To Use Open Source or Not to Use Open Source Software for eCommerce Sites

That really is not the question for many budding online sellers.

The options provided by open source eCommerce software is incredible. Many of the top programs are surrounded by a strong community of developers who continue to improve the product; create free themes/templates; and develop an extensive array of add-on modules to add extra power to the program. Just a few examples of open source eCommerce software with strong developer communities are Zen Cart, Ubercart, and Virtuemart.

In the case of Ubercart and Virtuemart, these are actually add on components or modules for existing CMS (content management systems) software. Ubercart is built for Drupal and Virtuemart is built for Joomla. Many content management programs have strong developer communities too. This is true for Drupal and Joomla that I already mentioned, but we could list a host of other content management systems like Mambo, phpNuke, and Xoops. And I haven’t even gotten to blogging software, where Wordpress is likely the strongest leader.

As it so happens, every single example that I provided is of an open source software program that can be quickly installed with just a few clicks via Fantastico De Luxe which is included with many web hosting accounts (You do need to be on a Linux-based server and not Windows). The only exceptions in the examples I provided are Ubercart and Virtuemart which need to be downloaded separately. However, both Drupal and Joomla make it fairly simple to install their respective eCommerce add-ons once you have uploaded the packages to your hosting account.

So with so many strong options available from the open source software world, is there a need for online sellers to look at other options including purchasing commercial programs or paying for a hosted option?

For many sellers, commercial options may still be a necessity. If you are a seller who is looking for the simplest of sites, you can probably just use one of the programs I referenced earlier. Or, if you are somewhat savvy with PHP-based software, open source is probably a very good option for you.

However, if you want a high quality eCommerce website or you need to have a program modified to work a certain way (differently than the “out of the box” version), you may run into some difficulties simply signing up for a $5 hosting account. For example, I have found that Zen Cart is extremely powerful and can work quite well for us (and the needs of many clients). But, yes there is a “but”, it’s not exactly the simplest program to use. The administrative area is a bit of a mess in my opinion. I am quite comfortable with it myself, but I wasn’t on my first day. And I’ve been able to make many modifications to Zen Cart for various sites, but this involved re-writing some of the PHP code.

So the question remains. Open source eCommerce software is a very viable option for online sellers who are technically savvy, are content with an “out of the box” solution, or who are going to pay extra for a web developer. For online sellers who don’t fit into these categories, looking at commercial software or hosted solutions is probably still necessary.