What are the best open source solutions for ecommerce?

what if you want to build your own online shopping website? Thankfully, we have some good open-source eCommerce solutions that you can deploy on your own Linux server.

This eCommerce software is tailored for the sole purpose of giving you a shopping website. So, they have essential features like inventory management, product listings, cart, checkout, wishlisting and option to integrate a payment solution.

Best Open-Source Ecommerce Platforms

There is many open-source eCommerce software available. I have filtered the ones which are actively maintained so that your shopping website doesn’t suffer because of obsolete or unmaintained software stack.

It is also worth noting that the list here is in no particular order of ranking.

nopCommerce:

nopCommerce is a free and open-source eCommerce platform based on ASP. NET Core. If you were looking for a PHP-based solution – you can skip to the next option on the list.

The user interface of its admin panel is clean and easy to use. If you’ve used OpenCart – you might feel the similarity (but I’m not complaining). By default, it has got all the essential features while offering a responsive design for mobile users as well.

OpenCart:

OpenCart is a quite popular PHP-based eCommerce platform. Personally, I’ve worked on it for a project and the experience was good enough – if not excellent.

You may find it that it isn’t super actively maintained – but it’s still there and being utilized by a lot of web developers. You get support for a lot of extensions while having most of the essential features baked right into it.

For some, it may not be the best “modern” eCommerce platform but if you want a good open-source PHP-based alternative, it is worth a try. In most of the web hosting platforms with one-click app installation support, OpenCart should be available to setup.

PrestaShop:

PrestaShop is yet another open-source eCommerce platform that you can utilize.

An actively maintained open-source solution with an official marketplace for themes and extensions. Unlike OpenCart, you may not find it available as a one-click app on hosting services – but you can download it from its official website and it is quite easy to set it up. You can also refer to their installation guide if you need help.

It features a lot of options while being easy to use at the same time. I find a lot of users trying out PrestaShop – you should take a look as well!

WooCommerce:

Technically, you’re using WordPress as the platform and WooCommerce as a plugin/extension to enable the features needed for an eCommerce website. Potentially, a lot of people (web devs) know how to use WordPress – so it will be easier to learn/create using WooCommerce, I think.

You shouldn’t have a problem using WordPress, being one of the best open-source website builders out there. It’s easy to use, reliable and supports a ton of extensions and integrations for your online store.

The best part about using WooCommerce is its flexibility. You get tons of choices for the design and extensions of your online store.

Magento:

An Adobe-owned open-source eCommerce platform that is potentially better than WordPress (depending on your preferences obviously).

Magento is completely tailored for e-commerce applications – so you will find a lot of essential features easy to use while offering advanced customizations as well.

However, when utilizing the open-source edition, you might miss some of the features available in their hosted offering. You can refer to their comparison guide for details. Of course, you can self-host it but if you want to be managed hosting support, that’s available as well.

And since you are working on your e-Commerce site, it will be a good idea to have an open-source community forum software to support the customers.

I’m sure there are a few more open-source eCommerce platforms out there – however, I haven’t come across anything that’s better than what I’ve listed above (yet).

If you think that I missed one of your favorites that deserves a mention, let me know in the comments.