Online retail industry is booming and so are the ecommerce space and ecommerce platforms. More than 370 ecommerce platforms are widely available to the businesses, as per the reports by G2. So, it is not easy to narrow down through hundreds of options to choose the best solution. So, we have taken time to review the most popular ecommerce platforms –
- WooCommerce
It is an open-source, free shopping cart plugin by WordPress. It is one of the most widely used ecommerce platforms and around 30% of all online stores are powered by WooCommerce. It is the best choice for small businesses which have WordPress sites already or who have a limited budget but are still looking for a great online store. There are thousands of third-party plugins and themes to choose from. So, it offers a lot of flexibility to meet your needs.
- Magento
It is another most popular open-source ecommerce platform worldwide. Originally, it was released in the year 2009 and Magento 2.0 replaced it in 2015 with more stability/usability features and improved code base. Later on, Adobe purchased Magento in 2018 and it is available in Magento Commerce and Magento Open Source versions. It is the best choice for both small and medium businesses which already have a great demand and manpower, time and skills to create their official website. It is a very powerful platform and has more than 5000 extensions.
- PrestaShop
This cloud-hosted and open source platform gives the best bang for your bucks. Founded in 2007, PrestaShop is a fairly new ecommerce platform which is easy to use. It has a very simple interface to handle product management, reporting, and store management very well. You will need to pay for SSL certificate, web hosting, and other modules, though it is free to download. You can use a free trial for 16 days or pay right away. The dashboard is really very simple and straight. It has a video on board. You can get the most through its modules that can be enabled with one click.
- OpenCart
This self-hosted CMS platform has everything to manage and create your online store. OpenCart has powered over 342,000 e-commerce stores worldwide. It is more than just a website builder. It is an open-source platform that can be installed to improve its functionalities to the current website. You can easily manage everything with a user-friendly interface thanks to its admin dashboard. Its marketplace is one of its main advantages. There are around 13000 themes, modules, and extensions. It is another great advantage. The best thing is that OpenCart is free to install and download on your site. There is no annual or monthly rental to use this platform. There are around 110,000 active and registered members on community forums. So you can easily find a solution to your problem, if any.