Shopping cart software can make or break your online store – so be sure you’re choosing one that’s reliable and secure. We tested several shopping cart providers, downloading and testing each one, attending demos, evaluating customer reviews, and comparing pricing.
Below are some criteria to assess when choosing shopping cart software for your business. Certain software is better suited for existing websites that want to integrate a shopping cart. In contrast, others are suited for new websites, and some are meant for an open-source solution with full customization.
Why You Should Trust This Review
About Digital.com’s e-commerce and marketing consultant, Elmeri Palokangas:
Having worked in the e-commerce industry for over five years, I have built and launched multiple brands using different shopping cart software and platforms. In this time, I have gained a great deal of experience and a good understanding of different shopping cart software, and what it should include to be useful for different use purposes.
In addition to our seasoned editorial team, I surveyed and spoke with past and current power users of each platform to get real-world feedback on these platforms and take them into account in our reviews.
How I Rated The Best Shopping Cart Providers
We rated shopping cart providers based on PCI compliance and security, features, customization, customer support, and hosting options.
PCI compliance and security
Having a secure, PCI-compliant shopping cart provider is essential. A globally recognized payment processing standard, PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards) helps ensure the secure payment processing of credit cards.
Along with PCI compliance, we examined the following security benchmarks:
Secure sockets layer (SSL)/HTTPS support
Data security and anti-fraud tools
Regular backups
It’s also good to note that most shopping cart solutions are plug-ins, and therefore have no security measures. This raises the need to select the best web hosting provider that takes website security seriously.
Features
A platform can have all the bells and whistles, but it’s not the right fit if it doesn’t have what you need for your business.
We looked for some key features:
SEO tools
Marketing tools
Reports and analytics
A/B testing
Product catalog
Payment gateway integrations
Third-party integrations
Customization
Another important criterion we considered was customization. How easy is it to customize the platform to match your branding? Is the platform flexible enough to scale as your business grows?
The following are some key factors we considered:
Ease of use
Design flexibility
Scalability
Customer support and self-service options
When it comes to customer support and self-service, your chosen platform must offer various options, such as live chat, phone and email support, and self-service options, such as a knowledge base or FAQ section.
Self-host or in-house host
There are usually two types of shopping cart providers: self-hosted and in-house hosted. Self-hosting means you need to have your own hosting, for example, using a plug-in like WooCommerce or X-Cart. In-house hosted providers take care of it for you, such as with Shift4Shop or AbanteCart.
An in-house hosted shopping cart software may be a better option if you don’t have a website yet or are unsure about your technical skills. But self hosting may offer greater customization possibilities.
Starting price: $0 when using its payment processor
PCI compliant and secure: PCI compliant and highly secure system
Choice of payment gateways: Over 100 different providers
Customizable: Very easy to tailor
Customer and self-service options: 24/7 support and good knowledge base
Self-host or in-house host: In-house hosted shopping cart software
Formerly known as "3dcart," Shift4Shop is an all-in-one e-commerce platform that provides a flexible shopping cart solution and is our pick for the best overall shopping cart software. 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 cheapest plan is free and includes full customizability, 50-plus 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 advanced, 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.
Pros and cons of Shift4Shop
Pros
Good built-in features
Great forever free plan
Secure system and daily data backups
API-access
Cons
Limited free templates
Free plan only for U.S. customers
Must pay a monthly fee if you use a third-party payment processor
What Customers Are Saying About Shift4Shop
Shift4Shop, designed for small or medium e-commerce stores, offers many features. There are mixed reviews on whether it is easy to use and how effective the customer service is.
PCI compliant and secure: PCI compliant and highly secure system
Choice of payment gateways: Over 65 payment gateways
Customizable: Very easy to tailor
Customer and self-service options: 24/7 tech support, help center, and community forum
Self-host or in-house host: Hosted shopping cart software
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.
It offers a built-in hosted shopping cart, flexible customization options, responsive themes, multiple payment gateways, and no transaction fees. Its cheapest plan comes in at $29 per month with a 15-day free trial period and includes unlimited staff accounts and one online store.
BigCommerce customer support is among the best on this list, if not the best. It provides users 24/7 support through phone, email, and ticket, which is available for all of the paid plans. As for self-service, I found a great selection, including a knowledge base, videos, and a community forum.
BigCommerce made multichannel selling easy for me. Through the platform, you can manage your Amazon, Facebook, eBay, and Pinterest stores.
Who is BigCommerce best for?
According to my research, BigCommerce is the ideal solution for businesses of all sizes looking to grow, since it offers powerful integrations, fully customizable checkouts, as well as functionality for multiple currencies and storefronts. For small businesses and small-scale sellers, other solutions like Shift4Shop and Ecwid may be more convenient.
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 things such as 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.
BigCommercepricing
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. Similar to Shift4Shop, services start from $29 and go up to $299 per store per month, but BigCommerce doesn’t offer a free plan. For enterprise-level plans, it offers custom pricing.
Pros and cons of BigCommerce
Pros
Feature-rich and scalable
15-day free trial
Great analytics for all plans
24/7 tech support
Cons
Interface can be overwhelming for first-time users
No multilingual customer support
What Customers Are Saying About BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a good fit for small businesses that don't have multiple sites. It is fast, easy to use and set up, and has noteworthy templates. But it can be hard to customize. Also, customer service can be unreliable, and the platform is pricey.
PCI compliant and secure: Secure system, PCI compliant when used right
Choice of payment gateways: Around40 different payment providers
Customizable: Open-source software with little to no customization limits
Customer and self-service options: User manual, community forum, and paid phone and email support
Self-host or in-house host: Self-hosted
Trusted by over 31,000 sites, AbanteCart ranks second on this list, largely due to its customizability 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 its 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?
We found that 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.
AbanteCartpricing
There is no charge to download AbanteCart, but you have to 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.
Pros and cons of AbanteCart
Pros
Active community
Free software
Many features
Cons
No guaranteed free support
Advanced features can be hard to use for beginners
Set up process can be difficult for non-technical users
PCI compliant and secure: PCI compliant and secure
Choice of payment gateways: Over 70 payment providers
Customizable: Limited customization for non-technical users
Customer and self-service options: 24/7 phone, email, and live chat support, and large community
Self-host or in-house host: Can be used on an existing website or hosted in-house
Ecwid allows you to include a shopping cart on any existing website through the use of a widget, ideal for those who wish to expand their blog or information site and start to sell products online.
The features I found the most valuable are its ease of use, the ability to integrate easily 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 was able to access many self-service options with Ecwid, such as a knowledge base, FAQs, and a forum.
Who is Ecwid best for?
According to our testing, Ecwid deserves the most user-friendly shopping cart title because of its seamless integrations that allow you to sell anywhere, 24/7 technical support, and its easy-to-use interface. All of these features make it a great e-commerce solution for beginners.
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.
Pros and cons of Ecwid
Pros
Can be integrated into any website
Beginner-friendly
Free forever plan
Cons
Limited customization
Limited customer support
What customers are saying about Ecwid
Ecwid is an affordable, easy-to-use e-commerce platform that offers quality support. Customizing some features can be hard and the SEO features could be improved.
PCI compliant and secure: PCI compliant and secure when managed
Choice of payment gateways: 36 different payment gateways
Customizable: Open source with no customization limit
Customer and self-service options: Email support, and community forum
Self-host or in-house host: Self-host solution
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 its open-source nature and free OpenCart script, I found it easy to modify the platform however I wanted. It supports over 20 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 ranging between $99 to $160 for those looking to get fast solutions. In terms of 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, which 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.
OpenCartpricing
You can download OpenCart for free. Similar to 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. In general, 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.
Pros and cons of OpenCart
Pros
Large selection of integrations
Active community
Highly customizable
Cons
Developer skills needed for more in-depth customization
Limited customer support
Slow loading speed, plug-in might be necessary to speed up
What customers are saying about OpenCart
OpenCart is free, simple to use, and a good match for someone starting a small business. While the platform is customizable, it doesn't have as many features as some other companies, and it can sometimes be slow.