Best Open-Source B2B eCommerce Platforms

1. What Is an Open Source eCommerce Platform?
2. Advantages of Open Source eCommerce Platforms
3. Disadvantages of Open Source eCommerce Platforms
4. Top 20 eCommerce Open Source Platforms
5. Is Open Source eCommerce Actually Free?
6. FAQs

Open source is a collaborative effort with communities built around open source code solutions. It means that every developer who works with the platform can contribute their ideas as well as seek answers to problems they can’t solve on their own.

Even though open source platforms are free, you’ll most certainly incur additional expenses, such as licensing and hosting provider fees, developer wages, security and PCI DSS compliance expenses, and any other costs associated with running and maintaining the platform.

Because the open source platform’s code is open to anyone and ecommerce, in general, is a treasure trove of financial data, the code can be used by bad actors who might look for ways to exploit any potential vulnerabilities in the system.

Here’s our rundown of the most popular ecommerce platforms on the market that are also open source!

Recent stats from WordPress show that WooCommerce has been downloaded more than 123 million times; on November 25, 2020, alone — 700 thousand times. This makes WooCommerce the most popular open source ecommerce solution available on the market.

WooCommerce was created by WooThemes to help users turn their WordPress site into an ecommerce store.

WooCommerce’s popularity, however, comes at a price. Most of the more complex features don’t come in a free package and need to be paid for. The same goes for store support. That said, WooCommerce is still a great solution that is easily scalable with little to no issues. That is why it is often chosen as the main platform by small to medium size businesses.

• WordPress specific: No matter how sophisticated it might appear, WooCommerce is still a plugin that cannot be used in sites not hosted on WordPress.
• Entails additional expenses: Although it’s free to download, you’re bound to incur additional expenses through apps and extensions that you need to pay for if you require specific features not included with the free package.

Although Magento Community Edition is not as popular as WooCommerce, it is still a well-known open source ecommerce platform that’s preferred by over 270,000 merchants. Compared to Shopify, Magento CE has 24.8% of the ecommerce market share while Shopify caters to only 9%. While Magento CE lacks some features of its paid counterparts, such as Magento Enterprise Edition (aka Magento Commerce) and Magento Marketplace, it is still a good choice for anyone looking for a free open source platform.

• Development costs: Even though the entry cost of Magento is nil, you need to have a decent budget to develop the platform you want. Magento custom development, along with Magento extensions, can cost you a pretty penny, amounting to thousands of dollars. With Magento Commerce, expenses pile up even higher.
• Hosting requirements & associated costs: Magento clearly articulates its hosting requirements, which include hosting the platform on VPS (Virtual Private Server), cloud, or a dedicated server. Plus, as with other open source platforms, you’ll need to think of domain registration, web hosting, SSL certification, and so on.

One of OpenCart’s catchphrases might as well be “looks do matter” as it offers more than 15,000 modules and eCommerce themes. There are currently more than 150,000 live ecommerce stores running on OpenCart open source ecommerce platform, with the number of online stores growing at 5,8% in the third quarter of 2021.

• Limited scalability: If you plan to scale up your shop, then OpenCart might not be an ideal solution.
• SEO issues: Unfortunately OpenCart can create canonization issues for SEO.
• Slow checkout experience: If cart abandonment rate is something you might be struggling with, then give OpenCart a pass.

Drupal is a free open source web content management system written in PHP. Drupal provides a back end framework for at least 13% of the top 10,000 websites worldwide – from personal blogs to government portals. Drupal Commerce is one of the most sophisticated open source ecommerce software that augments Drupal CMS.

• Complex: Unlike other ecommerce software, Drupal was created as a framework that is focused on what you can build as opposed to what you can do, which means that besides basic features out of the box, you’ll be expected to create everything else and compose your own solution either out of the available modules or modules you develop yourself. 
• Pricey: Besides web hosting, SSL certification, and whatnot, you can purchase professional support from the Commerce Guys that run Drupal Commerce; however, it’s expensive as it starts from 3,000 dollars for a setup and almost 600 dollars in monthly fees.

X-Cart is a fine open source ecommerce platform that, unlike other free platforms, offers a lifetime license. As a PHP-based ecommerce software built on solid source code and a user base of 30,000 merchants, X-Cart offers multiple fine features. While the list and number of features are impressive, the cost of upgrading to get the most out of this list is expensive. 

X-Cart shopping cart software comes in a cloud-based hosted version or downloadable software that you install on your site.

• Complex and pricey: Setup requires manual coding, and technical support will cost you extra.

More than 300,000 ecommerce websites worldwide run on PrestaShop open source ecommerce platform. According to the company, PrestaShop particularly leads the charts in Europe and Latin America. The platform is indeed popular among merchants in more than 200 countries, which explains why it was translated into nearly 70 languages.

• Development issues: There have been reported problems with a correlation of PrestaShop ecommerce modules.
• Scaling and performance issues: PrestaShop might not be an ideal solution for handling spikes in traffic.
• Costs: As with other open source solutions, PrestaShop might be free to run but requires investments whenever you want to add more features.

Spree Commerce is popular among small to medium-size companies, with 10 to 50 employees on average and no more than ten million dollars in revenue. The Spree Commerce open source ecommerce platform was created back in 2007 and has since had nearly 800 contributors and over one million downloads from RubyGems. The platform runs on Ruby on Rails, and it’s something to keep in mind if you plan to tinker with the code as you might have a hard time figuring your way around it.

• Lack of comprehensive customer service: Outside its Slack Channel and developer community, Spree doesn’t offer customer service or technical assistance.
• Complex: Spree runs on Ruby and is pretty complex in general for anyone who is not familiar with the language. 
• A limited number of extensions: Compared to Magento or Shopify, Spree has way fewer extensions and add ons. Moreover, there are also restrictions on whom you’re able to integrate with.

VirtueMart is a Joomla!-based open source ecommerce platform with an impressive number of features, a number of active ecommerce stores globally, and an active developer community. The platform’s official user count is well over 300,000.

With that said, it’s worth noting that even though the company was founded back in 2004, its development team is still small, there are only 3 to 5 people actively engaged in the project. 

Despite having limited manpower, the VirtueMart developers are always happy to help and are grateful for any kind of input from their thriving community. 

VirtueMart might not be an ideal solution for those with limited coding skills or a tight budget, as you can easily spend a small fortune buying all kinds of add-ons and plug-ins for your site.

• Limited support options and development complexities make VirtueMart hard to recommend for anyone with little technical skills.

WP ecommerce is an original WordPress e commerce plugin with a download count of over 3M and an active developer community. With WP ecommerce, all you require is some basic CSS and HTML knowledge. 

• Limited functionality for larger online stores: Since WP APIs have limitations, you may find that you cannot add some advanced features.
• Security concerns: WordPress’s popularity comes at a cost, making it a constant target of cybercriminals. 
• WordPress specific: WP ecommerce is nothing more than a plugin and cannot be used in ecommerce websites that are not hosted on WordPress.

CubeCart is a feature rich open source ecommerce software that has a decent developer community.

• Still not as feature rich as other platforms: Compared to other platforms, CubeCart is not as advanced as it might sound.
• The website looks outdated: Although CubeCart software is regularly updated, the company’s website looks as though it was designed back in the naughties, which makes you question the platform’s capabilities.

Virto Commerce is a professional enterprise grade ecommerce solution that, just like Magento, has an open source free version. Virto Commerce’s unique features include its complex catalog, inventory and order management systems, a custom made CMS, among other advanced ecommerce features. For example, Virto Commerce’s flexible pricing management module allows you to control each segment of your pricing logic with ease. Being a headless API-driven ecommerce platform, Virto Commerce supports multiple sales channels and can easily integrate with third-party systems.

• Costly: although you can download Virto Commerce free of charge, you’ll require sufficient developer resources to make the solution work for your online business. Alternatively, you can pay the Virto Commerce developer team to work alongside your team or build a solution for you. 

Square Online is built on open source. That said, you won’t be able to download the whole platform package as open source but a few internally developed libraries that you can later use to build something of your own. Square Online ready made platform, however, might be an ideal option for those selling on social media. The platform is specifically tailored for Facebook and Instagram merchants as it allows for easy integration of Facebook marketing campaigns or transformation of an Instagram feed into a one page shopping site.

• Flexible payment plans: Although not entirely open sourced, the Square online store builder comes as a part of several payment plans, including a free version that includes unlimited products, seamless integrations with Facebook and Instagram, self serve ordering, pick up and shipping, syncing with Square POS, and SEO tools. Square Online includes a free SSL certificate and lets you accept online payments from major credit card companies. Using Square Online open source code you can customize the platform to suit your particular needs.
• A fine set of features: Square Online readymade platform has templates, tools, and features that won’t only help your store stand out amongst the competition but will also allow you to run your online business operations as smoothly as ever. For example, Square Online allows you to integrate tools like real-time rate calculator, label printing, and premium shipping rate discounts. 

• Not entirely open source: Square Online provides only a few internal libraries that can be used to build a store of your own.
• Transaction fees: Even if you’re going for a free version of Square Online, you’ll incur transaction fees on every sale, 2.9% + 30¢.

Ecwid is an ecommerce plugin in the likes of WooCommerce that can be added to an existing website on WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal. Ecwid also offers a single-page website that the company calls the Starter Site or Instant Site, which is quite limited in functionality and hence, not suitable as a long-term solution.

• Not entirely open sourced: There’s however an Ecwid open source library that you can use to extend the existing functionality.
• A free version has very limited functionality: Although the Ecwid Instant website is free, it has very limited functionality, so you’ll need to subscribe to paid plans to take advantage of other Ecwid ecommerce features.

CS-Cart is a decent open source ecommerce platform with a fine set of features and customization capabilities. The marketplace version of the software, CS-Cart Multi Vendor, allows you to add different merchants to your store. 

• Has hidden fees: Although CS-Cart is open source, you’re expected to buy a license to get lifetime access to code and software. Moreover, expect to pay more if you want multiple storefronts and vendors, as well as for any updates after a year of use. 
• Marketplace for add-ons has multiple issues: Unfortunately, some of the add-ons represented on the CS Cart Application Marketplace might not even work with CS Cart.

nopCommerce is a free open source ASP.NET shopping cart based on Microsoft technologies. nopCommerce open source ecommerce platform has been on the market for 12 years: during its market tenure, the company has partnered with more than 150 partners across 40 countries and helped to launch more than 60,000 live online stores.

• Basic CMS: Because nopCommerce offers only basic CMS functionality, it might not be ideal if you need to manage a lot of robust content pages.
• Lack of templates: nopCommerce offers only a handful of free templates.
• Microsoft technologies: Since nopCommerce is based on Microsoft technologies, it best works with a Windows server infrastructure environment. If you’re working with, say Java or PHP,  give this platform a miss.
• Complex: nopCommerce has a steep learning curve if you need to do a lot of customizations, so if your coding knowledge is just above average, you might want to consider other solutions.

Solidus is a free, open source ecommerce framework with a complete suite of essential e commerce features in a fully modular package. It’s professionally developed by open source community experts with popular ecommerce software like Ruby, PostgreSQL, MySQL, RESTful API, and GraphQL.

• Complex and requires investment: Although the platform is open source and built on modern technologies, it will require some developer resources for full setup and customization.
• Complexity around inventory and stock management makes Solidus a difficult option to recommend for smaller businesses as they would hardly require even half of those sophisticated features.

MailChimp Open Commerce [previously known as Reaction Commerce] is an open source API-driven modular commerce stack that’s primarily catered for online retailers.

• Complex, thus requires developer resources and additional investment.
• Provides only a handful of templates.
• Still has inferior automation features.

Broadleaf Commerce is both a commercial and open source ecommerce solution. Broadleaf comes in two versions, one is for community and another one for enterprises. The solution also comes in several commercially available editions, such as Marketplace Edition, B2B Edition, B2C Edition, and Multi-Tenant Edition.

• Complex and therefore not suitable for small businesses with a tight budget or individuals with average development skills
• Even though the community version is free, the paid version comes with a heavy price tag (and we’re talking thousands of dollars).

Odoo Commerce is a modern open source ecommerce application that is specifically created for small business owners and less experienced users: the solution features an intuitive interface and a very user friendly experience overall.

• Out of the box user interface might be better. However, since code is open sourced, you can tinker with it as long as you have enough coding knowledge to do so.
• Lack of customer service, which is not surprising because all open source platforms are built collaboratively and, most often than not, voluntarily.

Bagisto is a custom-tailored open source ecommerce framework built on open source technologies such as Laravel and Vue.js.
 

• Complex: Although Bagisto has documentation, it might have been a bit more comprehensive. Users report issues with integrations and installation of new modules, as well as UX/Ui issues. To use Bagisto you need to have solid coding knowledge.

Yes and no. The source code might be free but everything you do with it will most certainly come at a cost.

One of the first steps in choosing a specific open source ecommerce platform is being honest about your coding skills and budget. 

One of the most significant benefits of any open source ecommerce platform is the worldwide community of web developers and other people working on improving specific software; but even then, these people have daytime jobs and won’t be there for you whenever you need them. 

If there’s no technical assistance available and no budget to hire developers, chances are – you’ll struggle with open source. 

On the other hand, if you’re confident in your coding skills and have experience working with open source technologies, then go for it!