the building blocks you need to put together a robust store.

You can do easy product management, sell physical and digital products, calculate tax and shipping rates automatically, view reports and analytics, and enable one-page and guest checkout. Visitors can also filter products, leave reviews, take advantage of discounts and coupons, sign up for your newsletter, and much more.

The digital shopping cart also has solid multilingual and multi-currency support. Different currencies update automatically, and OpenCart already supports various languages, including LTR ones. You can easily set up a store that caters to an international audience.

There is even an affiliate system built-in. You can get others to promote your products without going through the trouble of plugging in a separate solution.

Speaking of promotion, OpenCart comes with a basic SEO tool. If you need something more, the plugin library contains several comprehensive SEO add-ons.

Apart from that, OpenCart doesn’t offer much out-of-the-box. Like WooCommerce and Magento, the ecommerce shopping cart software strives to be lightweight. That’s why it lets you mix and match features through its expandable architecture.

Over 13,000 extensions are available, covering all sorts of possibilities, from simple widgets to PCI compliance tools. You can find pretty much anything in the marketplace, though some extensions may be paid.

This is a bit of a blessing and a curse. Relying on plugins this way makes the software leaner, so you can expect fast load times. Making everything work might require some coding skills, though.

Ease of Use

OpenCart makes most activities relatively straightforward.

For starters, you can usually install the cart in one click via Softaculous. The dashboard is also uncluttered and very intuitive. You should have zero issues handling day-to-day operations like adding products, managing shipping rates, or configuring emailing.

That said, a few online shopping cart reviews out there praise OpenCart for being beginner-friendly. This is misleading.

The issue is that the software might not have all the features you need, and the modules aren’t always compatible. You’ll need some experience with PHP to handle such issues.

OpenCart helpfully suggests a few PHP developers on its site. Hiring a dev to do maintenance is a cost you will have to take into account, though.

Design Options

OpenCart runs a variety of themes, some free and some paid. You can even get themes from third-party vendors like ThemeForest.

Some design features will depend on the theme you pick, so it’s best to review the specifications beforehand. For instance, more premium themes can include a design-free page builder and a ton of unique widgets. In contrast, more affordable themes usually leave it at the core functionality.

You can also install an editor plugin for the default theme. This expands the tools to edit aspects of the shopping cart app, like styling.

With most themes, though, it’s tough to achieve true customizability, especially if you have something particular in mind. In such cases, you would have to edit the code yourself and build what you need.

OpenCart uses Twig, which is a commonly used template engine for PHP. Even if you’re not a coder, it shouldn’t be too tough to find a qualified developer.

Payment Processors

By default, OpenCart supports 36 payment gateway providers. This includes the most popular ones, like PayPal, Skrill, Square, Amazon Pay, 2Checkout, and more.

In addition to this, over 1.000 other processors are available through extensions. Some of these are paid, though, so you should check the pricing for your preferred gateway beforehand. Still, you get plenty of ways to capture payment information than with OpenCart.

Pricing

OpenCart is free to download, use, and modify. You can create as many websites as you want with no restrictions.

That said, there are still costs to consider with the shopping software. You might want specific themes or extensions, which are sometimes paid.

Most paid plugins start around $20, and some go for as much as $5,000. Don’t worry, though, it’s improbable you’ll need the extremely expensive ones. You can also find a decent theme for $20 to $50, which is reasonable.

Support

OpenCart is open-source, so the storefront software doesn’t include support. There is a massive community and a ton of resources available, though, so you won’t have issues finding DIY tutorials.

If you need a bit of extra help, you can go for paid support.

For a one-time fee of $99, OpenCart’s support team will resolve any bug without modifying the shopping cart software core. You also get a guarantee the team will fix the issue if it recurs within 30 days. This is excellent insurance in case of emergencies.

If you need something more long-term, though, you can get constant support for $99/month (billed quarterly). This covers bug fixes, installation service, and consultations about modules. The service provides some peace of mind if you’re not really an experienced user, but it is pricy.

Around the Web

A lot of users adore OpenCart. They love how straightforward the admin dashboard is and how fast and effective the solution is.

A few store owners did complain about the solution lacking support. This is just the reality of using free software, though, so there’s little point arguing over it.

Verdict

OpenCart is an excellent open-source solution that’s also very lightweight and versatile. You do need some PHP skills to make it work, but it’s one of the best shopping cart software if you can dedicate the resources.

nopCommerce is an absolutely massive open-source project with over 3 million downloads. The software has been around for 11 years, and it has amassed quite a user base, including companies like Volvo, Lacoste, and Casio.

Here’s what attracted all those retailers:

Features

First thing’s first, most solutions in these shopping cart software reviews are meant to run on Linux-based servers. After all, most websites are hosted on Linux.

Yet, it would be unfair not to mention any alternatives. nopCommerce is based on ASP.NET (MVC) and runs MSSQL, and it works on Windows Server 2008R2 and above.

As for the features, nopCommerce gives you all you need to set up a midrange or large store. You can even run multiple stores from one admin or set up a robust online marketplace and let internet merchants sell on your platform.

You have a ton of options for adding products, and you can easily create dozens of product variants by mixing different attributes. You can also calculate shipping rates, access multiple shipping carriers, configure taxes by country, state, or zip code, and a bunch of other options.

The checkout features are rather robust as well. Aside from the usual, you can enable advanced shopping cart options like one-page checkout or displaying a mini shopping cart while your clients are browsing.

You can take advantage of many marketing tools, including emailing features, an affiliate system, a reward point system, upsell features, discounts and coupons, and a lot more. A comprehensive SEO suite is in the mix too, with features like microdata and breadcrumbs support.

If something you need is missing, nopCommerce has a massive library with 1,500 plugins. You can find tools for improving page load times, managing popups, providing customer support via live chat, and a whole lot more.

Ease of Use

nopCommerce is easy to install. Many providers let you set it up in a few clicks via Plesk. If you use Microsoft Azure, you can also have it preinstalled on a server instance.

Configuring the shopping cart program, however, can be tough. You might need to get into the documentation a few times to figure out how to do everything if it’s your first time.

Once you do set up the store according to your specifications, you get to enjoy a very well-designed dashboard. Even though it features hundreds of options, all the menu tabs are neatly categorized and laid out clearly. A nice detail is that you can collapse the controls sidebar to get an even better view of the main screen.

Design Options

nopCommerce has quite a few themes, but not all of them support the latest version of the software.

You can use 7 free themes with nopCommerce 4.20. All are well-designed, though you could get more variety. The themes all use Bootstrap, though, meaning they are fully responsive, and they implement commonly used styling features like Font Awesome icons.

Some of the 3rd party shopping cart themes cost as much as $250. These usually integrate paid plugins, feature a professional design, and are meant for easy modification by developers. Some even add features like image zoom that can be helpful for specific industries.

One issue is that nopCommerce doesn’t allow easy design customization out-of-the-box. Your options are to either purchase a theme editor plugin or hire a developer to get you a unique look.

Do the latter if your business can afford it. While using a plugin is definitely cheaper, it might get you mixed results.

Payment Processors
nopCommerce supports 50+ payment gateway providers by default. This includes popular processors like Stripe, Square, 2Checkout, PayPal, etc.

The extension library has more modules that enable processors like AliPay and Apple Pay. Some of these can cost up to $50, though.

Pricing

nopCommerce is an open-source shopping software, meaning it’s completely free… well, kind of.

The software is free to download, use, and modify. That said, using it for free tacks on a “Powered by nopCommerce” copyright text to the footer of your website. It basically lets nopCommerce siphon away a part of your traffic through a link in the footer. However, removing or modifying the link yourself would be a copyright violation.

As you might already guess, you can pay to get a removal code, but this would cost you $250.

While nopCommerce’s tactics are morally questionable, $250 isn’t that much for a one-time fee. An additional benefit is that you can set up your store with the copyright notice and pay to remove it once you’re earning enough to cover the cost. It’s just something to factor into the cost of ownership.

You should also consider how much you would have to spend on premium templates, a theme, and a developer who will set it all up. nopCommerce is more geared towards medium-sized and large stores, so it requires a bit of an investment.

Support

Like a few other open-source shopping cart apps, nopCommerce offers a premium support service. This costs $299 for three months or $799 for a year.

The support is only available on business days, and it offers a 1-day response time guarantee and a 5-day bug fix guarantee. They will help you fix any bugs with the core software and answer questions about customizing it. They do not, however, include support for any third-party themes or plugins or customizing the software for you.

It’s not really worth the price. If your business uses nopCommerce, you’ll probably have a developer maintaining it, so paying for the support would be superfluous.

Around the Web

Many users adore nopCommerce. They love how scalable and stable the platform is and how powerful it becomes when you customize it properly. It is widely regarded as the best ASP.NET shopping cart.

Unsurprisingly, a few users are upset by the copyright footer text. nopCommerce does boast about its platform being free with no hidden fees while obviously charging to remove the footer link. It’s a very fair complaint.

Verdict

nopCommerce is among the best shopping cart software if you prefer a Windows-based platform for your business. The solution can help you scale well into six or seven-figure earnings, and it will not leave you wanting for features. It’s one of the best ASP.NET-based carts out there.

Spree Commerce is one of the most popular open-source ecommerce projects in the world. The software has 1.1 million downloads and is even used by giants like Chipotle.

The solution is targeted at developers and businesses. This is what it offers:

Features

Spree Commerce is powerful, but it might not be for you.

Unlike most shopping carts that you can set up in a few clicks, Spree Commerce is more like a collection of Ruby code modules. The solution requires someone at least semi-fluent in code to put it all together.

If you’re a private user that just wants something easy to handle, you might want to look into other types of shopping carts. Spree Commerce is more geared toward developers, startups, and other businesses that need to quickly deploy highly customizable online stores.

If you do decide for Spree Commerce, the platform has plenty of handy features integrated into its code. Analytics, order management, various shipping and payment options, promotion features, social media integration, A/B testing, advanced SEO, and many more at your disposal.

The storefront can also be integrated into an already-existing website. There’s also easy integration for CMSs like WordPress.

Spree Commerce is also cloud-ready. You can easily use it on platforms like Heroku, AWS, and Azure, which developers are bound to love.

There are also about 60 native integrations, covering things like Elasticsearch and various payment processors. You can also find a bunch of third-party extensions.

The shopping cart software features a robust and well-documented RESTful API and is built on Ruby on Rails. The idea is to let developers build fully custom stores within days, so everything is geared towards fast web development.

Spree Commerce users have created everything from custom user authentications to robust B2B stores and online marketplaces.

Ease of Use

Despite requiring developer attention, Spree Commerce has a rather well-designed client area. The navigation is straightforward, and all the key features are very obvious. Even complete beginners can easily handle day-to-day activities once the store is live.

Of course, some of the client areas will depend on how you (or your developer) customize the software. If you require some crucial custom features, it’s good to make them as visible as possible on the dashboard.

Design Options

One of the principles of this shopping cart service is letting all users design their own frontend. That’s why there are no templates, save for the default one.

This essentially means you should have a UX designer around if you don’t have experience with this. The developer just needs to build the design you choose.

Some good news is that Spree Commerce already uses Bootstrap, so it’s easy to set up responsive pages. The software is also built with reusing code in mind, which can cut down on the time it takes to develop your application.

Payment Processors

Spree Commerce uses Active Merchant, which is Shopify’s library of payment processors. 144 gateways are supported. This includes big ones like Stripe and PayPal and dozens of country-specific gateways. You can also gain access to a few extra gateways like Apple Pay through integrations.

All in all, you get a decent choice of payment providers, and you will be able to cover over 100 countries with an international store.

Pricing

Spree Commerce is a completely free online shopping cart system. You can download the source code from GitHub. The solution runs almost entirely on community support, so all the plugins are free as well.

You still have to account for the price of developing your store with Spree Commerce if you run a business. The development with this software usually goes very quickly, though, so you can expect to have your store online in no time.

Support

One of the drawbacks of Spree Commerce is that there’s no customer support—not even paid one.

That said, the Spree Commerce community is massive and very loyal. The developers using it have written tomes on working with the platform, and you can join a dedicated Slack workspace with 4,000+ members.

If you want to learn how to use Spree Commerce, there’s no shortage of resources.

Around the Web

Spree Commerce is one of the most loved open-source projects out there. Hundreds of online shopping cart reviews praise how easy it is to quickly deploy a fully custom and highly scalable application.

There are few negative reviews to speak of. Spree Commerce gives its target audience just what they expect, so there are no surprises there.

Verdict

Spree Commerce falls somewhere between an ecommerce framework and a shopping cart solution. It’s one of the fastest ways to build a truly custom, scalable store with just about any functionality. If you’re a Rails developer looking for a quicker way to deliver top-notch products or a business that looks outside the box, Spree Commerce might be the best shopping cart software for you.

Before becoming a separate solution, Zen Cart was a part of osCommerce, making it 20 years old today. Now, it is one of the most-used shopping carts on the web and sports a massive community.

These are its features:

Features

Zen Cart is typically used as software that you plug into an existing website to add ecommerce functionality. This depends on the theme, though—some might let you design a fully-fledged website with an online store.

Be that as it may, the online shopping cart software lacks strong features for standard website building. It’s best to use it if you have an existing website and want to leverage it for ecommerce.

Zen Cart covers all the basics like inventory, order, and shipping management, product categories and attributes, basic speed optimization and SEO, etc.

You also get a decent number of features to engage and secure customers. This includes tools for email marketing, discounts, coupons, gift certificates, and a bunch of other options.

Zen Cart also has decent multi-language support. You can pick from 65 language packs, which is impressive. There’s also a plugin for machine translation. Still, you should really go through the translated text yourself and fix any mistakes.

There are 2,100 add-ons for extending your store’s functionality. This covers additional admin tools, international shipping carrier integrations, sidebar modules and widgets, and a lot more.

In short, Zen Cart has all the critical functionality users look for in online shopping cart services. You may want to hire a developer to design something truly unique down the road, but you get more than enough tools to start with.

Ease of Use

Despite its popularity, Zen Cart is a bit clunky.

For starters, the installation requires some effort. You can follow an installation guide, but you’ll need to dedicate some time to do it right.

Navigating the software isn’t a walk in the park either. The backend looks a bit dated, and it is definitely designed for users comfortable with tech.

Finally, you might need a developer to handle more in-depth customization. This is a good practice if you want to get the most out of Zen Cart, though it’s another cost to consider.

Design Options

The shopping cart program comes with a default template, but this is rather poorly designed.

Your best bet is to go for a premium template since many of those are much more modern. A few decent themes on ThemeForest start as low as $30, so you should have no trouble there.

An alternative is to go with a free theme and customize it yourself (or hire someone to do it for you). This is a valid option if you have a specific design in mind and want to get it just right, though you could do the same with just about any open-source cart.

Once you pick out a theme, you can do some simple editing. This includes things like basic layout changes (rearranging and resizing text boxes), editing the CSS styling, adding custom fonts, etc. The exact layout and styling features do somewhat depend on your theme, so choose wisely.

Payment Processors

Zen Cart works with processors like Square, PayPal, Authorize.net, and PayMeSecure by default. If the out-of-the-box ones aren’t enough, however, the cart integrates 237 other payment modules. You’ll most likely find your gateway provider of choice.

Pricing

Zen Cart is a completely free shopping cart software. Its 2,100 plugins are all community-generated, so you can download them for free as well.

Zen Cart does attach a “Powered by Zen Cart” copyright text to your storefront. Unlike a few providers (looking at you, nopCommerce), it lets you remove this for free. The only caveat is that Zen Cart will not feature your store on its website, but this is just a minor detail.

Third-party themes may be paid. Still, if you’re not going to have a developer fix up your website, a paid theme might be a good idea.

Support

ZenCart is free, but there is no support. A bit part of the shopping cart solution resources is community-driven, so there’s not even an option to get a paid support service.

If you need help with something, you can always ask a question in the forums. Zen Cart’s following is packed with experienced users, so you can get assistance with most issues.

Depending on your hosting provider, you might get some basic assistance. If you’re not a technical user, though, you might need a professional developer for occasional maintenance. The cart is built on the standard LAMP stack, so finding a qualified dev should be a walk in the park.

Around the Web

Many website owners have built amazing stores with Zen Cart. There’s no shortage of shopping cart comparisons and testimonials praising it for how robust and customizable it is.

Some users did complain about trying to set up Zen Cart via Softaculous and it breaking immediately. 1-click installation is known to be buggy, depending on how it’s configured, so it’s best to follow the official installation guide.

Other than a few details, it’s positive reactions all the way.

Verdict

Zen Cart is a solid choice if you run a midrange business and want to add a custom-tailored storefront to your website. The solution is free, but it does require more attention than some shopping carts, so it’s good to have a developer standing by. If your business has an IT team, though, it’s one of the top shopping cart platforms.

UltraCart has been in the industry for 20+ years. It takes quite a solution to stay relevant in ecommerce for that long.

Here’s what the shopping cart software offers today.

Features

When you sign up, UltraCart has you choose to either build a full online store (hosted on UltraCart’s servers) or connect the software to your own website and sell products there. I will focus on the latter since hosted solutions deserve their own article.

UltraCart has a lot of the utility features you’d expect, like robust order management, multiple currency support, analytics, reporting, shipping rate calculators, etc. It also includes a few advanced options to help you maximize conversion rates, like abandoned shopping cart auto-recovery and upsells.

The online shopping cart system also has an integrated affiliate platform. You can have users sign up and promote products for you.

If you prefer, you can also make products available on Amazon, eBay, and Google Products. You can easily sell across multiple channels and get more exposure for your business.

UltraCart strives to make as much functionality as possible available out-of-the-box. While it does succeed at this, there are few extensions to speak of.

The cart only has eight notable integrations, which only cover the essential functions. For instance, you can use Salesforce for CRM, InfusionSoft for email marketing, and QuickBooks for accounting. No extensions really distinguish UltraCart from all other shopping carts.

Ease of Use

UltraCart is pretty easy to set up and integrate with your website. All the retail management features are well-designed and intuitive, and all you really need to do is copy short snippets of code onto your site.

If you use WordPress, it’s even easier. You can just install the UltraCart plugin and feature products or groups of products on your website in only a few clicks.

All in all, it’s very straightforward to sell products through UltraCart.

Design Options

You’re typically expanding an existing website with this shopping cart, so you want your cart’s design to match the original website. Unfortunately, UltraCart doesn’t really shine in this department.

The cart is fully responsive. However, that’s where the easy stuff ends.

You will need to know a bit of HTML and CSS to get a specific look. Doing this isn’t extremely difficult, but most users don’t really want to dig into code to design a checkout page.

Payment Processors

UltraCart supports 39 payment gateways, including Stripe, PayPal, Amazon Payments, and Authorize.net. Most of the popular processors are supported, so you should have no trouble finding the right one for you.

The solution also integrates its own processor, called UltraCart Payments. The gateway supports all major credit cards. The rates depend on your plan, with the higher tiers offering more favorable deals than most processors.

Pricing

The shopping cart service comes in three variants:

• Small—250 products, 5 users, $49.95/month, $50,000 monthly revenue cap
• Medium—1,000 products, 10 users, $79.95/month, $100,000 monthly revenue cap
• Large—10,000 products, 100 users, $229.95/month, $250, monthly revenue cap

The smallest plan is somewhat limited. It lacks some integrations, has no affiliate system and preorders, and doesn’t let you sell through Amazon or eBay.

The revenue and product caps are reasonable, though, considering your storefront is hosted on UltraCart’s server.

Support

One of the most significant issues with UltraCart is that the support is only available during business hours (8:30 AM to 5:00 PM EST, Monday through Friday).

Despite this, the support team is rather decent. The longest I waited for an email response was 20 minutes. And did I mention you can reach the support team on Skype? It’s excellent if you’re outside the US and don’t want to be charged for a call to the shopping cart provider.

The agents do a superb job of answering all questions and helping you make your store work. They are a delight to work with.

That said, for the licensing cost, UltraCart should have 24/7 support.

Around the Web

UltraCart gets plenty of praise for being robust and highly scalable. Many users effectively sell products through it.

A few users did complain UltraCart can feel a bit clunky, and features like reporting could be more customizable. Those are fair points; UltraCart definitely has room for improvement.

Verdict

UltraCart is one of the best online shopping carts if your website is already doing well, and you want to use that popularity to sell a few products. Listing the products is easy as one-two-three, and the solution is highly scalable, so you won’t have to switch down the road.

If you’ve ever used WordPress, you’ve probably heard of WooCommerce. Like WordPress, it is owned by Automattic and is the most popular ecommerce plugin for WordPress. Some sources estimate it powers more than 28% of all ecommerce websites on the internet.

This is what WooCommerce brings to the table:

Features

WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, meaning you can use it to equip a WordPress website with a shopping cart.

WooCommerce comes with all the necessary functions like inventory management, selling physical or digital products, managing shipping and tax options, etc. You can also upload nearly unlimited product categories, let users leave product reviews, run affiliate campaigns, and a whole slew of other options.

The software also retains WordPress’s innate SEO-friendliness. Keep in mind it’s usually best to run an SEO plugin for the best results. Fortunately, plugins like Yoast have a version that can work with WooCommerce, so you’re spoiled for choice.

Speaking of plugins, WooCommerce has an expandable architecture. This means the core storefront software is lightweight, and you can pick and choose which features to add on top of it. This way, everyone can install what they need and avoid wasting server resources on non-essential features.

WooCommerce has nearly 400 official plugins you can integrate into your store. Some of the notable ones include plugins for booking, subscription-based services, and enabling product add-ons like gift wrapping.

All sorts of features are in the mix, making WooCommerce one of the most customizable shopping cart solutions in the industry. That said, you should be careful not to overload your website with plugins you don’t really need. Also, check that the plugins you install are compatible with WooCommerce, or it might be difficult to do software updates.

Ease of Use

WooCommerce is easy to set up. Enabling it on your WordPress installation is as easy as typing its name in the plugin repository. Some hosts even let you preinstall WordPress and WooCommerce when picking out a hosting plan.

Once you do install it, WooCommerce gives you a quick tour to help you find all the key features. Using the plugin is pretty similar to navigating WordPress. The dashboard makes it easy to find all the options and handle basic retail management activities.

That said, WooCommerce doesn’t hold your hand like many licensed shopping carts. You’ll likely have to do a bit of research (and perhaps spying on the competition) to see which features and plugins you need.

Still, WooCommerce is one of the more beginner-friendly shopping carts for websites.

Design Options

WooCommerce comes with a handful of free themes, which look decent but aren’t too flashy. If you’re starting a store, it might be better to go for a premium plugin and get the most out of your design. Your theme determines much of your store’s layout and visuals, so it’s worth it.

If you’re familiar with WordPress, you’ll know you don’t get many design features by default. WooCommerce is similar, so you can’t do much beyond using some animation effects and moving around blocks of text.

Of course, this will depend on the theme. Some premium themes, like Astra, add a bunch of design features and even let you fully customize the layout of your website.

Alternatively, you can go for a builder plugin like the Elementor WooCommerce Builder. Just make sure the plugin is compatible with WooCommerce and not only WordPress, or else it might break your online shopping cart software.

Payment Processors

WooCommerce enables five ways to capture payment information out of the box. This covers two gateways—PayPal and Stripe—as well as the basic methods like bank transfer and cash on delivery.

You can add over 100 other gateways through extensions Some, like Square and Amazon Pay, are free. Others, like AliPay, usually cost $79.

Pricing

The core WooCommerce is completely free—no strings attached.

That said, most of the cart’s functionality depends on the plugins you install. Yet, some of these are paid and can cost several hundreds of dollars. It’s worth considering what kind of functionality you need and whether you can get it with purely free add-ons.

You also might want to hire a developer for some custom work. You can likely get by without this if you’re just starting out. Once your store gains some traction, though, you might come up with a few ideas to get an edge over the competition.

Support

WooCommerce is a free shopping cart software, so you get no support.

That said, some providers like SiteGround offer managed WooCommerce hosting. You can actually get excellent support for your application, but this will depend on your provider.

WooCommerce also has a massive community and probably gets the most attention out of all shopping carts. There’s an ocean of resources on getting the most out of your WooCommerce store, so you should have no problems if you’re the DIY type.

Around the Web

There’s a reason WooCommerce has so many users. The plugin gets fantastic results and is revered by practically everyone using it. Clients praise the customizability, flexibility, and sheer power of the platform, among dozens of other things.

Some users do complain they don’t get enough assistance with the storefront software and that it’s not that easy to use. To be fair, WooCommerce is definitely not as straightforward as some of the best hosted shopping carts. Beginners can usually handle the dashboard, but you’ll need to figure out what kind of extensions would be helpful with your particular store.

Verdict

WooCommerce is an extension of WordPress and one of the most popular shopping carts. The software is relatively easy to handle and is one of the most customizable out there. It’s excellent for beginners looking to create a full-featured online store without getting hung up on a pixel-perfect design. It might just be the best free shopping cart for private users.

Magento is too big and too powerful to even be compared with the average shopping cart. It is practically in a category of its own and often requires an entirely different level of hosting. Still, the software has so many fantastic features, it deserves an honorable mention.

Magento is the system powering big stores like HP Inc., Canon, Nike, and Jaguar. It’s not the most popular shopping cart, but it’s definitely up there – it handles over $150 billion in transactions each year.

One half of the ecommerce world loves it while the other loves to hate it.

But let’s see what it can do for you.

Features

Magento Community Edition has all the features you need and more.

To mention a few, you get SEO and marketing, tax and shipping, one-page checkout – plus many, many more. There’s enough to fill a whole page.

Then there are the integrations. You’ll find well over 2,000 quality ones in the app marketplace.

Need I say more? Imagine any store you want, no matter how complicated. Chances are, you can build it with Magento.

Ease of Use

The tradeoff is in user-friendliness.

The admin dashboard is straightforward enough. There are plenty of features, but it’s not impossibly convoluted. Non-technical users can handle day-to-day things like listing products pretty easily.

As for installing the software, the apps, and making sure everything works… well, you’ll want to hire a Magento developer.

It is notoriously difficult. Even if you’re proficient with PHP, you need months to learn all the Magento-specific issues and how to handle them.

Hiring a professional is unavoidable. Magento might be among the best shopping cart software, but user-friendliness is not its forte.

Design Options

Magento doesn’t have any themes out of the box. A few free and thousands of paid ones are available for download. You can find a decent, paid theme for between $50 and $100.

Customization tools depend on the theme. Certain apps can make it easier, though.

There’s one simple thing you can do, though—let your developer handle it.

Joking aside, it’s simple to get a unique-looking website, but getting the precise design you want isn’t as straightforward.

Payment Processors

Magento has 80+ free payment processor integrations and about as many paid ones. The prices on some go above $500.

However, if you run a Magento store, the transaction fees are more of a factor. Look for the best rates to get the best profit margin.

Pricing

Magento is open-source, meaning it’s free to download and use.

That said, it’s probably the most expensive digital shopping cart out there.

How come? Well, Magento developers are not cheap, for one.

There are also hosting costs. Magento eats server resources like they’re nothing. Plan to pay a few hundred dollars a month at least.

You also need to account for an SSL certificate, extensions, and payment processing fees.

That’s why only large businesses can usually afford to make Magento cost-efficient.

Can medium-sized businesses pull off Magento? Yes, with extremely cautious budgeting.

In fact, everyone ought to consult an expert beforehand. Even with planning, getting the most out of Magento is an uphill battle.

What about small businesses, though? Plenty of hosts offer shared Magento hosting for a few bucks a month.

Yes, such hosting exists, and yes, Magento can work with it. However, you’ll put yourself through a whole lot of heartache for nothing. A simpler shopping cart software is a safer bet.

Support

Magento offers no support. If something goes wrong, you’re on your own.

What Magento does offer is an extensive knowledge base. Moreover, Magento has one of the most active communities in the ecommerce world.

If you have a question, look it up. All common problems have solutions either in the Magento guides or in the forums.

If not, you can always ask. Other Magento users are usually happy to help.

Around the Web

Magento is a big thing in ecommerce, so there are plenty of users for and against it.

Most like the sheer number of features and the overall flexibility. Who wouldn’t?

They don’t like that Magento is demanding and that it’s challenging to get a grip on. These are fair points too.

This is the best shopping cart software if you value quality and resources are not an issue. Still, caution is advisable before committing.

Verdict

It’s safe to say Magento has unmatched functionality among ecommerce software. The tradeoff is that it often takes an immense amount of resources (read: funds) to pull off.

If you want a powerful storefront software and will spare no expense to get it, go with Magento.