Online businesses are growing by leaps and bounds. Several entrepreneurs have moved from brick and mortar stores to online space and have started expanding online to outrank their competitors. Yesterday’s luxury has become today’s necessity for any business seeking to thrive in today’s rapidly disrupting marketplace. Don’t believe me?

Here’s what facts & figures have to say.

71% of shoppers believe they will get a better deal online as compared to brick and mortar stores.

80% of people online have purchased things from the internet. 50% of the people on the internet have purchased more than once.

While there are so many open source platforms for eCommerce available out there to help you start your venture online, here are the best of them which are worth your time, energy, and resources. I have compared open source eCommerce software to help you get clear about which platform should you opt for while building your next online store.

WooCommerce:

WooCommerce is one of the most popular and best open source e-commerce platforms for 2018 available out there to support your most amazing store idea. It all started in September 2011. Since then, it has crushed many of the most popular eCommerce giants with more than 4 million active shops. That’s not enough, the interesting fact is, today, WooCommerce now powers “30% of all online stores.” Isn’t that interesting?

It indeed is. Yet there are many reasons responsible for its, “overnight success.” The first selling point of WooCommerce is that it is fully customizable. It gives the store owner with the freedom to customize pretty much everything they want. While WooCommerce offers full freedom of customization, the major point why it is so popular is because it’s free! Amalgamated with WordPress, WooCommerce can give your store the most amazing look that you can expect.

OpenCart:

OpenCart powers over 342,000 eCommerce Entrepreneurs all over the world. It is the second best open source e-commerce platform for 2018. Not just that, the OpenCart marketplace features 13000+ modules and themes to jump-start, grow and expand your business. There is a plethora of beautiful themes available for any type of industry. Whether it be an e-store or a community – it works for all.

The reasons why OpenCart is extremely popular are many. Firstly, it’s very easy for a developer. OpenCart is a system based on the Model View Controller (MVC) pattern. It’s easy to develop extensions or customize OpenCart if you know PHP and MySQL. No one likes to deal with the complicated “code-stuff”. And in fact, it’s vain to do more when you can accomplish the same by less. Not just that, OpenCart’s User interface is easy to understand and easy to use. This makes it most popular among its customers and users. People love to deal with simple things, as they make them feel intelligent.

Hence, if your main aim to design and develop an eCommerce store which is easy to understand — and easy to use — OpenCart is the one you should look for.

Magento Community Version:

After OpenCart, Magento is one of the most popular e-commerce store platforms that has a potential to help you turn your business around. With more than 200k users, Magneto is another popular free open source eCommerce platform. Magneto has many user-friendly features that can make your website more compelling.

Magento is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms in the world in the year 2013. The reason it is popular is that it is easy-to-use and simple to understand. You can easily build personalized solutions that work well with your eCommerce business needs.

If you are seeking to develop a reliable and sustainable eCommerce store for your amazing business, Magento’s Community Edition is free to use. It can help you build the most amazing store for your business.

PrestaShop:

PrestaShop is one of the many popular eCommerce platforms today. It can help your business to grow exponentially. With more than 270k active shops across the globe, PrestaShop is again one of the most reliant eCommerce store hosts for your online store. Backed up by more than 1,000,000 community members, 1,000+ contributors, and more than 250 agencies – you can rely on PrestaShop for your future store and it will not disappoint you.

Usability is one of the most critical factors that make any eCommerce platform first choice to develop their eCommerce store with. And PrestaShop is well-known for that. The usability is the first factor that you should be considering while building your first amazing eCommerce store. When it comes to the eCommerce Platform — PrestaShop, it scores very high in the segment of usability. With PrestaShop, you can make your website look cool and work awesome!

Final words — that was the open source eCommerce software comparison among the best from the rest eCommerce platforms available out there in the marketplace. This was a simple guide to help you decide which platform would suit you better for your next online eCommerce venture.

Author Bio:

Mr. Maulik Shah is the founder and CEO of Biztech Consultancy: Magento Development Company. He is a tech enthusiast and specializes in Magento. And therefore can write on various aspects of eCommerce technology and provide IT solutions for enterprises, startup businesses across the globe.

Best Open Source Platforms for eCommerce (Compared 2018)