Comparative overview of Open Source Shopping carts - OsCommerce, Magento and Open Cart

OsCommerce Shopping Cart

OsCommerce was started in March 2000 and has since matured to become the most popular open source shopping cart solution.

Advantages:

1.      It is a complete online store solution that contains both a catalog frontend and an administration tool backend, which can be configured over web
2.      Has a good support base in the form of its community members
3.      Has an active forum for seeking help and troubleshooting
4.      Recent security update brings it up to date with MySQL 5 and PHP 5
5.      Has lot of contributed modules (add-ons) that can be integrated
6.      Can be hosted on a shared server, and is quick

Disadvantages –

1.      Does not have graphic template system meaning it is harder to modify the design
2.      Customisation is time consuming

Magento Shopping Cart

Magento came into the open source shopping cart arena in 2007, and in a very short time has been able to attract a large following. The coding is based on the latest PHP 5 object oriented coding standards.

Some parts of Magento are licensed under the Academic Free License version 3.0(since version 1.1.7). There is also an enterprise Edition for large companies.

Advantages –

1.      Has a vast basket of new age marketing modules and tools, for Up selling and Cross Selling
2.      Is search engine friendly
3.      Can be designed as per will
4.      Has a very good ‘Order Management’ system

Disadvantages –

1.      Heavily layered and overly complicated coding style and requires a lot of time to customise.
2.      Lacks technical documentation, making it difficult to customize and modify the programming of Magento beyond doing graphical changes.
3.      Most of the good to have modules are only available in the Enterprise version (USD 8900 aprox.) of the cart. Comparison of the Community Version and the Enterprise version can be seen on http://www.magentocommerce.com/product/compare
4.      Runs fairly slow as it runs a pretty heavy script, and requires a reliable and non overselling provider for the website to function as intended. Runs well only on dedicated server.

Open Cart

OpenCart is good for medium sized organizations looking for an open source solution for their need. It designed feature rich, easy to use, search engine friendly and with a visually appealing interface.  It has its own fan following.

Advantages –

1.      Has a simple admin panel
2.      It is search engine friendly
3.      Has most of the standard shopping cart features out of the box

Disadvantages –

1.      Has limited contributions, which may induce the need to go for lot many customization.
2.      Scaling or new feature development is difficult because of a small developer forum, though they are active.

Feature comparison between oScommerce and Open Cart can be found on http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route=information/features

Fetature wise comparioson between Magento and oScommerce can be found on: http://www.dckap.com/magento-vs-osCommerce.htm

To know more about me, visit the following links:

My Company: Enabling Dimensions
My Passion: Enable All