Comments on: 8 PHP Shopping Cart Software for Reliable Ecommerce Solution

By: mil

mil — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 10:31:24 +0000

My opinion is that Magento really looks pretty and i was impressed when first see it. Admin panel looks nice but when you start using Magento you will quickly see that it’s pretty slow. There is also a lot of Javascript in the header of every page page is huge and works and loads slowly. I use older version of Magento with custom design maybe new version works better but still if you use custom design it’s almost impossible to upgrade it. Admin panel looks nice but it’s useless. Can’t change prices for many products at once for example. You need to open every product and change the price and this could take a while. I still use Magento because I need to but with lots of custom works and plugins (I use my own script for adding products, pictues, changing prices, mass price changing, invoice printing etc.). But still Magento is slow I have around 5000 products inside and works really slow. Not really sure about new version but i will not recommend it. Oxid could be a nice solution in my opinion but need to try it.

So overall rating about Magento:
Pros:
- It looks nice (at least admin)
- some nice features
- it’s free

Cons:
- works slowly
- a lot of java script in header
- poor help and support available
- useless admin panel
- with custom design it’s also impossible to upgrade it
- heavy (huge) pages – open slowly in browser

By: sridevikannan

sridevikannan — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 05:07:06 +0000

Zeuscart is the best php-based free GPL open source shopping cart software.

By: joe

joe — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 04:32:00 +0000

I have been using pinnacle cart for years and its super easy to customize and add to. Very well organized and easy to use. On another note Magento is a disaster when you want to make changes, no documentation and it uses a structure thats hard to figure out.

By: xcart

xcart — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 02:36:22 +0000

Have been using xcart for some time now and it works great. Thanks for the review. Really useful.

By: PHP Cart Noob

PHP Cart Noob — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 04:58:44 +0000

love the write up. nice work. I’m looking at Pinnacle Cart as a solution. Their new release appears SEO friendly and the product migration service is pretty sweet. I like the open source maginto too but being new, I think I’d want to be able to call customer support in case something burps. Thanks for the round up.

By: sam-i-am

sam-i-am — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:21:42 +0000

yes interspire is truly the no.1 shopping cart i have deployed 3 projects in it and one in magento and now working on x cart. from the developer’s pov intersipre is the best,it can be themed easily great seo(ok) the worst is magento there is no documentation on how to customize it.

By: C Soyo

C Soyo — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:37:03 +0000

Why are people SO confused about PCI and PA-DSS?? Eric: open source carts like Magento aren’t dead just because they don’t meet PA-DSS… it just means in order to use the cart, you need to defer to a gateway to handle the payments. Now, I will be the first to tell you, using a 3rd party gateway (ala Paypal standard) will likely lower your conversion rates depending on the market you are in, as some people just don’t like being redirected to make a payment – but in the case of smaller, “family owned” sites, it seems these gateways are becoming more and more accepted. After July 1st, this is where retailers will HAVE to go if their cart software is not PA-DSS – so it would seem acceptance will likely increase for these gateways as a result.

If you are a somewhat larger retailer, and are on the edge of profitability, YOU are the ones who will need to strongly consider switching to a PA-DSS cart, or risking a little revenue loss (POSSIBLY) with the use of a gateway.

Cheers

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:50:30 +0000

If I wanted to use a cart as a catalog, and have multiple websites connected to this catalog, which program would you recommend?

By: Abbotsford

Abbotsford — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:14:50 +0000

Great overview. Magento is server intense, but has great features for related products and reviews. X-Cart may have been popular years back, is still quite stable, although at this time, it would not be my first choice. Zen-Cart gets my vote for customization and optimization. Yes it is a bit clunky to look at first and the back end does need work, the community support is simply excellent!

By: Visible.net

Visible.net — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:02:20 +0000

Very nice roundup of PHP shopping carts. Flexibility, usability, search friendliness and promotion tools are what sets many of the best shopping carts apart from “the other guys.” Open source has been getting a lot of attention, especially with Magento. So, glad to see a nice mix of Os and web based/hosted here. Thanks for sharing. Keep up the good work.