In most forums and communities, discussions abound on what is a better open source e-commerce platform between PrestaShop and OpenCart. While others favor OpenCart, some consider PrestaShop a better e-commerce platform, especially the PrestaShop 1.4 versions. For purpose of clarifying some thin lines, let us examine essential features of PrestaShop and OpenCart.
| | PrestaShop | OpenCart |
| Features | | |
| * Search Engine Optimization | Making the site SEO-friendly is easy and simple with PrestaShop’s convenient URL configuration. | OpenCart works with the same functions to make a site SEO-friendly; however, configuring a website is harder with OpenCart. |
| * Content Management | PrestaShop is a more developed e-commerce platform with detailed functions, including product ratings and product review options. | Unnecessary features add to the complexity of OpenCart. Although, it’s content management is trusted and solid, retailers may find OpenCart time-consuming. |
| * Resources Availability | The downside of PrestaShop is the lack of available resources for users’ reference. Most of the available books and manuals on PrestaShop are in French. | Being an older e-commerce platform, there are numerous books, documentation, blogs, and manuals on OpenCart. For self-learning users, OpenCart’s wide resources is a great advantage. |
| * Administration Panel | PrestaShop offers a simple and smooth administration panel for easy and quick implementation of retailers. There are still dead-end functions that retailers may not favor. | Unnecessary requirements, like the product model number, take time for the retailer to input new products to the store. OpenCart has been around for long, but there are still dead-ends that retailers find not helpful. |
| * Order Management | PrestaShop’s 5-page checkout system may take too much time, but retailers can easily customize the process to fit their website. | OpenCart’s checkout page works on Javascript, which causes fallbacks. The good thing of OpenCart’s checkout page is its direct and short process. |
| * Add-Ons and Extensions | PrestaShop’s administration panel simplifies adding of extensions and plug-ins to the site. Plus, the website can have integration with social media networks, including Twitter and FaceBook. | OpenCart stands equal with PrestaShop’s add-ons and extensions. Social network integration, blogging, and other extensions are available to improve your store. |
| * Scalability | PrestaShop works best with small and medium-scale businesses. Smooth functionality meets features for a store with products up to 1, 500. | OpenCart works with stores with large quantity of products. |
| * Themes | The default theme of PrestaShop provides easy-to-use system with a simpler look. Users can easily navigate throughout the system without having problems with themes. | The OpenCart theme has not changed over time, but the data abstracting has improved. |
| Benefits | User experience is a top of PrestaShop with functionality and modules included in the initial install. | The experience and continual development of this old-time e-commerce platform is a good point of OpenCart. |
| Cost | Without paying a dime, PrestaShop is downloadable for free for the initial download, but you still need to pay for setting up, configuring, and customizing with extensions. | OpenCart is also a free open-source e-commerce platform with expensive extensions. |
Search Engine Optimization
PrestaShop and OpenCart possess similarity of features, capabilities, and functions with regards to search engine optimization (SEO). The goal is to improve website ranking, and the traffic generated to your website. The edge of Prestashop over OpenCart is the simplicity of configuration to create and promote an SEO-friendly URL. Cutting hassle and inconvenience out, online retailers who are always running out of time can easily configure their websites to suit SEO capabilities within minutes.
Content Management
Although OpenCart boasts its strong and solid content management, this open-source e-commerce platform has unnecessary features in the administration panel, including “Information” of non-product webpages. OpenCart users complain on the sophistication of the platform, which requires a bankable knowledge to implement. PrestaShop’s content management is more detailed and developed with useful features packed in a smooth panel. There are product rating and review options, and unlimited information pages to support product promotion.
Resources
Comparing the documentation and resources’ availability, OpenCart has an edge over the French PrestaShop. OpenCart books and tutorials are greatly available in various formats, and you can easily find community discussion boards for those who are new to th OpenCart e-commerce platform. There are only few resources available for PrestaShop – most of which are in French. If you know French, you will surely fair well with PrestaShop. With the popularity of PrestaShop 1.4, the problem will eclipse sooner. Forums and discussion boards have grown in the past year due to the advantageous usability of PrestaShop over other e-commerce platforms.
Administration Panel/Control
OpenCart has been around for a long time, but you can still find dead-ends and irritating panel failure. OpenCart’s Administration Panel is easy to use and does not require much technical knowledge, but unnecessary features, like adding a model number to products, can be frustrating for a new online marketer or small-medium retailers who don’t have the capacity to hire more people for the business. On the other hand, PrestaShop works smoothly and nicely, but there are still dead-ends to handle.
Order Management
Though OpenCart maintains a single-page checkout process, PrestaShop 5-step checkout system is far reliable and customizable. OpenCart works on Javascript, which cannot be accessed for possible fallbacks. PrestaShop supports possible fallbacks without inconvenience to customers.
Order management is an important part of the e-commerce platform. There are various payment extensions available to integrate with the platform. It allows a systematic and secured online payment, credit card processing, and inventory system.
PrestaShop and OpenCart fair well in available extensions and add-ons that can be added to the features of the store. It is easy to customize PrestaShop-powered stores with effective modules available in the Administration Panel. Twitter and Facebook integrations are very common among open source e-commerce platforms today. Blogging adds market reach and potential of the store.
Scalability
Being an older platform, OpenCart carries large quantity of products better and easily. It is easy to group categories and attributes, including manufacturer and product prices. In fact, OpenCart-powered stores can hold up to 1, 500 products without server development failure. For small-scale and medium-size stores, PrestaShop offers a highly-developed system for creation of scalable stores that can grow with the business investments and returns.
Themes
PrestaShop, as a younger open-source e-commerce platform, has seen the failure and mistakes of older projects. PrestaShop is a more developed platform with attractive themes to attract aesthetic attention of web users. On the other hand, OpenCart has remained in its traditional system of abstracting data, though the theme has improved from previous versions.
Benefits
PrestaShop is a comprehensive standalone open-source e-commerce shopping cart solution that offers a systematic infrastructure to build, populate a network and manage the online store. You can leverage on the user-friendly features of the platform with a wide selection of plug ins. Users have full access to the source code for a complete customization to meet desired customer shopping experience. One can focus time on design and customization without having problems with the functionality.
Meanwhile, OpenCart supports wider payment options and multiple currencies. For users’ satisfaction, it takes less time for integration with the template of OpenCart. Retailers get customized reports on the product sales, inventory of stocks, and demography of customers.
Costs
Initial download of both PrestaShop and OpenCart is for free. You can start making money with your store using these open-source e-commerce solutions. There are available extensions that you need to pay. For one, the Paypal Payment extension is a paid additional feature for the check-out page of the online store. Even if these platforms are free and open-source solutions, you still need to pay to improve and customize your store for the full experience of customers.
PrestaShop, probably, is better between the two. As an e-commerce open source platform, PrestaShop boasts its versatility and functionality with useful modules. Still, OpenCart is a nice e-commerce platform to consider.
