Best Shopping Cart Software of 2023

Trusted by over 31,000 sites, AbanteCart is my top pick for shopping cart software, largely due to its customization options and extensive community. AbanteCart is a free, open-source e-commerce solution that can be used to create an entire website or only as a shopping cart component.

I was most impressed with AbanteCart’s enterprise-grade features, flexible customization, interface for multiple stores, and a strong and helpful community. AbanteCart gives you the possibility to create unlimited products and subcategories as well as upload unlimited files. You can customize product pages and even gather information from the customer, such as their text and images for customized products.

With its multi-store feature, I was able to manage many stores simultaneously. You could have several stores selling entirely different products under the same installation.

Compared to the other sites on this list, AbanteCart's customer support isn't the strongest, as it doesn’t have free phone or email support. Instead, the company encourages you to go to its community forum for help. It’s possible to schedule a paid professional support call with the expert team if you have problems, with prices ranging from $59 to $299.

Who is AbanteCart best for?

AbanteCart is the best free solution for small and medium businesses due to its easy user interface (UI) for basic functions, responsive templates, and flexibility. Advanced features, such as editing and integrating the code with other applications, may require technical knowledge.

Recent upgrades to AbanteCart

Occasionally, AbanteCart makes large software updates, mostly driven by feedback from the community. In the latest release, there were updates to the storefront, improvements to the payment options, and many bug fixes. While releases don't occur every month, they're significant when they do.

AbanteCart pricing

There is no charge to download AbanteCart, but you must spend money on hosting, themes, extensions, and plug-ins. In cases where you only want to integrate the shopping cart features into your existing website, the cost will be minimal or nonexistent.

BigCommerce, one the closest competitors of Shift4Shop, is a comprehensive e-commerce platform that offers you everything you need to create and scale an online store. In addition to being one of the top platforms for growth, it's also one of the best e-commerce platforms.

BigCommerce offers a built-in hosted shopping cart, flexible customization options, responsive themes, multiple payment gateways, and no transaction fees. Its cheapest plan includes unlimited staff accounts and one online store.

Customer support is among the best in its industry. It provides users 24/7 support through phone, email, and tickets, which are available for all of the paid plans. As for self-service, I found a great selection, including a knowledgebase, videos, and a community forum.

BigCommerce made multichannel selling easy for me. You can manage your Amazon, Facebook, eBay, and Pinterest stores through the platform.

Who is BigCommerce best for?

BigCommerce is the ideal solution for mid-size to enterprise businesses looking to grow since it offers powerful integrations, fully customizable checkouts, and functionality for multiple currencies and storefronts. Other solutions like Ecwid may be more convenient for small businesses and small-scale sellers.

Recent upgrades to BigCommerce

BigCommerce launches new upgrades into its software almost weekly and makes them available for everyone to see in its product blog. The latest update includes abandonment cart API, features for many stores, and a wide range of new promotion elements. As a result of these features, customers have even more freedom to customize.

BigCommerce pricing

BigCommerce offers a 15-day trial for all of its plans. As far as pricing goes, it is the most expensive option on this list. Like Shift4Shop, services start at $29.95 and go up to $299.95 per store per month, but BigCommerce doesn’t offer a free plan. For enterprise-level plans, it offers custom pricing.

OpenCart, like AbanteCart, is an open-source shopping cart solution that offers advanced and feature-rich functionalities. With nearly 20 years in the market, it has become one of the most popular shopping cart solutions.

Thanks to OpenCart’s open-source nature and free script, I found it easy to modify the platform however I wanted. It supports 36 payment gateways, accepts multiple languages and currencies, and lets you manage numerous stores through one interface.

You can add unlimited products, categories, and subcategories, sell digital products, integrate product reviews, and even offer a reward system for your customers.

It has free email support willing to help you with any platform-related problems. OpenCart also offers paid customer service from $99 to $160 for those looking to get fast solutions. Regarding self-service, I liked using OpenCart’s active community forum, where users and experts help each other.

Who is OpenCart best for?

Based on my research, OpenCart is the perfect shopping cart solution if you have some technical knowledge and want an open-source platform with full customization freedom and good integrations.

Recent upgrades to OpenCart

In general, OpenCart releases small updates to its software frequently and larger updates every few years. The OpenCart 4.0 update launched recently included significant improvements to the admin interface, more robust product settings, and other design changes. OpenCart is known as a flexible shopping cart, and its updates make it even more so.

OpenCart pricing

You can download OpenCart for free. Like AbanteCart, the cost comes from the apps, themes, and extensions, which are similar in price among both providers – but OpenCart has a much wider variety. There are some free apps, but most cost between $1 and $150. The price of website themes ranges from $15 to $30, and many free ones are available.

Formerly known as "3dcart," Shift4Shop is an all-in-one e-commerce platform that provides a flexible shopping cart solution. I liked its robust features and great customer support.

Shift4Shop is a hosted e-commerce shopping cart that integrates with over 100 payment gateways, has unlimited product options, and has a simple interface. Its free plan includes full customizability, 50+ mobile-ready themes, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited staff members.

I could access 24/7 tech support through phone, email, and live chat. Its large knowledge base includes how-tos, video tutorials, HTML guides, user manuals, and e-commerce guides.

Its strongest selling points are the generous free plan, suitability for beginner to advanced users, and a highly secure system. Shift4Shop ensures customer data security through PCI compliance, distributed denial of service (DDOS) protection, daily data backups, and more. Shift4Shop also promises to migrate your current e-commerce website for free.

As for app integrations, Shift4Shop features several extensions and apps that make your shopping cart more useful. In general, these apps can help you to reduce abandoned carts by optimizing shopping carts using different methods, such as sending abandoned cart emails and customizing the process with pop-ups and time-sensitive offers.

Who is Shift4Shop best for?

My testing showed that Shift4Shop appeals to both beginners and experts. Beginners will find the ease of use, robust features, and excellent customer service to be great. And if you are an advanced user, you will likely appreciate the ability to directly edit HTML and CSS, and access the network of Shift4Shop experts.

Recent upgrades to Shift4Shop

Shift4Shop continuously improves its services through updates. Maintaining its platform constantly is the first step, but it goes further. Shift4Shop's administrative payment interface has been simplified to simplify payment management. It has updated the transaction status dashboard to improve clarity and streamline its onboarding process. Shift4Shop also allows you to request new features.

Shift4Shop pricing

The company offers a free End-To-End plan. Its only downside is that you have to use the payment processor, which comes with per-transaction payment processing fees. Also important to note is that the free plan is only available for U.S. customers. Paid plans run from $29 to $229 per store per month. Prices for Shift4Shop are nearly double the cost of Ecwid's plans, but almost identical to those of BigCommerce.

Ecwid allows you to include a shopping cart on any existing website using a widget, ideal for those who wish to expand their blog or information site and start to sell products online.

Ecwid offers various helpful features: ease of use, easy integration with existing websites, and a generous free plan. As part of the free plan, you can create a single online store, integrate the Ecwid shopping cart into your existing site, and have one staff account.

Ecwid offers live chat support Monday through Friday for its paid plans. In addition, it offers email support for free and paid plans five days a week. I could access many self-service options with Ecwid, such as a knowledge base, FAQs, and a forum.

Who is Ecwid best for?

Ecwid is a great e-commerce solution for beginners because of its seamless integrations that allow you to sell anywhere, 24/7 technical support, and easy-to-use interface.

Ecwid’s integration page gives you the option to create a new website, blend its shopping cart into your existing site, or start selling on social media.

Recent upgrades to Ecwid

Ecwid is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms, and it has monthly updates. Recently, Ecwid added the option to display conditional custom checkout fields, which enables you to show custom fields for customers who select specific payment methods and shipping options. A few other recent updates include surcharge fees for checkout fields, language updates, and improvements to shipping options.

Ecwid pricing

Ecwid is the cheapest hosted option on this list and it could be argued it has the best price-quality ratio. The monthly plans range from $0 to $99, making it much more affordable than BigCommerce and Shift4Shop. However, the free plan is quite limited, allowing only one user account, providing limited checkout settings, and not allowing proper product type changes.