Top 5 PHP Open-Source Platforms for E-Commerce Development

E-commerce is a growing and competitive space. The number of online shoppers in the U.S. is expected to hit 175 million in 2016, according to research. Many businesses and start-ups turn to e-commerce to sell their products and services online.

There are many e-commerce and online shopping cart solutions to set up an online store. PHP is the most preferred open-source platform for e-commerce development among developers. PHP is a great technology because it is free, supports a range of databases, runs on many platforms (Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, etc.) and is compatible with most servers.

Here are the top 5 PHP open-source platforms for e-commerce development:

Magento:

As the fastest growing e-commerce platform, Magento is used by more than 30,000 online stores, including Nike, Samsung, The North Face, and OfficeMax. It is a cost-effective and highly scalable platform that allows you to be in control of the content, design and functionality of your e-commerce site. Magento is full of great features, including its powerful marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) management.

OpenCart

For start-ups looking to build their online business, OpenCart is a great cost-effective option. It is feature-rich, user-friendly and has a simple interface. OpenCart provides many options: You can sell an unlimited number of products, create unlimited categories, choose multiple currencies and use different languages. The platform uses SEO to help boost traffic and sales and defers to Google Analytics to gather information about shoppers’ behavior.

osCommerce

Developed in 2000, osCommerce is one of the most popular and oldest open-source platforms for online store management. Some of the features of osCommerce include free add-ons for community members as well as free and premium templates. osCommerce can be hosted anywhere, works immediately after installation without any configuration or modification, and enables easy customization.  

ZenCart

ZenCart is a straightforward yet powerful e-commerce platform. The shopping cart software is easy to install, customize, use, and manage. In addition to basic features like newsletters, discount codes and gift certificates, there are many other add-ons available to simplify the admin experience.

PrestaShop

PrestaShop is a robust cross-platform e-commerce solution that has more than 300 built-in features integrated into the software that can help boost business. The back-end of PrestaShop allows you to manage your inventory, orders, shipping, and customers in real-time. It’s small size—about 3M for the complete application— enables fast installation, but it is not applicable for a large-scale project.

Learn more about our experience in PHP development for e-commerce websites here.

Photo credit: Pierre Rattini